Publications

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17 Nov 2020
News

How Retailers Can Thrive in a Shopping Season Like No Other

May 1998 (Revised May 1999)
Case

Biopure Corp.

By: John T. Gourville

It is early 1998 and Biopure Corp., a small biopharmaceutical firm with no sales revenues in its ten-year history, has just received government approval to release Oxyglobin, a revolutionary new "blood substitute" designed to replace the need for donated animal blood... View Details

Keywords: Segmentation; Marketing Strategy; Engineering; Budgets and Budgeting; Sales; Transformation; Markets; Debates; Product Launch; Pharmaceutical Industry

January 2024 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Tesla Motors in 2024--Turbulence Ahead?

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Kate Stoppiello

Over its 20 years in existence, Tesla had become nearly synonymous with electric vehicles, and the company assumed an enviable market position. By 2023, however, Tesla faced intense competition. Traditional carmakers and EV upstarts were expected to introduce close to... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Product Positioning; Competition; Industry Growth; Auto Industry; North America; Europe; China; Australia

February 2023 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk

By: Andy Wu and Goran Calic

Late afternoon on Friday, October 27th, 2022, Elon Musk was the center of attention at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. The night before, Musk officially took the company private and became Twitter’s majority shareholder, finally ending a months-long acquisition... View Details

Keywords: Elon Musk; Twitter; Acquisition; Revenue; Advertising; Social Media; Business or Company Management; Public Opinion; Job Cuts and Outsourcing

12 Mar 2019
Blog Post

What I Learned in the Africa Rising Short Intensive Program

their attempt to enter or thrive in African markets tended to set unrealistic time expectations for their operating teams and/or made unrealistic promises to their investors. Against this backdrop of unrealistic View Details

17 Oct 2018
News

Africa rising? A historical perspective

2020
Working Paper

How ESG Issues Become Financially Material to Corporations and Their Investors

By: George Serafeim

Management and disclosure of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have received substantial interest over the last decade. In this paper, we outline a framework of how ESG issues become financially material, affecting corporate profitability and valuation.... View Details

SSRN

Villa Victoria examines how of a group of low-income Puerto Rican migrants with little formal education living in a Boston enclave resisted the efforts of the city to relocate them in the name of "urban renewal." After a successful grassroots movement, the... View Details

20 Jun 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover: Lessons in Strategic Change

Keywords: Re: Andy Wu; Technology

2010
Working Paper

Valuation When Cash Flow Forecasts Are Biased

By: Richard S. Ruback

This paper focuses adaptations to the discount cash flow (DCF) method when valuing forecasted cash flows that are biased measures of expected cash flows. I imagine a simple setting where the expected cash flows equal the forecasted cash flows plus an omitted downside.... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Performance Expectations; Prejudice and Bias; Valuation

10 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

The Legacy of Boaty McBoatface: Beware of Customers Who Vote

categories: representation, consistency, and non-suppression. Representation refers to the fact that if customers are given input into a product choice, they expect it to count as much as—if not more than—the company’s own input. In one... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

June 2005 (Revised August 2013)
Case

Amazon.com's European Distribution Strategy

By: Janice Hammond and Claire Chiron

Describes how Amazon's distribution system evolved from the company's inception. In 2003, Amazon Europe must decide how to reconfigure its distribution network in light of expected growth, products proliferation, and geographical expansion in Europe. Examines how... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Growth and Development; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Supply and Industry; Distribution; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty; Expansion; Web Services Industry

April 24, 2023
Article

In the COVID Era, Why Corporate Benefits Demand CEO/CFO Leadership

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

The expectation that employers provide their employees’ health benefits has been around since World War II. Unfortunately, although today’s employees expect employers to treat them as individuals, ease their experiences, prioritize their wellbeing, and control cost,... View Details

Keywords: COVID; COVID-19 Pandemic; CEO; Leadership; Health Insurance; Benefits; CFO; Compensation and Benefits

11 Oct 2017
Blog Post

Designing Internship Projects for Greater Impact

Although internships have long been a staple of an HBS education, today’s MBA candidates have different expectations – with a new set of challenges for interns and employers alike. Students are interested in working in a variety of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship

March 1990 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Analog Devices, Inc.: The Half-Life System

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The company has committed to major improvements in quality, cost, and on-time delivery performance. Despite strong senior management support, however, the actual rate of improvement was disappointing until a new measurement philosophy was introduced. The new approach... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Improvement; Earnings Management; Financial Reporting; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Productivity; Business or Company Management; Cost Management; Measurement and Metrics; Management Teams; Semiconductor Industry