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27 Aug 2007
Op-Ed

Mattel: Getting a Toy Recall Right

Harvard Business School professor John Quelch is debuting a blog on marketing issues at Harvard Business Online. HBS Working Knowledge is reprinting his first entry, which looks at the Mattel toy... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products

02 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 2

and Finance (forthcoming). (Also Harvard Business School Working Paper No. 05-053 and NBER Working Paper No. 13131.) Abstract The main arguments in favor of and against nominal and indexed debt are the incentive to default through... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2013
Supplement

Multiasistencia: Redefining the Relationship with its Service Professionals. Spreadsheet Supplement

By: Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez

Multiasistencia, a major Spanish BPO of insurance repairs, is changing the relational contract with its service profesionals from a referral model to a guaranteed workload one. View Details

Keywords: Outsourcing; Incentives; Relational Contracts; Business Model; Motivation and Incentives; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Contracts; Insurance Industry; Spain

September 1993 (Revised July 1995)
Background Note

Public Policy and the Manager: Conceptual Framework

By: Willis M. Emmons III

Government intervention in markets may have significant effects--both positive and negative--on a firm's strategic options and its performance outcomes. Thus the ability to analyze the origins, implications, and dynamics of public policy is a critical managerial skill... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Management Skills; Government and Politics; Adoption; Business Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Economic Systems

03 Dec 2020
Blog Post

The HBS Show Must Go On

The HBS Show is a cherished tradition at Harvard Business School. Twice a year, theater nerds among the student body congregate and perform two productions – the fall cabaret and the spring full-scale musical – View Details

October 1976 (Revised May 1985)
Case

Raytheon Co.: Diversification

By: Michael E. Porter

Centers on the question of whether Raytheon should enter the electronic component distribution industry in the context of its broad diversification approach and acquisition criteria. This industry represents a vertical integration area for Raytheon, so the analytical... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Policy; Market Entry and Exit; Distribution; Diversification; Vertical Integration; Distribution Industry; Electronics Industry

2023
Working Paper

Crowding in Private Quality: The Equilibrium Effects of Public Spending in Education

By: Tahir Andrabi, Natalie Bau, Jishnu Das, Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Naureen Karachiwalla

We estimate the equilibrium effects of a public-school grant program administered through school councils in Pakistani villages with multiple public and private schools and clearly defined catchment boundaries. The program was randomized at the village-level, allowing... View Details

Keywords: Product Differentiation; Public Sector; Private Sector; Spending; Education; Competition

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November 2007
Background Note

Asset Allocation I

By: Joshua D. Coval, Erik Stafford, Rodrigo Osmo, John Jernigan, Zack Page and Paulo Passoni

The goal of these simulations is to understand the mathematics of mean-variance optimization and the equilibrium pricing of risk if all investors use this rule with common information sets. Simulation A focuses on five to 10 years of monthly sector returns that are... View Details

Keywords: Asset Pricing; Capital; Investment Return; Risk Management; Mathematical Methods

December 1992 (Revised September 1994)
Background Note

Note on Organizational Effectiveness

By: Michael Beer

Discusses what is meant by organizational effectiveness. First, the concept of organizations as social systems is introduced. Second, a model of organization effectiveness is introduced and discussed. View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Performance Efficiency

January 2020 (Revised March 2020)
Case

LOLA: Do You Know What's in Your Tampon?

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Aldo Sesia

LOLA is a direct-to-consumer (DTC) business launched in 2015. What started as a company to provide women with organic and transparent material-labeled tampons via a subscription model, had, by 2019 evolved to include additional menstrual and sexual wellness products.... View Details

Keywords: Direct-to-consumer; Channels; Disruption; Business Model; Brands and Branding; Internet and the Web; Strategy; Retail Industry; United States; Canada

November 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Nicole M. Jones and The Hangar℠: Delta Air Lines' Global Innovation Center

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

In 2016, Nicole M. Jones was hired to lead The Hangar, Delta Air Lines’ new innovation center in Atlanta, Georgia. Delta’s leadership had intended for The Hangar to catalyze a new approach to innovation at the company. After conducting three months of research on... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Lab; Breakthrough Innovation; Biometric Technology; Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Innovation and Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Georgia (state, US)

November 2010 (Revised June 2011)
Case

La Fageda

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Joan Enric Ricart and Jordan Mitchell

La Fageda is a manufacturer of high-quality, naturally-made yogurts in northern Catalonia, Spain. La Fageda is substantially different from its main competitors such as multinational Danone in that it is a 270-person workers' cooperative with 60 percent of its... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Business Model; Production; Cooperative Ownership; Quality; Competition; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Spain

June 2014 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Focus Financial Partners and the U.S. RIA Industry in 2014

By: Luis Viceira and Emily A. Chien

In the Spring of 2014, Rudy Adolf, CEO and founder of Focus Financial, and the two other co-founders of the firm are considering alternative growth strategies to solidify Focus Financial's position as a leading aggregator of independent wealth management firms in the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Financial Services Industry

16 Jul 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Visualizing and Measuring Enterprise Architecture: An Exploratory BioPharma Case

Keywords: by Robert Lagerstrom, Carliss Baldwin, Alan MacCormack & David Dreyfus

November 2007
Article

The Accidental Entrepreneur: The Emergent and Collective Process of User Entrepreneurship

By: Sonali K. Shah and Mary Tripsas

We develop a process model of how users, an understudied source of entrepreneurship, create, evaluate, share, and commercialize their ideas. We compare and contrast our model to the classic model of the entrepreneurial process, highlighting the emergent and... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Valuation; Business Model; Commercialization; Adoption; Adaptation; Product; Civil Society or Community