Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(5,254)
- Faculty Publications (1,339)
- November 2022
- Background Note
The Future of E-Commerce: Lessons from the Livestream Wars in China
By: Ayelet Israeli, Jeremy Yang and Billy Chan
This note explores the emerging multi-billion dollar commerce trend of livestream commerce. Livestream commerce is the sale of goods or services directly to consumers via live shows on digital platforms (such as social media or e-commerce platforms). It is a form of... View Details
Keywords: Retail; Retailing; E-commerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Ecommerce; Channels Of Distribution; Marketing Communication; Livestream Commerce; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Advertising; Brands and Branding; Media; Consumer Behavior; Social Media; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Advertising Industry; China; United States; United Kingdom
- November 2022 (Revised October 2024)
- Case
'A Marshall Plan for Africa': James Mwangi and Equity Group Holdings
By: Caroline M. Elkins, Debora L. Spar, Zeke Gillman and Julia M. Comeau
Financial Inclusion. Dignity. Trust. These were the core principles driving James Mwangi’s transformation of Equity Building Society, insolvent in 1991, into what is, today, Equity Group Holdings, East and Central Africa’s largest retail banking institution. Raised in... View Details
- November 2022 (Revised December 2024)
- Case
Hugging Face (A): Serving AI on a Platform
By: Shane Greenstein, Daniel Yue, Sarah Gulick and Kerry Herman
It is fall 2022, and open-source AI model company Hugging Face is considering its three areas of priorities: platform development, supporting the open-source community, and pursuing cutting-edge scientific research. As it expands services for enterprise clients, which... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
How Do Investors Value ESG?
By: Malcolm Baker, Mark Egan and Suproteem K. Sarkar
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives have risen to near the top of the agenda for corporate executives and boards, driven in large part by their perceptions of shareholder interest. We quantify the value that shareholders place on ESG using a revealed... View Details
- November, 2022
- Article
Role of Context in Knowledge Flows: Host Country versus Headquarters as Sources of MNC Subsidiary Knowledge Inheritance
By: Mike Horia Teodorescu, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna
We respond to calls in the strategy and international business literature for elucidating how multinational subsidiaries develop contextual intelligence in host countries and how they use the local context as a source of valuable opportunities for learning. Applying... View Details
- October 2022
- Supplement
Single Earth: Science White Paper Supplement
By: Rembrand Koning and Emer Moloney
Science White Paper prepared by Single.Earth to give an overview of the models and solutions it has developed. View Details
Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Natural Resources; Pollution; Analytics and Data Science; Marketing; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Markets; Market Timing; Strategy; Green Technology Industry; Estonia
- October 2022
- Case
Afrigen Biologics: Vaccines for the Global South
By: Debora L. Spar and Julia Comeau
The majority of vaccines used on the continent of Africa (99%) are produced offshore. This makes African nations reliant on the West for major health care needs, a problem which was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Afrigen Biologics (in partnership with the WHO)... View Details
- October 2022 (Revised August 2024)
- Case
Cigna-Express Scripts: Can a Vertical Merger Rescue an Industry Under Attack?
By: Leemore Dafny
In Fall 2019, Cigna Corporation – a global health services company with a significant presence in the U.S. employer-sponsored health insurance market - was digesting its $54 billion acquisition of Express Scripts, Inc. (ESI), a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM)... View Details
- October 2022
- Case
Star Magnolia Capital: Becoming Experts at Finding Experts
By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, River Ewing and Grace Headinger
Shinya Deguchi, Founder and Managing Partner of Star Magnolia Capital, a Shanghai-based multi-family office (MFO), considered how to convince a new prospective family that the MFO’s endowment model approach would best suit their needs. In recent decades, there has been... View Details
- October 2022 (Revised September 2024)
- Case
Podimetrics: Next Steps for Diabetes Cases
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Ben Creo
Podimetrics, a virtual care management company treating adults with acute diabetes, sat at the intersection of medical device technology, digital health, and health services. Its SmartMat had demonstrated that it could help prevent amputations and that people with... View Details
Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Delivery; Health Care Entrepreneurship; Health Care Outcomes; Diabetes; Chronic Disease; Chronic Illness; Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Medical Specialties; Technological Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Product Development; Business Model; Customer Focus and Relationships; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry
- 2025
- Working Paper
Pricing with Bandits in the Long-tail: The Role of Competitive Monitoring
By: Ayelet Israeli and Eric Anderson
Most e-commerce retailers offer a long-tail of very low demand products. Individually, these items may have low sales but collectively they are critical to the overall e-commerce business model. Because of their minimal sales, pricing is a constant challenge. The... View Details
Keywords: Algorithmic Pricing; Ecommerce; Price Monitoring; Price; Competition; E-commerce; Retail Industry
- September–October 2022
- Article
Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?: Reach Comes at a Price
By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant
Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers.
