Publications

Research Summary

Strategy and Location

An increasing number of companies finds that their individual success is more and more not only a function of their own decisions but also of the local business environment they operate in. In a globalized world economy, these geographically bound factors are among the... View Details

17 Mar 2009
First Look

First Look: March 17, 2009

Working PapersFemale Empowerment: Impact of a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines Authors:Nava Ashraf, Dean Karlan, and Wesley Yin Abstract Female 'empowerment' has increasingly become a policy goal, both as an end to itself and as a means to achieving... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

13 Oct 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Shopping for Confirmation: How Disconfirming Feedback Shapes Social Networks

Keywords: by Paul Green, Jr., Francesca Gino, and Bradley Staats

November 2021 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Babban Gona: Great Farm

By: Kristin Fabbe, Tarun Khanna, Caroline M. Elkins, Zeke Gillman, Eleni Kyrkopoulou and Thomaz Teodorovicz

In 2020, Babban Gona was one of the world’s largest farming operations with over 140,000 acres of maize farms, an area over ten times as large as Manhattan, and over 80,000 member-farmers in Nigeria. According to the company, the average Nigerian farmer’s net income... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Value Creation; Agribusiness; Capital Budgeting; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Nigeria; Africa

May 2022 (Revised June 2024)
Case

LOOP: Driving Change in Auto Insurance Pricing

By: Elie Ofek and Alicia Dadlani

John Henry and Carey Anne Nadeau, co-founders and co-CEOs of LOOP, an insurtech startup based in Austin, Texas, were on a mission to modernize the archaic $250 billion automobile insurance market. They sought to create equitably priced insurance by eliminating pricing... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Equality and Inequality; Prejudice and Bias; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Relationship Management; Price; Insurance Industry; Financial Services Industry

09 Jun 2008
Lessons from the Classroom

Monetizing IP: The Executive’s Challenge

firms to focus on their IP? A: In many nations, intellectual property has become increasingly important. In part, this change has reflected the changing mixture of the economy, with the development of knowledge-intensive industries such... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Video Game; Web Services

21 May 2007
Research & Ideas

Fixing the Marketing-CEO Disconnect

develop a set of metrics that measure the impact of marketing activities against the goals of the corporation. Many marketing managers will tell you that marketing performance can't be measured. It's not... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2015
Chapter

Consumer Neuroscience: Revealing Meaningful Relationships Between Brain and Consumer Behavior

By: Hilke Plassmann and Uma R. Karmarkar

The goal of this chapter is to give an overview of the nascent field of consumer neuroscience and discuss when and how it is useful to integrate the "black box" of the consumer's brain into consumer psychology. To reach this goal, we first briefly outline several... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Cognition and Thinking

Find at Harvard

January 2003 (Revised August 2003)
Case

General Mills and the Hawthorne Huddle (A)

Examines the role of General Mills in the formation and leadership of the Hawthorne Huddle. The Huddle was in the Hawthorne neighborhood in Northern Minneapolis, which in 1997 was plagued with high crime and poverty. The Huddle served as a forum, held the first... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Management Succession; Social Issues; Consumer Products Industry; Minneapolis

Find at Harvard

Article

Achieving Value in Highly Complex Acute Care: Lessons from the Delivery of Extra Corporeal Life Support

By: Michael Nurok, Jonathan Warsh, Erik Dong, Jeffrey Lopez, Mayumi Kharabi and Robert S. Kaplan

We applied a value (outcomes and cost) analysis to extracorporeal life support (ECLS), a relatively rare but very expensive ICU therapy with highly variable outcomes. To address the outcome component of the value approach, we created guidelines for ECLS delivery; to... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Value; Analysis

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July 2019 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Backstage at Boston Ballet

By: David G. Fubini, Ryan Raffaelli, Begum Agca Okutgen and Julia Kelley

This case asks students to consider how to prioritize goals when placed in a new leadership role. In August 2014, Meredith “Max” Hodges became the youngest Executive Director (ED) in the Boston Ballet’s 51-year history. In her first year, she was able to claim several... View Details

November 2012
Case

CSIRO: The Light Metals Flagship Decision

By: Willy Shih, Margaret P. Pierson and Dawn Lau

This case explores the challenge of investing in basic research as a public good. CSIRO was Australia's leading science and research agency, and it was chartered to enhance national prosperity through R&D. Its Flagships program was designed to align research interests... View Details

August 2019 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Family Matters: Governance at the Zamil Group

By: Christina R. Wing, Suraj Srinivasan and Esel Çekin

This case focuses on a large Saudi Arabian industrial conglomerate and family business Zamil Group’s corporate and family governance journey. The 12 sons of the founder led and grew the group successfully after taking over from their father in 1961. The secret to their... View Details

Keywords: Middle East; Family Ownership; Family-owned Business; Saudi Arabia; Family Business; Governance; Organizational Structure; Values and Beliefs; Steel Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Middle East; Saudi Arabia; Bahrain

Research Summary

Overview

By: Matthew C. Weinzierl

My academic research centers on uncovering and closing gaps between the theory and reality of tax policy. My main contribution has been to identify and address a mismatch between the goals for taxation typically assumed in theory and the goals the public and... View Details

September 2009 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Root Capital

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee

Founded in 1999, Root Capital had loaned $150 million to nearly 250 small and growing businesses, mainly in Latin America. In 2009, as the organization launched a five-year, $55 million capital campaign, it had to determine a strategic path going forward in keeping... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Capital; Financing and Loans; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Latin America

November 2008
Case

Eden McCallum

By: Heidi K. Gardner and Robert G. Eccles

This case illustrates the leadership and management challenges of starting a new firm based on a new business model and how success creates pressures that challenge the work/life balance which was one of the original goals of its two founders. The case also raises... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Work-Life Balance

04 Jan 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Political Economy of Bilateral Foreign Aid

June 2013 (Revised September 2016)
Supplement

Governance and Sustainability at Nike (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Nien-he Hsieh and Lara Adamsons

Two members of Nike's executive team must decide what sustainability targets to propose to Nike's CEO and to the corporate responsibility committee of Nike's board of directors. Set in 2012, the case traces the evolution of Nike's approach to environmental and social... View Details

Keywords: Nike; Hannah Jones; Mark Parker; Phil Knight; Philip Knight; Eric Sprunk; Jill Ker Conway; Phyllis Wise; Don Blair; Sustainable Business And Innovation; SB＆I; Flyknit; DyeCoo; Footwear; Athletic Footwear; Apparel; Athletic Apparel; Sustainability; Greenpeace; Detox Campaign; Dirty Laundry; Water; Water Use; Water Pollution; Water Resources; Corporate Responsibility Committee; Judgment; Board Of Directors; Board Committees; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Footwear Industry; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Ethics; Fairness; Globalized Firms and Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Alignment; Supply Chain; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Judgments; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Asia; China; United States; Oregon; Portland

April 2011
Article

The Emotional Impact and Behavioral Consequences of Post-M&A Integration: An Ethnographic Case Study in the Software Industry

By: David Ager

This ethnographic case study has focused in depth on one type of acquisition, that of two small, young firms (each with less than 2,000 employees and less than ten years in operation) acquired by one company in the software development industry based in the United... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Behavior; Groups and Teams; Mergers and Acquisitions; Emotions