Publications

March 2001
Article

Strategy and the Internet

By: M. E. Porter

Many of the pioneers of Internet business, both dot-coms and established companies, have competed in ways that violate nearly every precept of good strategy. Rather than focus on profits, they have chased customers indiscriminately through discounting, channel... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Online Technology

30 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Managing the Family Business: Preparing to Sell

companies, and those that do sell generally part with them very reluctantly, given all that selling represents. We sympathize with a family's emotional attachment to its company. But given how fast industries are changing and other... View Details

Keywords: by Jonathan Pellegrin; Food & Beverage; Retail

23 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Break Your Addiction to Service Heroes

excellence in these areas; designing management systems that help employees to succeed at their jobs; and training their customers. Q: To be a great service company, do you have to be equally good at all of those? A: Frei: We usually... View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg; Service

01 May 2009
What Do You Think?

Do Innovation and Entrepreneurship Have to Be Incompatible with Organization Size?

Summing Up Where are the leaders that can help elephants avoid a stall? Like a good case study, this month's question divided respondents nearly down the middle on the question of whether or not organizations naturally "stall"... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

Article

Households' Willingness to Pay for 'Green' Goods: Evidence from Patagonia's Introduction of Organic Cotton Sportswear

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Michael Crooke, Forest L. Reinhardt and Vishal Vasishth

To shed light on individuals' willingness to pay for "green" goods (i.e., goods that are supposed to have lower adverse environmental impacts either in production or in use), we study data from the introduction by Patagonia, Inc., of organic cotton sportswear in the... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Consumer Behavior; Environmental Sustainability; Consumer Products Industry

01 Nov 1999
Lessons from the Classroom

What’s Next & So What? Leading in the 21st Century

industries that can be anybody, anywhere. While some observers have dismissed the phenomenon as exclusive to "a few crazy Internet companies in California," the reality is this: the value of corporate incumbency these days is... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

Spring 2012
Article

The Roadmap for Private Equity, Venture Capital and Hedge Funds in Mexico: Alternative Assets as an Accelerator of Credit to Firms in Emerging Markets

By: Roberto Charvel

This article shows how alternative assets could be a good way for banks to start providing more loans to firms in emerging markets and finance growth, while giving local institutional investors access to new asset types. View Details

Research Summary

Dynamic Demand Estimation in Platform and Two-Sided Markets

This paper develops techniques to structurally estimate consumer demand in general platform-intermediated and two-sided markets. By estimating both sides of the market simultaneously, the methodology presented here is able to (1) endogenize the utility of a platform as... View Details

April 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Maersk: Betting on Blockchain

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

In March 2018, international shipping giant Maersk is getting ready to debut a trade digitization platform. Maersk hopes the platform will help streamline global trade since shipping goods internationally is an extraordinarily complicated and inefficient process.... View Details

Keywords: Maersk; IBM; Blockchain; Shipping; Shipping Line; Trade; Bitcoin; Digitization; Container Shipping; Joint Ventures; Ship Transportation; Transportation Networks; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Applications and Software; Shipping Industry; Shipping Industry

01 Jul 2013
Research & Ideas

Crowdfunding a Poor Investment?

$10 million. Other companies have raised amounts in the thousands to produce specific products or apps, offering those who donate funds an advanced version or limited edition of the product. "It's a really good example of one of the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

03 Nov 2010
Working Paper Summaries

How Did Increased Competition Affect Credit Ratings?

Keywords: by Bo Becker & Todd Milbourn; Financial Services

April 18, 2013
Article

Leading Clinicians and Clinicians Leading

By: Richard Bohmer

More effective models of care delivery are needed, but their successful implementation depends on effective care teams and good management of local operations (clinical microsystems). Clinicians influence both, and local clinician leaders will have several key tasks. View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Performance; Leadership; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

Read Now

January 2001 (Revised October 2002)
Case

The American Medical Association-Sunbeam Deal (A): Serpent on the Staff Meets Chainsaw Al

By: Ashish Nanda and Kimberly A. Haddad

Facing dwindling membership and looking to increase its revenue, the American Medical Association (AMA) signed an endorsement deal with Sunbeam Corp., a leader in the small home appliance industry, in August 1997. In the deal, the AMA would receive significant... View Details

Keywords: Conflict of Interests; Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States

24 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Linking the Globe: The Role of Media and Communications

CEO Peter Job from the U.K. and the panel's moderator, HBS Professor Debora Spar, for a look at the critical role of the media industry in how today's global information revolution plays out. "The media industry," said Spar in... View Details

Keywords: by Kenneth Liss; Information; Publishing; Journalism & News; Media & Broadcasting

01 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 1

behavioral ethics is better suited than traditional approaches to address the increasing demand from society for a deeper understanding of what causes even good people to cross ethical boundaries. Schumpeterian Competition and... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

February 2016 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Bankruptcy at Caesars Entertainment

By: Kristin Mugford and David Chan

Caesars Entertainment was a large casino operator in the United States that had been purchased in a 2008 leveraged buyout by Apollo and TPG. In January 2015, Caesars Entertainment Operating Company (CEOC), its largest subsidiary, filed for Chapter 11. This set up a... View Details

Keywords: Gaming; Chapter 11; Fraudulent Conveyance; Apollo; TPG; Bankruptcy; Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Capital Structure; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Private Equity; Financial Management; Lawsuits and Litigation; Negotiation; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Las Vegas

2014
Working Paper

Waste, Recycling and Entrepreneurship in Central and Northern Europe, 1870–1940

By: Geoffrey Jones and Andrew Spadafora

This working paper examines the role of entrepreneurs in the municipal solid waste industry in industrialized central and northern Europe from the late nineteenth century to the 1940s. It explores the emergence of numerous German, Danish, and other European... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Entrepreneurship; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Health; History; Green Technology Industry; Germany; Denmark; Hungary; United Kingdom

SSRN

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October 2006 (Revised September 2014)
Case

Summit Partners - The FleetCor Investment (A)

By: Michael J. Roberts

Part of a 3-case series in which students get to see the unfolding of due diligence on private equity (buy out) deal. In this, the A case, the deal team has negotiated a letter of intent with FleetCor, a firm that operates a fuel payment network for vehicle fleets.... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Preparation; Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Investment; Negotiation Offer; Service Industry