Publications

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September 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Loblaw Companies Limited: Differentiation in the 90s and Beyond

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Thomas N. Urban Jr and Jane L. Wertz

Loblaw wants to develop long-term relationships with its customers and is testing a variety of strategies to do this. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business or Company Management; Marketing Strategy

Web

Apply to PRIMO - Doctoral

Program for Research in Markets & Organizations Apply to PRIMO 2ms HOW TO APPLY Applications for PRIMO 2025 will open in November 1, 2024, and close on February 1, 2025. All files must be uploaded as pdf files through the online... View Details

January 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Geely SEA: New Electric Vehicle Platforms

By: Willy C. Shih and Shu Lin

Kent Bovellan, the Chief Engineer and Head of the Vehicle Architecture Center for Geely Holding, the Hangzhou, China headquartered global automotive group, was debating the platform choice for an upcoming "D" segment midsized battery electric vehicle (BEV). He had led... View Details

Keywords: Product Innovation; Product Architecture; Product Engineering; Platform Design; Platform Strategy; Information Infrastructure; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Product Design; Product Development; Cost Management; Decision Making; Competitive Strategy; Industry Structures; Auto Industry; China; Sweden

February 2018
Case

Infrastructure in Nigeria: Unlocking Pension Fund Investments

By: John Macomber and Pippa Tubman Armerding

The so-called “infrastructure finance gap” was a problem in Nigeria as in many parts of the world. Infrastructure projects like power plants and dams were very large capital investments that could generate long-term consistent cash flows, but their financing and... View Details

Keywords: Pension Fund Investing; Infrastucture; Power/Energy; Credit Enhancement; Infrastructure; Project Finance; Investment Funds; Emerging Markets; Nigeria; Africa

December 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

FIRA: Confronting the Mexican Agricultural Crisis

By: James E. Austin, Michael Chu and Cate Reavis

In fall 2003, Mexico's agriculture sector was facing a crisis brought on largely by a surge in cheap U.S. imports resulting from NAFTA and inaccessible and/or expensive terms of credit for Mexican agricultural producers. It was getting harder for Mexican producers to... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Public Sector; Trade; Financial Instruments; Crisis Management; Markets; Strategic Planning; Partners and Partnerships; Competitive Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

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Program Details - Doctoral

Program for Research in Markets & Organizations Program Details 2ms Program Dates The dates for Summer 2025 will be released at a later date. In past summers, the program has ranged from 9-10 weeks. For reference, Summer 2024 dates were... View Details

26 Jan 2004
Research & Ideas

What Developing-World Companies Teach Us About Innovation

software, consumer electronics, and pharmaceuticals. Such companies hold many important patents and boast R&D labs that rival facilities at the best universities in the world. They are headquartered in countries with myriad institutions that support innovation:... View Details

Keywords: by Donald N. Sull, Alejandro Ruelas-Gossi & Martin Escobari

December 2003 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Globalizing the Cost of Capital and Capital Budgeting at AES

By: Mihir A. Desai and Douglas Kurt Schillinger

With electricity generating businesses around the world, AES Corp. is seeking a methodology for calculating the cost of capital for its various businesses and potential projects. In the past, AES used the same cost of capital for all of its capital budgeting, but the... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Risk Management; Globalized Firms and Management; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Emerging Markets; Foreign Direct Investment; Capital Budgeting; Energy Industry; South America

09 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 9

http://hbr.org/search/113088-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 813-125 Plastiq The young CEO of a venture-backed startup needs to figure out his go to market strategy and the right profile for his first key sales hires. Should he View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

capital and demonstrates how technology—novel data sources, artificial intelligence, machine learning—will transform the small business lending market. This market has been plagued by frictions: it is hard for a lender to determine which... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

09 Nov 2017
HBS Seminar

Alfonso Gambardella, Bocconi University

17 Jan 2024
HBS Case

Psychological Pricing Tactics to Fight the Inflation Blues

businesses today will need to lean hard on psychological pricing strategies to convince customers to overcome their reluctance to spend, according to recent research by Elie Ofek, the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Consumer Products; Retail

Research Summary

Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

By: Karen Mills

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details

2021
Chapter

Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

By: Karen G. Mills and Annie Dang

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Fintech; Artificial Intelligence; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Capital; Success; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science

2021
Working Paper

rTSR: Properties, Determinants, and Consequences of Benchmark Choice

By: Paul Ma, Jee-Eun Shin and Charles C.Y. Wang

We develop a measurement-error framework for assessing the quality of relative-performance metrics designed to filter out the systematic component of performance and analyze relative total shareholder return (rTSR)—the predominant metric market participants use to... View Details

Keywords: Relative TSR; Relative Performance Evaluation; Systematic Risk; Board Of Directors; Compensation Consultants; Style Effects; Executive Compensation; Performance Evaluation; Corporate Governance

SSRN

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March 1994 (Revised October 1994)
Case

Reading Energy

By: Forest L. Reinhardt

Reading Energy builds facilities that produce energy from nontraditional fuels. A privately held, entrepreneurial organization, it has spent six years developing a plan to build a waste-to-energy plant in the town of Robbins, Illinois. The plant would burn municipal... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Wastes and Waste Processing; Business and Community Relations; Business Plan; Agreements and Arrangements; Contracts; Risk and Uncertainty; Government and Politics; Environmental Sustainability; Business Strategy; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; Illinois

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Technology & Operations Management - Faculty & Research

Working on real product innovation challenges, professionals were randomly assigned to work either with or without AI, and either individually or with another professional in new product development teams. Our findings reveal that AI... View Details

Web

Research Areas - Doctoral

collective value; development and execution of innovation strategies; innovative attributes of executives and firms; development of new markets through the creation of... View Details

March 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Coursera's Foray into GenAI

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Michael Parzen and Radhika Kak

In early 2023, Maggioncalda, CEO of US EdTech firm Coursera, launched Project Genesis to develop a strategy for incorporating GenAI capabilities into the firm's offerings, asking his teams to focus on value to the firm and cost of implementation. The team identified... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; AI and Machine Learning; Brands and Branding; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Technological Innovation; Education Industry; Technology Industry; United States