Publications

25 Oct 2013
News

The Benefits of a Productive Cocoon

March 2021
Article

Targeted Price Controls on Supermarket Products

By: Alberto Cavallo and Diego Aparicio

We study the impact of targeted price controls for supermarket products in Argentina from 2007 to 2015. Using web scraping, we collected daily prices for controlled and non-controlled goods and measured the differential effects on inflation, product availability, and... View Details

Keywords: Prices; Controls; Price Dispersion; Economics; Price; Cost Management; Goods and Commodities; Retail Industry; Argentina

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December 2014
Article

Private Equity, Jobs, and Productivity

By: Steven J. Davis, John Haltiwanger, Kyle Handley, Ron Jarmin, Josh Lerner and Javier Miranda

Private equity critics claim that leveraged buyouts bring huge job losses. To investigate this claim, we construct and analyze a new dataset that covers U.S. private equity transactions from 1980 to 2005. We track 3,200 target firms and their 150,000 establishments... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Performance Productivity; Jobs and Positions; United States

December 1999 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Avon Products China (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jennifer Gui

In April 1998, when the Chinese central government bans all forms of direct selling in China in April 1998, executives at Avon China must decide how to respond. The first direct sales company to enter China after its opening to outsiders, Avon sparked widespread... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Sales; Trade; Business and Government Relations; Government and Politics; Market Participation; China

December 2014
Article

The Real Product Market Impact of Mergers

By: Albert Sheen

I document sources of value creation in mergers by analyzing novel data on the quality and price of goods sold by merging firms. When two competitors in a product market merge, their products converge in quality, and prices fall relative to the competition. These... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Quality; Price; Goods and Commodities; Mergers and Acquisitions

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16 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

What Customers Want from Your Products

frequently bought milk shakes. Next, they invited people who fit this profile to evaluate whether making the shakes thicker, more chocolaty, cheaper, or chunkier would satisfy them better. The panelists gave clear feedback, but the consequent improvements to the View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott Cook & Taddy Hall; Consumer Products

23 Mar 2020
News

Product Disasters Can Be Fertile Ground for Innovation

2019
Article

Creativity from Paradoxical Experience: A Theory of How Individuals Achieve Creativity while Adopting Paradoxical Frames

By: Goran Calic, Sébastien Hélie, Nick Bontis and Elaine Mosakowski

Purpose: Extant paradox theory suggests that adopting paradoxical frames, which are mental templates adopted by individuals in order to embrace contradictions, will result in superior firm performance. Superior performance is achieved through learning and creativity,... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Creativity; Learning

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June 1991 (Revised April 1995)
Background Note

Mass Production and the Beginnings of Scientific Management

Examines the coming of mass production (continuous and large-batch processes and those involving fabricating and assembling of interchangeable parts), and relates the beginnings of modern factory management to the needs and opportunities created by the new technology.... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Change Management; Production; Industrial Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry

June 2022
Case

PFA Pensions: The Climate Plus Product

By: Daniel Green, Victoria Ivashina and Alys Ferragamo

The case explores whether alternative investments play a unique role in achieving low carbon dioxide emissions at the portfolio level. This case is set in April of 2020 and follows Kasper Ahrndt Lorenzen, Chief Investment Officer, and Peter Tind Larsen, Head of... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Carbon Footprint; Alternative Assets; Alternative Investment Vehicles; Pension Fund Investing; Private Equity; Renewable Energy; Investment Portfolio; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Denmark

August 1994
Case

Komatsu Ltd. (B): Profit Planning and Product Costing

Describes Komatsu's profit planning and product costing systems. Komatsu can boast a high degree of employee dedication to achieving its profit plan. Also explores the logic behind the design of a new cost system at Komatsu that is less accurate at the product level... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Cost Management; Profit

22 Feb 2018
Book

The New History of American Capitalism

businesspeople visible, and sees them as crucial to the emergence of a new kind of political economy. A third point of departure in the new literature concerns the production... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing

06 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

Should Entrepreneurs Pitch Products or Ideas for Products?

In trying to secure financial backing for a new product, independent innovators generally face the question of how much to invest in development before showing it around. Should they create, say, a working prototype (and maybe even... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Motion Pictures & Video; Entertainment & Recreation; Banking

May 2015 (Revised May 2017)
Case

Colgate-Palmolive Company: Marketing Anti-Cavity Toothpaste

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

In October 2013, Colgate-Palmolive Company, the world's leading oral care company, was about to launch its new Colgate® Maximum Cavity Protection™ plus Sugar Acid Neutralizer™ toothpaste in Brazil. Oral care category accounted for 46 percent of Colgate's $17.4 billion... View Details

Keywords: New Product Management; Consumer Segmentation; Global Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility; Healthcare; Sustainability; Health Care and Treatment; Environmental Sustainability; Marketing; Segmentation; Product Development; Product Launch; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Product Positioning; Consumer Products Industry; Brazil; United States

January 2011
Case

Sidoti & Company: Launching a Micro-Cap Product

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Sarah Abbott

It is 2010 and Sidoti & Company, a New York-based brokerage firm specializing in small capitalization stocks, has just launched a new product- micro cap stock research. The firm has hired a group of five analysts who will produce written research reports on micro-cap... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Financial Strategy; Product Launch; Strategic Planning; Corporate Strategy; Financial Services Industry; New York (city, NY)

2005
Working Paper

The Curse of Innovation: A Theory of Why Innovative New Products Fail in the Marketplace

By: John Gourville

19 Dec 2012
Research & Ideas

How to be Extremely Productive

and maintained rewarding relationships with his wife and their two children. “It takes a lot more than organizing your schedule to be productive.” In a widely read Harvard Business Review article (May 2011), Pozen outlined six "principles for getting a lot... View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg

21 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Sure Thing to Increase Productivity

iStock Thinking about the fast-approaching era of artificial intelligence, employers rejoice in the increases to productivity such tools could bring, while workers are more likely to calculate the time left before R2-D2 takes over their... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology; Information

November–December 2019
Article

Pivoting Isn't Enough? Managing Strategic Reorientation in New Ventures

By: Rory McDonald and Cheng Gao

New ventures often experience deviations from their plans that oblige them to reorient in pursuit of better fit between their evolving products and their target customers. Yet research is largely silent on how managers explain such changes and justify their ventures in... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Reorientation; Technology Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Product Development Processes; Organizational Adaptation; Qualitative Methods (General); Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Product Development; Communication Strategy