In this article, the authors present a scorecard to... View Details
Keywords: Retail; Retailing; Online Business; Ecommerce; E-commerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Omnichannel Retail; Omnichannel Retailing; Amazon; Amazon.com; Sales; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; Advertising Industry; Battery Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Distribution Industry; Electronics Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States
- 2022
- White Paper
The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement
By: Matt Sigelman, Joseph Fuller, Nik Dawson and Gad Levanon
The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement is a new effort to give companies and other stakeholders a set of robust tools that measure how well major employers are doing in fostering economic mobility for workers and how they could do... View Details
- September 2022 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Navya: Steering toward a Driverless Future
By: Julian De Freitas, Elie Ofek, Shaun Ingledew and Tonia Labruyere
In 2022, Sophie Desormière arrived at French roboshuttle producer Navya, tasked with charting a new course in a challenging sector. The company, which had recently listed on the Paris Stock Exchange, was burning through cash reserves and needed to transform the promise... View Details
- September 2022
- Case
Proactive for Her
By: Rembrand Koning and Kairavi Dey
Proactive for Her began amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in August 2020 as a digital platform to provide accessible, evidence-based, primary, preventive non-judgmental healthcare services for Indian women, who were often dissuaded from seeking help as premarital sex and... View Details
- September 2022 (Revised April 2023)
- Case
Cesaro e Associati
By: Christina R. Wing and Amram Migdal
This case describes the leadership succession planning process at Cesaro e Associati (Studio Cesaro), founded in 1986 by Franco Cesaro in the northeastern Italian state of Veneto. In 2022, Franco was contemplating retirement and passing leadership of his firm, which... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Family Business; For-Profit Firms; Restructuring; Small Business; Change; Change Management; Competency and Skills; Experience and Expertise; Talent and Talent Management; Entrepreneurship; Governance; Leadership; Leading Change; Management; Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Ownership; Family Ownership; Private Ownership; Personal Development and Career; Relationships; Family and Family Relationships; Consulting Industry; Europe; Italy
- 2022
- Working Paper
Input-Price Responses to Horizontal Mergers and the Bargaining-Leverage Defense
By: Rebekah Dix and Todd A. Lensman
In several recent antitrust cases, defendants have argued that a horizontal merger would
allow them to negotiate reduced input prices with suppliers and pass on the resulting savings
to consumers. This input price effect is often supported by models in which... View Details
- August 2022
- Supplement
Sweet Teez Bakery: Projecting the Dough’s Rise Financial Supplement
By: Emily R. McComb, Mel Martin and Amy Klopfenstein
Abstract: In 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team met with entrepreneur Teresa Maynard, who had applied for a $25,000 impact investment loan. The students thought the former Harvard Data Scientist’s bakery business, Sweet Teez Bakery, showed promise.... View Details
- August 2022 (Revised November 2024)
- Case
Sweet Teez Bakery: Projecting the Dough's Rise
By: Emily R. McComb, Mel Martin and Amy Klopfenstein
In 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team met with entrepreneur Teresa Maynard, who had applied for a $25,000 impact investment loan. The students thought the former Harvard Data Scientist’s bakery business, Sweet Teez Bakery, showed promise. Maynard had... View Details
- August 2022 (Revised March 2023)
- Technical Note
Real Estate iBuying
By: Michael Luca, Jesse M. Shapiro and Julia Kelley
This note provides an overview of real estate iBuying, or instant buying, a business model that involves buying homes and then reselling them at a profit. Introduced in the mid-2010s, iBuying streamlined the process of selling a home by offering instant, all-cash... View Details