Publications

January 2007 (Revised October 2007)
Case

The Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund: Striving to Reshape the Social Enterprise Capital Markets

By: Michael Chu and Jean Hazell

Seeking to impact global poverty and philanthropy, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar donates $100 million to Tufts University for a trust restricted to investment in microfinance. Explores the origins of the initiative, the perspectives and objectives of the various parties... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Microfinance; Investment Funds; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Emerging Markets; Social Enterprise; Financial Services Industry

18 Apr 2007
HBS Case

How Magazine Luiza Courts the Poor

"Magazine Luiza: Building a Retail Model of 'Courting the Poor.'" "Magazine Luiza has made a business of targeting the bottom of the pyramid and is beloved as a company by employees and customers alike," Frei says. "I couldn't think of a View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

03 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 3

Kato is tasked with evaluating how the company can most successfully market and sell the green components of its service offering. Using only renewable energy in its data center facility, Verne can drastically reduce customers' carbon... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

18 Nov 2008
First Look

First Look: November 18, 2008

publicly traded firms in the United States under scrutiny. This case examines perceived excessive pay and severance packages at several firms implicated in the credit crisis of 2008, the executive compensation provisions in the Emergency... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

14 Sep 2010
First Look

First Look: September 14, 2010

problem when they first emerged but was ultimately overcome by changes in the innovation ecosystem. However, incumbents in the oil and power sector are different in two respects. First, they are producing a commodity and hence face little... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2014
Case

Goldman Sachs: Anchoring Standards After the Financial Crisis

By: Rajiv Lal and Lisa Mazzanti

Goldman Sachs, a longtime venerable financial institution headquartered in New York City, had a partnership culture that was known to value its clients. But when the financial crisis hit in 2008 and Goldman Sachs emerged relatively unscathed, its public image took a... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Public Image; Corporate Accountability; Reputation; Standards; Financial Crisis; Brands and Branding; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

March 2013 (Revised August 2014)
Case

Indonesia's OJK: Building Financial Stability

By: Lakshmi Iyer and David Lane

In 2013, a new financial services authority, the Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK), took over responsibility for regulating capital markets and non-bank financial institutions in Indonesia. OJK was scheduled to take over bank regulation and supervision from the central... View Details

Keywords: Monetary Policy; Bank Regulation; Financial Market Regulation; Corruption; Bureaucracy; Central Bank Independence; Indonesia; Crime and Corruption; Central Banking; Ethics; Emerging Markets; Financial Markets; Corporate Governance; Financial Crisis; Financial Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Indonesia

02 Sep 2015
What Do You Think?

What's Wrong With Amazon’s Low-Retention HR Strategy?

service for customers and long-term profits to patient investors but disappointment for some people who have gone to work there. (In parlance that my co-authors and I used in a recent book that discusses Amazon, it still falls short of... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Web Services; Web Services; Web Services; Web Services; Web Services

21 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 21, 2008

on an Emerging Field Authors:Sandeep Purao, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Alan Hevner, Veda C. Storey, Jan Pries-Heje, Brian Smith, and Ying Zhu Abstract The boundaries and contours of design sciences continue to undergo definition and refinement.... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

December 2000
Background Note

Online Portals

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Sanjay Pothen

Describes the online portal business model. Analyzes the model, focusing on the tactics used to acquire new users, turn new users into repeat visitors, and monetize user traffic. Explains portals' revenue and cost drivers and their implications for pursuing aggressive... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Web Services Industry

September 2008 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Khosla Ventures: Biofuels Strategy

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

By 2008, a number of the firm's early cleantech investments were showing promise, and the companies were starting to need significantly more money to create the massive scale required in the energy sector. As Khosla thought about the hundreds of millions of dollars... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Marketing; Entrepreneurial Finance; New Product Development; Partnerships; Entrepreneurial Management; Venture Capital; Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Investment Funds; Environmental Sustainability; Product Development; Biotechnology Industry; Financial Services Industry

28 Aug 2007
First Look

First Look: August 28, 2007

users or securing their exclusive affiliation--are costly and risky. Describes less costly staged strategies for building two-sided platforms. With the "vendor to two-sided platform" strategy, a firm starts as a vendor selling products or View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Aug 2016
First Look

August 23, 2016

controlling for investment size, stage, and industry. Geographic distance and technological inexperience by the VC increase the probability the investment is taken up by a partner and not the VC. This work contributes to an emerging... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 12, 2021
Article

The Commercial Space Age Is Here

By: Matt Weinzierl and Mehak Sarang

In May of 2020, SpaceX made history as the first private company to send humans into space. This marks not only a tremendous technological achievement, but also the first indication that an entirely new “space-for-space” industry—that is, goods and services designed to... View Details

Keywords: Space Economy; New Markets; Emerging Markets; Opportunities; Entrepreneurship; Commercialization; Aerospace Industry

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24 Jul 2007
First Look

First Look: July 24, 2007

collaboration is becoming a new and important source of competitive advantage. We propose several frameworks to help firms develop and exploit this new ability. Explicating Lean Principles by Examining Indian Software Services Authors:... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2013
Working Paper

International Health Economics

By: Mark Egan and Tomas J. Philipson

Perhaps because health care is a local service sector, health economists have paid little attention to international linkages between domestic health care economies. However, the growth in domestic health care sectors is often attributed to medical innovations whose... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Global Range; Economics