Publications

Article

Turning Waste into By-Product

By: Deishin Lee

This paper studies how a firm can create and capture value by converting a waste stream into a useful and saleable by-product (i.e., implementing by-product synergy [BPS]). We show that BPS creates an operational synergy between two products that are jointly produced.... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Innovation and Invention; Cost Management; Opportunities; Market Participation; Framework; Profit; Competition; Wastes and Waste Processing; Product; Business Processes

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September 2018
Case

Clayton, Dubilier & Rice at 40

By: Josh Lerner, Abhijit Tagade and Terrence Shu

In 2018, private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice celebrated its 40th anniversary and its 20th year under the leadership of CEO Don Gogel. In those decades, CD&R showed solid portfolio performance and generated strong returns for its investors - accomplishments... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Succession; Buyout; Leveraged Buyout; Turnaround; Operations; Private Equity; Management Succession; Business Model; Leveraged Buyouts; Trends; Organizational Change and Adaptation

Kash Rangan is the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at the Harvard Business School. Formerly the chairman of the Marketing Department (1998-2002), he is now the co-chairman of the school's Social Enterprise Initiative. He has taught in a wide variety of MBA... View Details

Keywords: advertising; agribusiness; apparel; automobiles; computer; consumer products; e-commerce industry; high technology; industrial goods; marketing industry; pharmaceuticals

November 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Zespri Grows

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

Controlling about a third of global kiwifruit exports by volume and nearly half by value in 2018, Zespri was a grower-owned “corporatized cooperative” with the exclusive right to export New Zealand-grown kiwifruit (except to Australia). Zespri did not grow fruit but... View Details

18 Jul 2022
Research & Ideas

After the 'Crypto Crash,' What's Next for Digital Currencies?

Recent high-profile financial meltdowns at Bitcoin, Celsius, and Terraform Labs, which together wiped out hundreds of billions in market value, helped trigger a flight from the cryptocurrency market, driving its value from $2.9 trillion... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Financial Services; Technology

2021
Working Paper

Impact Investing: A Theory of Financing Social Enterprises

By: Benjamin N. Roth

I present a model of financing social enterprises to delineate the role of impact investors relative to “pure” philanthropists. I characterize the optimal scale and structure of a social enterprise when financed by grants, and when financed by investments. Impact... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Social Entrepreneurship; Finance; Investment; Mathematical Methods

SSRN

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September 2010 (Revised April 2012)
Case

Better World Books

By: Michael I. Norton, Fiona Wilson, Jill Avery and Thomas J. Steenburgh

Better World Books, a young start-up, provides a socially conscious alternative to Amazon, collecting and selling used books to keep them out of the waste stream, while donating a portion of their profits to support global literacy efforts. The case presents an... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Online Technology; Retail Industry

TeachingInterests

MBA Required Curriculum Marketing

Marketing

The objectives of this course are to demonstrate the role of marketing in the company; to explore the relationship of marketing to other functions; and to show how effective marketing builds on a thorough understanding of buyer behavior to create... View Details

June 2005
Article

Compensatory Transfers in Two-Player Decision Problems

By: Jerry R. Green

This paper presents an axiomatic characterization of a family of solutions to two-player quasi-linear social choice problems. In these problems the players select a single action from a set available to them. They may also transfer money between... View Details

Keywords: Bargaining; Cost Allocation; Decision Making

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June 2020
Background Note

Customer Management Dynamics and Cohort Analysis

By: Elie Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller

The digital revolution has allowed companies to amass considerable amounts of data on their customers. Using this information to generate actionable insights is fast becoming a critical skill that firms must master if they wish to effectively compete and win in today’s... View Details

Keywords: Cohort Analysis; Customers; Analytics and Data Science; Segmentation; Analysis; Customer Value and Value Chain

02 Mar 2009
Research & Ideas

When Goal Setting Goes Bad

Presented with a goal to build a car "under 2,000 pounds and under $2,000" by 1970, employees overlooked safety testing and designed a car where the gas tank was vulnerable to explosion from rear-end collisions. Fifty-three people died as... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

08 Apr 2025
HBS Seminar

Dan Bartels, University of Chicago

15 Aug 2019
News

How the Best Leaders Inspire Their Employees to Be Innovators

December 2000
Background Note

Internet Access Providers

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Daniel Green

Describes the Internet access provider business model. First, it defines the model and presents different ways to categorize access providers. Second, it offers a summary of the various ways that Internet access providers create value for their customers. Next, it... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Internet; Web Services Industry

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19 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Isn't Business Research More Relevant to Business Practitioners?

already present awards to honor practically relevant research in their respective industries, he notes. Finally, he argues that scholars need to learn the value of practical relevance from the start of their... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education

V.G. Narayanan

Professor Narayanan is the Thomas D. Casserly, Jr. Professor of Business Administration, and Senior Associate Dean of Executive Education and HBS Online. His research focuses on management accounting with an interest in performance evaluation and incentives... View Details

Keywords: accounting industry; banking; service industry; telecommunications; health care

2024
Working Paper

Do Collusive Norms Maximize Profits? Evidence From a Vegetable Market Experiment in India

By: Abhijit Banerjee, Greg Fischer, Dean Karlan, Matt Lowe and Benjamin N. Roth

Social norms have been shown to facilitate anti-competitive behavior in decentralized markets. We demonstrate that these norms can also reduce aggregate profits. First, we present descriptive evidence of competition-suppressing norms in Kolkata vegetable markets.... View Details

Keywords: Collusion; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Small Business; Microeconomics; Kolkata