Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,565)
- Faculty Publications (393)
- October 2009
- Case
Low-k Dielectrics at IBM
By: Willy C. Shih and Giovanni Carraro
Innovations at the frontiers of technology carry enormous risk of making wrong choices. This case examines a decision made by IBM in its semiconductor process technology strategy: a material to use as a dielectric insulator in its leading edge silicon chip technology.... View Details
- Article
Local Industrial Conditions and Entrepreneurship: How Much of the Spatial Distribution Can We Explain?
By: Edward L. Glaeser and William R. Kerr
Why are some places more entrepreneurial than others? We use Census Bureau data to study local determinants of manufacturing startups across cities and industries. Demographics have limited explanatory power. Overall levels of local customers and suppliers are only... View Details
- August 2009
- Supplement
The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (CW)
By: Willy C. Shih
When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and... 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
- April 2009 (Revised November 2018)
- Case
Sanctuary Soft: International Expansion Strategies
By: Boris Groysberg, Geoff Marietta, Tim Marshall and Adam Hartley
Sanctuary Soft CEO Elizabeth Smalley faced increasing pressure from her primary investor to expand operations internationally. If successful, the expansion could enlarge Sanctuary’s customer base and enable the firm to better serve existing clients’ overseas offices.... View Details
- April 2009 (Revised November 2012)
- Case
Sermo, Inc.
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Lars Peter Christian Nielsen
Sermo operates the leading online professional network for physicians in the United States. Doctors use Sermo free of charge to post surveys regarding diagnostic and treatment concerns and to discuss these concerns, as well as challenges with managing their practices.... View Details
- 2009
- Working Paper
Broadening Focus: Spillovers, Complementarities and Specialization in the Hospital Industry
By: Jonathan R. Clark and Robert S. Huckman
The long-standing argument that focused operations outperform others stands in contrast to claims about the benefits of broader operational scope. The performance benefits of focus are typically attributed to reduced complexity, lower uncertainty, and the development... View Details
- 2009
- Other Unpublished Work
When Does Industrial Policy Work? Evidence from the Brazilian Ethanol Fuel Industry
By: Santiago Mingo and Tarun Khanna
What is the impact of a state-led industrial policy program on entrepreneurial activity, industry evolution, and firm competitiveness? How and when is industrial policy an effective tool to spur the development of an emerging industry? To address these questions, we... View Details
- February 2009
- Journal Article
Domestic Effects of the Foreign Activities of U.S. Multinationals
By: Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James R. Hines Jr.
Do firms investing abroad simultaneously reduce their domestic activity? This paper analyzes the relationship between the domestic and foreign operations of American manufacturing firms between 1982 and 2004 by instrumenting for changes in foreign operations with GDP... View Details
- January 2009
- Article
FDI, Productivity, and Financial Development
By: Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Selin Sayek
This paper examines the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on growth by focusing on the complementarities between FDI inflows and financial markets. In our earlier work, we found that FDI is beneficial for growth only if the host country has well-developed... View Details
- 2009
- Working Paper
Virtual Team Learning: Reflecting and Acting, Alone or With Others
By: Deborah L. Soule and Lynda M. Applegate
This paper examines virtual team learning in new product development situations. New product development activities manifest novelty, uncertainty and complexity, presenting an extreme need for learning in the course of the work. We present data from an exploratory... View Details
- 2008
- Book
On Competition
By: M. E. Porter
Competition is one of society's most powerful forces for making things better in many fields of human endeavor. The study of competition and the creation of value, in their full richness, have preoccupied me for several decades. Competition is pervasive, whether it... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised June 2011)
- Case
JetBlue Airways: Managing Growth
By: Robert S. Huckman and Gary P. Pisano
Considers the situation facing David Barger, President and CEO of JetBlue Airways, in May 2007 as he addresses the airline's need to slow its growth rate in the response to increasing fuel costs and the effects of major operational crisis for the airline in February... View Details
- Article
Can the Virtuous Mouse and the Wealthy Elephant Live Happily Ever After?
What happens when small iconic socially oriented businesses are acquired by large corporations? Such mergers create significant opportunities for creating both business value and substantially expanded social value, but they also pose unusually difficult challenges... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Can the Virtuous Mouse and the Wealthy Elephant Live Happily Ever After?
By: James E. Austin and Herman B. Leonard
What happens when small iconic socially-oriented businesses are acquired by large corporations? Such mergers create significant opportunities for creating both business value and substantially expanded social value, but also pose unusually difficult challenges because... View Details
- Article
MIT Roundtable on Corporate Risk Management
By: Robert C. Merton
Against the backdrop of financial crisis, a distinguished group of academics and practitioners discusses the contribution of financial management and innovation to corporate growth and value, along with the pitfalls and unintended consequences of such innovation.... View Details
- August 2008
- Article
Ethnic Scientific Communities and International Technology Diffusion
By: William R. Kerr
This study explores the importance of knowledge transfer for international technology diffusion by examining ethnic scientific and entrepreneurial communities in the US and their ties to their home countries. US ethnic research communities are quantified by applying an... View Details
- 2008
- Book
Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage
By: Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton
In a world of stiffening competition, business strategy is more crucial than ever. Yet most organizations struggle in this area--not with formulating strategy but with executing it, or putting their strategy into action. Owing to execution failures, companies realize... View Details
- July 2008 (Revised August 2008)
- Case
In-Vitro Fertilization: Outcomes Measurement
By: Michael E. Porter, Saquib Rahim and Benjamin Chung-Shi Tsai
As of 2007, there were very few examples of widespread measurement and reporting of health outcomes, a critical quality measure. In-vitro fertilization clinics have been required to report their patient's health outcomes since 1995. The protagonist of the case, Dr.... View Details
- June 2008 (Revised October 2008)
- Case
AREVA T&D
By: Ananth Raman, Vincent Marie Dessain, Ane Damgaard Jensen and Gudrun Urfalino Kristinsdottir
The case explores the rapid and highly effective turnaround at AREVA's transmission and distribution (T and D) business by focusing on the division's operations. The division was struggling in 2004 when newly-appointed CEO Philippe Guillemot and his team improved... View Details