Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,087)
- Faculty Publications (491)
- March 2017 (Revised May 2019)
- Case
Marketing Transformation at Mastercard
By: Sunil Gupta, Srinivas K. Reddy and David Lane
Since 2013, Mastercard CMO M.V. Rajamannar (Raja) had transformed the firm's marketing by using unique experiences, digital technology, and social media to intensify linkages not only with cardholders, but also with Mastercard's direct bank and merchant stakeholders.... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Why and How Investors Use ESG Information: Evidence from a Global Survey
Using survey data from a sample of senior investment professionals from mainstream (i.e., not SRI funds) investment organizations, we provide insights into why and how investors use reported environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information. The primary reason... View Details
Keywords: Investment Management; Sustainability; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Investment Fund; Investment Strategy; Corporate Accountability; Activist Shareholder; Engagement; Environment; Climate Change; Customers; Customer Satisfaction; Employee Engagement; Global Warming; Investment; Decision Making; Environmental Sustainability; Performance Expectations
- February 2017
- Case
GE Digital
By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson
Known for manufacturing industrial equipment, GE has decided to invest in software and analytics capabilities to become a digital industrial company. They have also created a software platform that they hope will power the Industrial Internet. GE executives forecasted... View Details
Keywords: GE; General Electric; Manufacturing; Industrial Internet; Wind Power; Digital Manufacturing; Renewable Energy; Energy; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Transformation; Green Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; North America
- February 2017 (Revised June 2017)
- Case
ExxonMobil: Business as Usual? (A)
By: George Serafeim, Shiva Rajgopal and David Freiberg
Climate change was becoming an important societal and business issue as more governments were introducing climate change related regulations and investors became increasibly worried about stranded assets within oil and gas firms. In September 2016, the U.S. Securities... View Details
- January 2017
- Case
Flatiron School
By: Thomas Eisenmann and Halah AlQahtani
In late 2016, the founders of Flatiron School, a startup offering 12-week coding bootcamps, are formulating their growth strategy. Their new online-only program has matched the excellent job placement results for their in-person bootcamps. Should Flatiron shift... View Details
- January 26, 2017
- Article
Executives and Salespeople Are Misaligned—and the Effects Are Costly
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Christopher Wallace
This article discusses the results of a survey of senior executives, middle managers, and sales people from companies across a variety of industries. The survey focused on questions about how well their companies’ strategies informed six critical elements of their... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised March 2017)
- Case
IBM Transforming, 2012–2016: Ginni Rometty Steers Watson
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen
To transform IBM for the next technology wave, Ginni Rometty, who became CEO in 2012, led divestment of declining businesses, made acquisitions in digital innovation and cloud computing, formed partnerships with former competitors such as Apple and tech startups, and... View Details
- January 2017
- Article
Being Surprised by the Unsurprising: Earnings Seasonality and Stock Returns
By: Tom Y. Chang, Samuel M. Hartzmark, David H. Solomon and Eugene F. Soltes
We present evidence consistent with markets failing to properly price information in seasonal earnings patterns. Firms with historically larger earnings in one quarter of the year (“positive seasonality quarters”) have higher returns when those earnings are usually... View Details
- January–February 2017
- Article
The Truth about Blockchain
By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani
Contracts, transactions, and records of them provide critical structure in our economic system, but they haven’t kept up with the world’s digital transformation. They’re like rush-hour gridlock trapping a Formula 1 race car. Blockchain promises to solve this problem.... View Details
- December 2016
- Simulation
Venture Capital and Private Equity Game
By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Josh Lerner, G. Felda Hardymon and Nathaniel Burbank
The Venture Capital and Private Equity Simulation enables groups of students to play the role of either an early or later stage private equity firm. Within the simulation, students raise funds, search for companies to invest in, complete deals, and manage a portfolio... View Details
- 2016
- Chapter
The Origins of High-Tech Venture Investing in America
By: Tom Nicholas
The United States has developed an unparalleled environment for the provision of high-tech investment finance. Today it is reflected in the strength of agglomeration economies in Silicon Valley, but historically its origins lay in the East Coast. Notably, immediate... View Details
- November 2016 (Revised September 2018)
- Case
Elon Musk's Big Bets
By: David B. Yoffie, Eric Baldwin and Brandon Kaufmann
Between late 2014 and late 2016, Tesla CEO Elon Musk undertook several major, and risky, initiatives that would dramatically expand the scale and scope of Tesla’s business. In late 2014, Tesla began construction on a $5 billion “gigafactory” that would manufacture... View Details
Keywords: Electric Vehicles; Batteries; Solar Power; Strategy; Execution; Technology; Space Flight; Tesla; SolarCity; SpaceX; Elon Musk; Information Technology; Risk and Uncertainty; Expansion; Renewable Energy; Investment; Manufacturing Industry; Green Technology Industry; Auto Industry; Aerospace Industry; Battery Industry
- Article
Overcoming the Outcome Bias: Making Intentions Matter
People often make the well-documented mistake of paying too much attention to the outcomes of others’ actions while neglecting information about the original intentions leading to those outcomes. In five experiments, we examine interventions aimed at reducing this... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised March 2020)
- Teaching Note
Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model
By: Feng Zhu
Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride, as opposed to the 20%–30%... View Details
- September 2016
- Article
Do Display Ads Influence Search?: Attribution and Dynamics in Online Advertising
By: Pavel Kireyev, Koen Pauwels and Sunil Gupta
As firms increasingly rely on online media to acquire consumers, marketing managers feel comfortable justifying higher online marketing spending by referring to online metrics such as click-through rate (CTR) and cost per acquisition (CPA). However, these standard... View Details
- August 2016 (Revised July 2017)
- Background Note
Brand Portfolio Strategy and Brand Architecture
By: Jill Avery
While companies choose to brand their products and services in many different ways, there are some central tenets that help define an optimal brand portfolio and associated brand architecture. Brand portfolio strategy involves the design, deployment, and management of... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Venture Capital Data: Opportunities and Challenges
By: Steven N. Kaplan and Josh Lerner
This paper describes the available data and research on venture capital investments and performance. We comment on the challenges inherent in those data and research as well as possible opportunities to do better. View Details
- 2016
- Article
Organizational Decision-Making and Information: Angel Investments by Venture Capital Partners
By: Andy Wu
We study information aggregation in organizational decision-making for the financing of entrepreneurial ventures. We introduce a formal model of voting where agents face costly tacit information to improve their decision quality. Equilibrium outcomes suggest a... View Details
- June 2016
- Case
The Wealthfront Generation
By: Luis Viceira and Allison Ciechanover
- June 2016 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
FANUC Corporation: Reassessing the Firm's Governance and Financial Policies
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno
In February 2015, Daniel Loeb (a U.S.–based activist investor) announced his firm had a large investment in FANUC Corporation, a leading producer of industrial robots and software for machine tools. Loeb was demanding that the Japanese firm change its financial and... View Details
Keywords: Hedge Funds; Economic Policy; Investments; Government Policy; Deregulation; Financial Management; Valuation; Investment Funds; Policy; Corporate Governance; Macroeconomics; Investment Activism; Change Management; Financial Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan; United States