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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,005)
- People (1)
- News (181)
- Research (702)
- Events (9)
- Multimedia (3)
- Faculty Publications (352)
- August 2019 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
Systems Design West
By: Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
Jenn Braus (HBS 2013) was halfway through the 90-day exclusivity period for her proposed acquisition of Systems Design West (SDW). She had completed her business and accounting due diligence. Just as she was about to ask her lawyer to begin drafting the purchase... View Details
Ruback, Richard, and Royce Yudkoff. "Systems Design West." Harvard Business School Case 220-004, August 2019. (Revised October 2019.)
- February 2011
- Case
ABICI
By: Mukti Khaire, Elena Corsi and Elisa Farri
The co-founder of an Italian, design based bicycle manufacturer evaluates if reducing costs by outsourcing would impact its brand. The company was founded in 2005 in Italy by three friends and in its first five years, it had enjoyed steady growth and built a strong... View Details
- February 2003 (Revised April 2006)
- Case
Reaching the Bottom: UniGlobe's Small Local Stores Dilemma
By: Clayton M. Christensen and Lana Newishy
To distribute products to very small retailers in a very fragmented retail environment, the local subsidiary of a large consumer products company created an innovative distribution mechanism. The subsidiary's Small Local Stores division employed middlemen who... View Details
Christensen, Clayton M., and Lana Newishy. "Reaching the Bottom: UniGlobe's Small Local Stores Dilemma." Harvard Business School Case 603-114, February 2003. (Revised April 2006.)
- January 2023
- Article
Calculators for Women: When Identity-Based Appeals Backfire
By: Tami Kim, Kate Barasz, Michael I. Norton and Leslie K. John
From “Chick Beer” to “Dryer Sheets for Men,” identity-based labeling is frequently deployed by marketers to appeal to specific target markets. Yet such identity appeals can backfire, alienating the very consumers they aim to attract. We theorize and empirically... View Details
Keywords: Categorization Threat; Stereotypes; Identity; Labels; Gender; Perception; Consumer Behavior
Kim, Tami, Kate Barasz, Michael I. Norton, and Leslie K. John. "Calculators for Women: When Identity-Based Appeals Backfire." Special Issue on Racism and Discrimination in the Marketplace edited by Samantha N. N. Cross and Stephanie Dellande. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research 8, no. 1 (January 2023): 72–82.
- March 2021
- Article
Opting-in to Prosocial Incentives
By: Daniel Schwartz, Elizabeth A. Keenan, Alex Imas and Ayelet Gneezy
The design of effective incentive schemes that are both successful in motivating employees and keeping down costs is of critical importance. Research has demonstrated that prosocial incentives, where individuals’ effort benefits a charitable organization, can sometimes... View Details
Keywords: Incentives; Prosocial Behavior; Behavioral Economics; Field Experiments; Recycling; Prosocial Motivation; Decision Making; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior
Schwartz, Daniel, Elizabeth A. Keenan, Alex Imas, and Ayelet Gneezy. "Opting-in to Prosocial Incentives." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 163 (March 2021): 132–141.
- December 2013
- Case
Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home
By: Frank V. Cespedes and James Kindley
The Clique Pens Writing Implements division of U.S. Home is a manufacturer of a full line of pens, pencils, markers, and art supplies. Despite solid sales, division president Elise Ferguson has seen gross margins drop from 42% in 2010 to just over 36% in 2012 as a... View Details
Keywords: Production; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Compensation and Benefits; Sales; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry
Cespedes, Frank V., and James Kindley. "Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home." Harvard Business School Brief Case 914-525, December 2013.
- June 2010 (Revised July 2011)
- Case
Classic Knitwear and Guardian: A Perfect Fit?
By: John A. Quelch and Patricia Girardi
Classic Knitwear manufactures and distributes casual apparel, either unbranded or under a private-label brand name. Partly because Classic has no brand recognition with consumers, gross margins are low. To improve margins, the company considers partnering via a... View Details
Keywords: Market Research; Forecasting; Consumer Marketing; New Product Marketing; Product Lines; Merchandising; Branding; Demand and Consumers; Partners and Partnerships; Marketing Strategy; Forecasting and Prediction; Product Marketing; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Manufacturing Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry
Quelch, John A., and Patricia Girardi. "Classic Knitwear and Guardian: A Perfect Fit?" Harvard Business School Brief Case 104-217, June 2010. (Revised July 2011.)
- September 2018
- Case
ProdEng: Services for Oil & Gas Extraction
By: Frank V. Cespedes, Maria Fernanda Miguel and Mariana Cal
ProdEng is a venture created as part of a PE fund and provides oil field services in Argentina. In 2016, an industry-wide unforeseen oil and gas demand slump drove ProdEng’s average service rates down by more than 37%, with EBITDA margins falling from 50% to 24% in the... View Details
Cespedes, Frank V., Maria Fernanda Miguel, and Mariana Cal. "ProdEng: Services for Oil & Gas Extraction." Harvard Business School Case 819-003, September 2018.
