Publications

11 Dec 2006
Research & Ideas

Fixing Price Tag Confusion

box, and the remote. Your breakfast-included hotel bill still features separate prices for bed and for breakfast. Partitioning should only be used by those sellers who want to sensitize people to a secondary benefit that might otherwise... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

21 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Searching for Better Practices in Social Investing

In order to garner the capital necessary to foot the bill for social change, nonprofits need to think less about traditional grants and more in terms of innovation--and so do the organizations that fund them. This was a key message from... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

26 Mar 2012
Research & Ideas

What Neuroscience Tells Us About Consumer Desire

or even how much they will pay for an item. But they aren't very good at accessing where that value comes from, or how and when it is influenced by factors like store displays or brands.” Most humans are a little more complicated than... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Consumer Products

August 2011 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Social Innovation at Salesforce.com

By: Christopher Marquis, Marley C. Kornreich and Bobbi Thomason

Salesforce.com recently implemented an innovative social enterprise business model whereby the Salesforce.com Foundation funds its operations and grant budget by selling discounted salesforce.com software licenses to nonprofits and education clients. The case recounts... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Model; Information Technology; Leading Change; Problems and Challenges

February 2011 (Revised July 2013)
Case

A123 Systems: Power. Safety. Life.

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

A123 Systems, the largest manufacturer of lithium ion batteries in North America, is producing and selling batteries for electric vehicles in China and electric buses in Europe and America. It just opened two plants in Michigan, partially funded by a grant from... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Diversification; Machinery and Machining; Renewable Energy; Transportation; Management Skills; Corporate Finance; Auto Industry; Battery Industry

21 May 2013
First Look

First Look: May 21

knowledge spillovers. The strategic value of these agglomeration economies may vary by firm, depending upon the relative value of each economy, and upon firm and agglomeration economy traits. To better determine when a firm will be... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Lessons Not Learned About Innovation

money." What's the central message here? A: In 2002, Arrow Electronics attempted a new Internet venture, Arrow.com. The group was granted perks not given to others, and this did not go unnoticed by the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

February 2018
Article

Patent Publication and the Market for Ideas

By: Deepak Hegde and Hong Luo

In this paper, we study the effect of invention disclosure through patent publication on the market for ideas. We do so by analyzing the effects of the American Inventor's Protection Act of 1999 (AIPA)—which required U.S. patent applications to be published 18 months... View Details

Keywords: Licensing; Patent Publication; Invention Disclosure; Patents; Information Publishing; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Dissemination

02 Sep 2002
What Do You Think?

What Can Business Schools Do to Avoid Bad Apples?

might be taken in admissions to sort out the "bad apples," the primary responsibility of business schools is to provide a place where ethics and values can be discussed by all, rather than just those clearing some admissions... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

12 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Solving COVID'S Mental Health Crisis

who need them, especially among vulnerable populations. Racial inequities, laid bare by the pandemic, and social unrest provoked by recent police killings have escalated tensions. In the course of writing... View Details

Keywords: by Howard Stevenson and Shirley Spence; Health

07 Dec 2009
Research & Ideas

Government’s Positive Role in Kick-Starting Entrepreneurship

well-connected. From the empty BioValley complex in Malaysia to the repeated U.S. Small Business Innovation Research grants to Beltway "mills" that produce few real innovations, this pattern is depressingly familiar. Successful... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

18 Jan 2021
Book

How Thinking Like a Startup Helps Governments Solve More Problems

chapters how entrepreneurs both inside and outside of government can tackle problems by viewing them as opportunities, trying new ideas, scaling them up, and improving public life. “I’m not saying we should take all the behaviors of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

December 2013 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Breaking Bad (the Rules): Argentina Defaults, Inflates (and Grows), 1997–2015

By: Rafael Di Tella and Fernanda Miguel

In late October 2011, after losing 1 billion of dollar reserves in one month, the Argentine government began imposing a series of currency controls, limiting the ability to buy foreign currency. As of October 2011, Argentina's tax collection agency AFIP had been... View Details

Keywords: Default; Inflation; Inflation and Deflation; Currency; Governance Controls; Argentina

June 2019
Article

Consequences of Debt Forgiveness: Strategic Default Contagion and Lender Learning

By: Gerardo Pérez Cavazos

I use a unique data set of loans to small business owners to examine whether lenders face adverse consequences when they grant debt forgiveness to borrowers. I provide evidence consistent with borrowers communicating their debt forgiveness to other borrowers, who then... View Details

Keywords: Debt Forgiveness; Strategic Default Contagion; Contracting; Borrowing and Debt; Communication; Learning

25 Jun 2014
Lessons from the Classroom

FIELD Trip: Conquering the Gap Between Knowing and Doing

older man led them to the back of one of the homes. Inside, he showed them a group of people huddled around the glow of two laptops, powered by a generator. “More than any other course, it teaches humility” "He said, 'All of my... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Education

March 2014 (Revised September 2014)
Supplement

Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (B)

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Natalie Kindred

This case, a follow-up to Cancer Treatment Centers of America (A), HBS No. 313-012, begins with the debate over New Hampshire's certificate-of-need (CON) law, which restricts hospital expansion. This debate ignited significant public criticism of Cancer Treatment... View Details

Keywords: Cancer; Cancer Treatment; Accountability; Outcomes; Outcomes Reporting; Outcomes Measurement; Survival; For-profit Hospitals; Health Care; Healthcare; Hospital; Certificate Of Need; Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Corporate Accountability; Policy; Health Industry; United States