Publications

SSRN

31 Mar 2022
Op-Ed

Navigating the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ in Professional Services

In professional services, successful firms tend to be either small or super-sized. There’s very little middle ground. Take health care, for example. Shouldice is a small, 89-bed hernia hospital in Canada that, over the past several decades, has provided excellent... View Details

Keywords: by Ashish Nanda

01 Sep 2023
News

Returning to the Roots

It’s not a role he sought or expected. But when his brother died of a brain tumor late last year, Florent Latour (MBA 1999) became CEO of Maison Louis Latour, a winemaker established in 1797 in the Burgundy region of France. The 11th generation of his family to lead... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; wine; entrepreneurship; family business; innovation; climate change; Beverage and Tobacco Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

July 2008 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Betfair vs. UK Bookmakers

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Neil Campbell

Betting exchanges provide an electronic platform that allows ordinary consumers to not only back teams to win, but also to lay odds for other punters to back. This business model allows punters to cut out the middleman of the bookmaker and leads to a much more... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Two-Sided Platforms; Market Transactions; Competition; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Web

About the Center - Christensen Center for Teaching & Learning

of character...we want [the student] to start thinking about issues...to think about the ethics of someone in a company making 10 million dollars and someone making three... View Details

September 2023
Case

David Beckham (A)

By: Anita Elberse and David Moreno Vicente

In January 2022, superstar-athlete-turned-entrepreneur David Beckham is deciding on a proposal that has the potential to significantly change the trajectory of his business career: Authentic Brands Group (‘Authentic’) has offered to engage in a strategic partnership... View Details

Keywords: Joint Ventures; Decisions; Brands and Branding; Negotiation Offer; Partners and Partnerships; Sports

11 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Feeling Seen: What to Say When Your Employees Are Not OK

Maybe it goes without saying that the past two years have been stressful for employees. But new research suggests managers should say it anyway. That’s because verbally acknowledging someone else’s feelings, especially negative ones, can help establish trust between... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

April 2010 (Revised March 2011)
Case

The Auction for Travelport (A)

By: Andrei Hagiu and Misha Sanwal

A senior Blackstone director is deciding how aggressively to bid for Travelport, a travel distribution business containing several key services and platforms. Travelport's most important properties were Galileo, one of the top 3 global distribution systems (GDSs),... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Product Positioning; Cost vs Benefits; Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Competitive Advantage; Auctions; Industry Structures; Travel Industry

May 2024
Supplement

gWorks (B)

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

In January of 2019, Joe Heieck, CEO of gWorks, was deciding whether to proceed with his acquisition of Data Tech, that was a business roughly the same size as gWorks. gWorks, which provided geospatial software to small city and rural county governments, was acquired by... View Details

19 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

The 10 Most Popular Articles of 2022

collaboration. 1. Scrap the Big New Year's Resolutions. Make 6 Simple Changes Instead. Self-improvement doesn't need to be painful. Rather than set yet another gym goal, look inward, retrain your brain, and get outside, says Hirotaka... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

01 Sep 2023
News

Solving for Z

happy with and what more needs to be done to make Apollo a better and more attractive place to work. “You’ve got to co-create your culture,” he says. “And how do you do that? You ask for feedback. So I position myself as the walking... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; Illustrations by Doug Chayka; Administration of Human Resource Programs; Government

2013
Working Paper

Religion, Politician Identity and Development Outcomes: Evidence from India

By: Sonia Bhalotra, Guilhem Cassan, Irma Clots-Figueras and Lakshmi Iyer

This paper investigates whether the religious identity of state legislators in India influences development outcomes, both for citizens of their religious group and for the population as a whole. To control for politician identity to be correlated with constituency... View Details

Keywords: Politician Identity; Infant Mortality; Primary Education; India; Muslim; Fairness; Religion; Government and Politics; India

Read Now

27 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall

many types of innovation for the firms that experience them.” There’s also a second, less studied wave of damage, as competitors ramp up product development efforts to snap up displaced customers and solidify market share gains. This double whammy View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Manufacturing; Consumer Products; Auto; Medical Devices & Supplies

16 Nov 2022
News

Investing in Indigenous Sovereignty

May 2024
Case

Pernod Ricard: Uncorking Digital Transformation

By: Iavor Bojinov, Edward McFowland III, François Candelon, Nikolina Jonsson and Emer Moloney

This case study explores the opportunities and challenges of the digital transformation journey of French wine and spirits company Pernod Ricard. As part of the transformation, the company launched four key digital programs (KDPs) aimed at using data and artificial... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Business Divisions; Talent and Talent Management; Global Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Digital Transformation; Digital Strategy; Advertising; Sales; Organizational Culture; Product Development; Decision Making; Technology Adoption; Alignment; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry; France; Europe

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

29 Jul 2013
Research & Ideas

A Manager’s Moral Obligation to Preserve Capitalism

for instance, might argue that capitalism ignores issues of fairness in outcomes—but they can't say that it doesn't exist. “Our task is not to take immoral people and make them moral. Our task is to add texture to the dominant View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2023
Working Paper

'It Wouldn’t Have Mattered Anyway': When Overdetermined Outcomes Justify Our Sins

By: Stephanie C. Lin, Julian J. Zlatev and Dale T. Miller

We identify and document an “overdetermined outcome defense” which occurs when one learns that circumstances besides one’s own actions were sufficient to produce a negative effect (e.g., deciding not to go to the gym, but later discovering that the gym had been... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Decision Making; Outcome or Result; Behavior