Publications

2023
Working Paper

Toward a Better Understanding of Open Ecosystems: Implications for Policymakers

By: Feng Zhu and Carmelo Cennamo

The digital realm is undergoing a significant transformation, marked by the emergence of platform business models and the concept of open ecosystems. This paper delves into the intricate nature of ecosystem openness, underscoring the point that the openness of... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Business Model; Governance; System; Situation or Environment

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21 Mar 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Speaking of Corporate Social Responsibility

Keywords: by Hao Liang, Christopher Marquis, Luc Renneboog & Sunny Li Sun

August 2002 (Revised July 2003)
Case

LAE Enterprises Corp.

Jay Entrepreneur had to decide whether it was worth his time to plow through a 12-page term sheet for a Series A round of preferred stock prepared by HBS Investors, a well-established venture capital firm that did seed, early-round, and mezzanine financings. He could... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Contracts; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business Startups; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

28 Apr 2010
Research & Ideas

Earth Day Reflections

Management and author of Accelerating Innovation in Energy: Lessons from Other Sectors. The environmental challenges we face are among the most important issues facing business. If, as current scientific research suggests, it would be prudent to remove 80 percent of... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

January 2007 (Revised October 2008)
Case

H&R Block 2006

By: Peter Tufano

Mark Ernst, the Chairman, CEO and President of H&R Block, has to decide how to respond to a competitive threat posed by a competitor's refund-lending product. Block is the largest U.S. tax preparation firm, which competes not only on its tax preparation services, but... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Taxation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Competition; Financial Services Industry

September 1984 (Revised March 1993)
Background Note

Marketing Planning and Organization

By: Robert J. Dolan

Presents guidelines for effective marketing planning. Provides a general outline of the contents of a typical marketing plan, the process by which the plan is developed, and considers the benefits successful firms reap from their planning efforts and the problems that... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Planning; Design

February 2016 (Revised July 2017)
Case

An Australian Ballot for California?

By: David Moss, Marc Campasano and Dean Grodzins

In early 1891, California lawmakers were considering a plan to reform the state's elections through the introduction of an “Australian” ballot. Under this new system, candidates from all qualifying parties would appear on official ballots, which would be printed by... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Ethics; Political Elections; Laws and Statutes; Change; California

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

July 2004 (Revised January 2007)
Case

H&R Block and "Everyday Financial Services"

By: Peter Tufano and Daniel Schneider

H&R Block, the U.S. market leader in tax preparation services, must decide whether to offer financial services to its low-income clients. H&R Block is facing increased competition from branded and nonbranded tax preparers, and the number of returns prepared by the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Income; Taxation; Product Development; Financial Services Industry; United States

06 Jun 2013
Op-Ed

How to Do Away with the Dangers of Outsourcing

path between the traditional top-down, inside-the-tent corporate structure and unbridled license to suppliers to do as they want. Marked by high levels of direction and support, this approach offers... View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati; Manufacturing; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion

06 Sep 2004
What Do You Think?

How Do We Prepare for a World Without Cheap Oil?

government incentives to bolster their arguments. This view was characterized by Mark Townsend Cox, who commented, "I can count almost twenty methods of creating electricity without burning something,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

08 May 2020
Research & Ideas

We’ve Now Been Asking “What Do You Think?” for 20 Years

This month marks the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of my “What do you think?” column. The Working Knowledge website was the brainchild of a faculty and staff committee organized in 2000 by then Dean... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

14 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

Desktop Search and Revenue Streams

and other types of data are still locked away from Internet users. It's really going to be about great execution.— Mark Kroese, MSN "Rather than leave someone behind, the approach we at Google take is, 'Let's make all that... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette

2018
Book

Re-engaging with Sustainability in the Anthropocene Era

By: Andrew J. Hoffman and P. Devereaux Jennings

Re-engaging with Sustainability in the Anthropocene Era applies organization theory to a grand challenge: our entry into the Anthropocene era, a period marked not only by human impact on climate change, but on chemical waste, habitat destruction, and despeciation. It... View Details

Keywords: Organization Theory; Environmental Management; Policy; Social Issues; Social Entrepreneurship; Pollutants

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2016
Article

Do External Labor Market Job Switches Affect the Gender Compensation Gap?

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Eric Lin

This paper investigates how external mobility influences the gender compensation gap for job switching executives. Using proprietary data for 2,034 executive placements from a global search firm, we find job switching narrows the gender gap by 45%, from 11% to 6%. We... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Gender

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18 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

Leading Innovation is the Art of Creating ‘Collective Genius’

of Leading Innovation, was written by Hill, the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration, with Greg Brandeau, former CTO of The Walt Disney Studios and current COO/president of Media Maker; Emily Truelove, a PhD candidate... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

14 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Pay-for-Performance Doesn’t Always Pay Off

pay-for-performance plans in the early 1990s. Within three years, all had dropped them. In a recent talk to HBS faculty and in two working papers, which he co-authored with Nancy Katz and Mark D. Cannon, respectively, Beer explained why... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

December 2010
Article

Social Preferences and Strategic Uncertainty: An Experiment on Markets and Contracts

This paper reports a three-phase experiment on a stylized labor market. In the first two phases, agents face simple games, which we use to estimate subjects' social and reciprocity concerns. In the last phase, four principals compete by offering agents a contract from... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Markets; Contracts; Decisions; Distribution; Labor; Game Theory

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July 2022
Case

David Crane’s Clean(er) Energy Strategy at NRG

By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel and Tom Quinn

In 2015, David Crane was the CEO of NRG, the second-largest energy producer in the United States. NRG got most of its power from fossil fuels, but Crane – hired as CEO in 2003 as NRG emerged from bankruptcy – had invested heavily in alternative energy, loudly... View Details

Keywords: Energy; Leadership; Corporate Governance; Transformation; Alternative Energy; Energy Generation; Climate Change; Corporate Accountability; Renewable Energy; Energy Industry; United States