Publications

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July–August 2024
Article

Doing More with Less: Overcoming Ineffective Long-Term Targeting Using Short-Term Signals

By: Ta-Wei Huang and Eva Ascarza

Firms are increasingly interested in developing targeted interventions for customers with the best response, which requires identifying differences in customer sensitivity, typically through the conditional average treatment effect (CATE) estimation. In theory, to... View Details

Keywords: Long-run Targeting; Heterogeneous Treatment Effect; Statistical Surrogacy; Customer Churn; Field Experiments; Consumer Behavior; Customer Focus and Relationships; AI and Machine Learning; Marketing Strategy

Brand-new markets are like the wormholes of science fiction, where the usual rules of time and space do not apply. When a market has just been born, the forces of competition there are constantly in flux, it's unclear who your customers really are, and conventional... View Details

August 2024
Case

Iogen: Decarbonizing Hard-to-Abate Sectors

By: George Serafeim, Charlotte Foody and John Mulliken

Brian Foody, CEO of Iogen Corporation, was an early leader in advanced biofuels, developing a range of technologies to transform agricultural waste into transportation fuel. With $100 million in revenue and 350 patents across various biofuel technologies, Iogen was... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Biofuel; Market Attractiveness; Decarbonization; Technological Innovation; Climate Change; Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Transformation; Market Entry and Exit; Strategy; Energy Industry; United States; United Kingdom

September 2019 (Revised January 2021)
Case

Vispera: Visual Intelligence for Retail

By: Yael Grushka-Cockayne and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2019 as Aytul Ercil, co-founder and CEO of Vispera, computer vision technology provider for retail, is contemplating the company’s agenda trying to decide how to prioritize the impeding options. The case chronicles the founding of Vispera, the... View Details

Keywords: Computer Vision Technology; Visual Analysis; Retail; Information Technology; Business Model; Operations; Performance Efficiency; Competitive Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Global Strategy; Technology Industry; Retail Industry; Turkey

31 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Where Can Digital Transformation Take You? Insights from 1,700 Leaders

growth, offering organizations unprecedented opportunities to develop new products and services, and even reimagine their businesses. In mid-2020, we set out to understand the challenges of leading in the digital era. Teaming with the Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

14 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

When a Vacation Isn’t Enough, a Sabbatical Can Recharge Your Life—and Your Career

time when some companies are pushing employees to think of themselves as little more than a cog in a wheel. “Americans see business as very much like Elon Musk sleeping under his desk, not Steve Jobs learning calligraphy,” DiDonna says.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2014
Working Paper

Financing Risk and Innovation

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We provide a model of investment into new ventures that demonstrates why some places, times, and industries should be associated with a greater degree of experimentation by investors. Investors respond to financing risk―a forecast of limited future funding―by modifying... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Venture Capital; Financial Markets; Financing and Loans; Investment; Price Bubble; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Risk and Uncertainty

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Research Summary

Professor Gilbert's research focuses on the areas of corporate entrepreneurship, discontinuous change, cognitive framing, and strategic resource allocation. Below is an description of his most recent research paper: 'Unbundling the Structure of Interia: Resource vs.... View Details

01 Jan 2014
News

Competing with Privacy

16 May 2013
HBS Seminar

Robert Gierkink, Chairman, Datalogix

March 2022
Case

DealShare: Social E-Commerce for the Indian Mass Market

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Malini Sen

Launched in September 2018, e-retail startup DealShare has created a tech-enabled model for the Indian mass market that allows customers to buy together, save money on good quality goods, and at the same time have fun. It targets customers who are still getting used to... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Disruption; Trends; Talent and Talent Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Value; Cost vs Benefits; Value Creation; Internet and the Web; India

December 2000
Background Note

Online Portals

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Sanjay Pothen

Describes the online portal business model. Analyzes the model, focusing on the tactics used to acquire new users, turn new users into repeat visitors, and monetize user traffic. Explains portals' revenue and cost drivers and their implications for pursuing aggressive... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Web Services Industry

February 2013 (Revised February 2013)
Case

Wayne Ferrari: iAutomation at a Crossroads

By: Jim Sharpe and Michael Norris

Wayne Ferrari has bridged the gap between being an independent entrepreneur and a "professional manager." After selling his business to a Private Equity (PE) firm, Ferrari takes on the role of CEO and with their support implements a roll-up strategy to attain growth... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Organizations; Leveraged Buyouts; Roll-up; Career Planning; Acquisitions; Pricing; Pricing Policies; Pricing Strategy; Pricing Structure; Acquisition; Entrepreneurship; Private Equity; Distribution; Integration; System; Electronics Industry; Distribution Industry; United States

Web

Entrepreneurial Management - Faculty & Research

industries. We see experimentation and innovation in products, services, processes, and business models as central to entrepreneurial activity. The finance of entrepreneurship - We seek to understand the... View Details

September 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

AMC Entertainment: Creating a Spectacular Moviegoing Experience (A)

By: Henry McGee and Aldo Sesia

In 2018, the Hollywood film industry is facing tough headwinds. Fewer and fewer Americans are going to movie theaters, opting instead to watch movies on demand in the comfort of their own homes or on portable devices. Adam Aron, the head of the world’s largest movie... View Details

Keywords: Exhibitors; Movies; Film Entertainment; Disruptive Innovation; Consumer Behavior; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Global Range; Business Model; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

January 2019 (Revised January 2021)
Case

KITEA (A): Democratizing Furniture in Morocco

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2013 as Amine Benkirane, founder and CEO of the leading Moroccan furniture company KITEA, contemplates the loss his company has incurred for the first time in its 20-year history. The case then describes KITEA’s origins and provides a detailed... View Details

Article

Earnings Dynamics and Measurement Error in Matched Survey and Administrative Data

By: Dean Hyslop and Wilbur Townsend

This article analyzes earnings dynamics and measurement error using a matched longitudinal sample of individuals’ survey and administrative earnings. In line with previous literature, the reported differences are characterized by both persistent and transitory factors.... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Dynamics; Measurement Error; Panel Data; Validation Study; Business Earnings; Measurement and Metrics; Forecasting and Prediction