Publications

SSRN

Article

The Wisdom of Competitive Crowds

By: Kenneth C. Lichtendahl, Yael Grushka-Cockayne and Phillip E. Pfeifer

When several individuals are asked to forecast an uncertain quantity, they often face implicit or explicit incentives to be the most accurate. Despite the desire to elicit honest forecasts, such competition induces forecasters to report strategically and nontruthfully.... View Details

Keywords: Forecast; Forecasting and Prediction

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April 2017 (Revised August 2020)
Case

The U-Turns of National Truck Stops

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Alexander W. Schultz

Raj Makam had spent months trying to restructure a 2006 investment he had made in National Truck Stops, Inc. (NTS) as a senior member of Oaktree Capital Management’s (Oaktree) Mezzanine finance business within their Corporate Debt platform. It was the first time they... View Details

Keywords: Mezzanine Financing; Corporate Debt; Bankruptcy; Real Assets; Financing and Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Restructuring; Private Equity; Cost vs Benefits; Atlanta; New York (city, NY)

January 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

ZappRx

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Olivia Hull

In October 2015, ZappRx founder Zoe Barry is deciding between two business models for her health technology start-up. Her product, a software application that aims to expedite the prescription fulfillment process for patients with rare diseases, has attracted interest... View Details

Keywords: Speciality Drugs; Hub Services; Pivot; Speciality Prescriptions; Health Care and Treatment; Customization and Personalization; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Massachusetts

Web

Advisory Board - Entrepreneurship

business publications as one of the companies that helped to make the Internet what it is today. After leaving Open Market Shikhar has been the founder, CEO or Chairman of several companies in the wireless, payment, Internet marketing,... View Details

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Strategy and the Internet

best practice, its rivals tend to copy it quickly. Best practice competition eventually leads to competitive convergence, with many companies doing the same things in the same ways. Customers end up making View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter

23 Jan 2024
News

A Wide Net

Growing up in Mumbai, Navroz Udwadia (MBA 2005) spent most of his time on the tennis court, where he was an internationally ranked athlete. Today, as cofounder and partner of Alpha Wave, a global investment group with a multibillion-dollar stake in India’s startup... View Details

Keywords: April White

20 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Getting the Marketing Mix Right

retaliation happens and that companies worry about that," Steenburgh says. "But nobody benefits when both companies are retaliating. One effort just offsets the other." Measuring the different effects of these marketing strategies can help brand managers... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

16 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

The Outside-In Approach to Customer Service

Gulati: The difference between the outside-in and inside-out perspectives is central to the book's arguments. When I began this research, I naively assumed that all firms must indeed have an outside-in orientation whereby they put their customers first in all their... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products

Web

Impact Stories - Impact Stories

Vietnamese Student Wins $75,000 Harvard Startup Prize for AI Medical Translation App Play Making better decisions when it comes to your health Leslie John Going Beyond the Clinical Sphere Azalea Kim... View Details

23 Aug 2016
News

Harvard Business School Announces 2016 Kaplan Life Sciences Fellows

01 Jun 2000
News

Going Public: Margaret M. Crotty

Twenty-four hours after almost drowning in a ferryboat disaster in Indonesia, Margaret Crotty agreed to a telephone interview with the Today show to discuss how she survived -- and helped save others as well. Her decision to be on... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

February 2018
Case

Rosslyn Resource: Monetization and Sales Strategy

By: Robert J. Dolan and Sunru Yong

Rosslyn Resource identifies exploration targets (potential mineral deposits) in the mining industry and advances them until the project can be monetized, usually through sale to a larger mining company, in return for an upfront fee and a royalty on future revenues.... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mining Industry

May 2017 (Revised September 2018)
Case

Hilti Fleet Management (A): Turning a Successful Business Model on Its Head

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the construction industry by the premium power tools manufacturer Hilti in 2000. Following its customers’ needs, Hilti moved from selling power tools to leasing them as a service. The introduction of the new... View Details

2023
Working Paper

How People Use Statistics

By: Pedro Bordalo, John J. Conlon, Nicola Gennaioli, Spencer Yongwook Kwon and Andrei Shleifer

We document two new facts about the distributions of answers in famous statistical problems: they are i) multi-modal and ii) unstable with respect to irrelevant changes in the problem. We offer a model in which, when solving a problem, people represent each hypothesis... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Microeconomics; Mathematical Methods; Behavioral Finance

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03 Jun 2002
Research & Ideas

How to Succeed With Your New Boss

she prefer to be communicated with? Face-to-face? In writing? By voice mail or e-mail? How often? What kinds of decisions does he want to be involved in and where can you make the call on your own? How do... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Watkins

September 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

ReMo Energy: Sizing Up Investors

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Tom Quinn

In 2023, executives with ReMo Energy (founded 2020) were deciding which size ammonia plant to build as their first project. Their innovative model produced ammonia—useful for making fertilizer and for energy storage—from renewable energy, and they had received funding... View Details