A Causal Test of the Strength of Weak Ties
The strength of weak ties is an influential social-scientific theory that stresses the importance of weak associations (e.g., acquaintance versus close friendship) in influencing the transmission of information through social networks. However, causal tests of... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Dusting Off the Old Ones: Drug Licensing to Startups, Innovation Success and Efficiency
By: Mosab Hammoudeh, Joshua Lev Krieger and Jiajie Xu
This paper investigates whether moving R&D from incumbents to startups can increase innovation. Using comprehensive drug development data, we examine the outcomes of drug projects licensed from large firms to startups. We find that these projects licensed to startups... View Details
Keywords: Product Development; Innovation and Invention; Business Startups; Research and Development; Performance Efficiency; Pharmaceutical Industry
Hammoudeh, Mosab, Joshua Lev Krieger, and Jiajie Xu. "Dusting Off the Old Ones: Drug Licensing to Startups, Innovation Success and Efficiency." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 24-067, March 2024.
- January 2017
- Case
Kada Orthopedics: A Bone of Contention
By: Kevin Schulman and Matt Strickland
Kada Orthopedics is a small implantable orthopedic device manufacturer founded by industry veterans trying to sell stable-technology products to an increasingly cost-conscious healthcare market. Although they have marginally successful product in early 2016, the... View Details
- July 2009 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
Sotheby's & Christie's Inc.
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Catherine Jane Wise
The fine art auction business has remained a duopoly over its 250 year history. The industry is dominated by Sotheby's and Christie's Inc. Curiously, neither competitor has been able to overtake the other by a notable margin despite the clear network effects of this... View Details
Keywords: Arts; Business Model; Restructuring; Economics; Auctions; Market Entry and Exit; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Operations; Competition
Casadesus-Masanell, Ramon, and Catherine Jane Wise. "Sotheby's & Christie's Inc." Harvard Business School Case 710-412, July 2009. (Revised March 2010.)
- 24 Mar 2008
- Research & Ideas
Reducing Risk with Online Advertising
particulars of your business is different depending on how prevalent bad affiliates are, the profit margins of bad affiliates, and what I call the discount rate of good affiliates—how quickly your good suppliers need to get paid. If they... View Details
- January 2020
- Case
Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd.
By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock
In 2019, Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. (Lead) was the largest supplier of lithium-ion rechargeable battery manufacturing equipment in the world. Based in Wuxi, China, the company generated RMB 3.9 billion ($557 million) in revenues in 2018, up from RMB 175... View Details
- 23 Nov 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
The Organization of Firms Across Countries
- 2022
- Article
Data Poisoning Attacks on Off-Policy Evaluation Methods
By: Elita Lobo, Harvineet Singh, Marek Petrik, Cynthia Rudin and Himabindu Lakkaraju
Off-policy Evaluation (OPE) methods are a crucial tool for evaluating policies in high-stakes domains such as healthcare, where exploration is often infeasible, unethical, or expensive. However, the extent to which such methods can be trusted under adversarial threats... View Details
Lobo, Elita, Harvineet Singh, Marek Petrik, Cynthia Rudin, and Himabindu Lakkaraju. "Data Poisoning Attacks on Off-Policy Evaluation Methods." Proceedings of the Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI) 38th (2022): 1264–1274.
- July 2023
- Article
Marketplace Scalability and Strategic Use of Platform Investment
By: Jin Li, Gary Pisano, Richard Xu and Feng Zhu
The scalability of a marketplace depends on the operations of the marketplace platform as well as its sellers’ capacities. In this study, we explore one strategy that a marketplace platform can use to enhance its scalability: providing an ancillary service to sellers.... View Details
Li, Jin, Gary Pisano, Richard Xu, and Feng Zhu. "Marketplace Scalability and Strategic Use of Platform Investment." Management Science 69, no. 7 (July 2023): 3958–3975.
- June 2015 (Revised September 2017)
- Supplement
Generating Higher Value at IBM
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Scott Mayfield
This case analyzes IBM's financial performance and its capital allocation decisions over a 10-year period from 2004-2013, during which IBM returned more than $140B to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. During this time, CEO Sam... View Details
- 2012
- Working Paper
Information Technology and Boundary of the Firm: Evidence from Plant-Level Data
By: Chris Forman and Kristina McElheran
We study the relationship between different margins of information technology (IT) use and vertical integration using plant-level data from the U.S. Census of Manufactures. Focusing on the short-run decision of whether to allocate production output to downstream plants... View Details
Keywords: Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Production; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Vertical Integration; Supply Chain; Manufacturing Industry; United States
Forman, Chris, and Kristina McElheran. "Information Technology and Boundary of the Firm: Evidence from Plant-Level Data." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-092, April 2012.
- May 2011
- Article
Higher Risk, Lower Returns: What Hedge Fund Investors Really Earn
By: Ilia Dichev and Gwen Yu
The returns of hedge fund investors depend not only on the returns of the hedge funds they hold but also on the timing and magnitude of their capital flows in and out of the funds. We use dollar-weighted returns (a form of IRR) to assess the properties of actual... View Details
Dichev, Ilia, and Gwen Yu. "Higher Risk, Lower Returns: What Hedge Fund Investors Really Earn." Journal of Financial Economics 100, no. 2 (May 2011): 248–263.