Publications

17 Oct 2014
News

Can Google Express deliver on same-day shopping?

December 1967 (Revised May 2004)
Case

Super Project, The

Describes the proper use of incremental analysis for capital investment decisions. View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Corporate Finance

18 Aug 2014
News

Have a Better Idea To Improve Health Care?

March 2006 (Revised November 2007)
Case

Manchester Bidwell Corporation (A)

By: James L. Heskett

The head of Manchester Bidwell Corp. ponders what it will take to replicate its social services in 100 cities across North America and internationally--an effort that ultimately would cost several hundred million dollars. View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Social Entrepreneurship; Leadership Style; Growth Management; Welfare; North and Central America

December 2022
Case

Mission Produce in 2022

By: Forest Reinhardt, Jose B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Founded by CEO Steve Barnard in 1983, California-based Mission Produce was a leading supplier of Hass avocados with a global sourcing, marketing, and distribution network and $892 million in 2021 sales. Barnard had been influential in the global avocado trade’s... View Details

Keywords: Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; California; Peru; Guatemala; Colombia; Mexico; Chile

2016
Chapter

Ignore, Avoid, Abandon, and Embrace: What Drives Firm Responses to Environmental Regulation?

By: David F. Drake and Robin L. Just

A regulator's ability to incentivize environmental improvement among firms is vital in achieving long-term sustainability. However, firms can and do respond to environmental regulation in a variety of ways: complying with its intent; avoiding the regulation by... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Environmental Operations; Regulation; Cost vs Benefits; For-Profit Firms; Operations; Environmental Sustainability

2009
Working Paper

Modeling a Paradigm Shift: From Producer Innovation to User and Open Collaborative Innovation

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Eric von Hippel

In this paper we assess the economic viability of innovation by producers relative to two increasingly important alternative models: innovations by single user individuals or firms, and open collaborative innovation projects. We analyze the design costs and... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Policy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Independent Innovation and Invention; Intellectual Property; Rights; Welfare

Michael Porter is an economist, researcher, author, advisor, speaker and teacher. Throughout his career at Harvard Business School, he has brought economic theory and strategy concepts to bear on many of the most challenging problems facing corporations, economies... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; e-commerce industry; health care; information; information technology industry; internet; nonprofit industry; service industry; state government

June 2000
Case

Hollydazzle.com

This case describes the unique underlying economics of a start-up Internet retailing company. It highlights the fact that costs in that setting have a component that varies with volume and thus seriously impacts profitability. View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Internet and the Web; Business Startups; Retail Industry

February 1986 (Revised January 1996)
Background Note

Currency Swaps

Describes uses of foreign currency swaps and development of both interest rate and foreign currency swaps market. Emphasis on calculation of all-in costs using foreign currency swaps and conversion of basis points in one currency to basis points in a different... View Details

Keywords: Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Currency Exchange Rate; Capital Markets

November 2019 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Shiseido Acquires Drunk Elephant

By: Jill Avery

On October 7, 2019, the Shiseido Group announced that it would acquire clean skincare brand Drunk Elephant for $845 million, a valuation of 8.5 times sales. Did Shiseido pay too much or too little for this brand asset? How much was the Drunk Elephant brand worth and... View Details

Keywords: Personal Care; Startup; Brand Equity; Brand Valuation; Brand Value; Brand Storytelling; Brand Management; Brands and Branding; Valuation; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Japan

August 2003 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Building to a Crescendo

By: Noam T. Wasserman and Vishesh Kumar

Examines the efforts of an early-stage venture capital firm to formalize processes and build a pyramidal organization in an industry dominated by informal, unpyramidal structures. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Organizational Structure; Business Startups

TeachingInterests

Finance I

By: Archie L. Jones

This course examines the role of finance in supporting the functional areas of a firm, and fosters an understanding of how financial decisions themselves can create value.

Topics covered include:

Basic analytical skills and principles of... View Details

August 8, 2018
Article

Hospital-based ACOs Face Challenges in Tracking Performance Indicators

By: Christiana Beveridge, Sofia Warner, Greg Leya and Thomas W. Feeley

Given that accountable care organizations (ACOs) have not achieved the degree of cost reductions and quality improvements initially hoped for, we sought to better understand the underlying reasons for their limited success. Our analysis of American Hospital Association... View Details

Keywords: ACOs; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Performance; Measurement and Metrics

September 2008 (Revised September 2011)
Background Note

Note: Credit Rating Agencies

By: William E. Fruhan

The note examines the role of credit rating agencies in capital markets, with emphasis on the role of these agencies in the recent credit crisis and recommendations for change. View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital Markets; Credit; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Standards

February 2002
Background Note

Note on Commercial Real Estate Financial Market

By: Arthur I Segel and Melissa Yin-Yin Lam

Discusses the recent history of the commercial real estate financial market (pre-1990s-2001). Looks at the shift to more conventional capital markets for commercial real estate debt. View Details

Keywords: History; Capital Markets; Financial Markets; Borrowing and Debt; Real Estate Industry

October 2013
Article

The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care

By: Michael E. Porter and Thomas H. Lee

In health care, the days of business as usual are over. Around the world, every health care system is struggling with rising costs and uneven quality, despite the hard work of well-intentioned, well-trained clinicians. Health care leaders and policy makers have tried... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategy; Value; Customer Focus and Relationships; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

Find at Harvard

August 2001
Case

Scios, Inc.

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Scios, filled with distinguished scientists and experienced managers, nevertheless fails to clear the FDA Phase III process for an important biotechnology drug. This case asks the students to analyze the social costs and benefits of the regulatory process. View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Cost vs Benefits; Social Issues; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

July/September 2005
Article

Le consensus de Paris: la France et les règles de la finance mondiale

By: Rawi Abdelal

This article is about the institutional foundations of the globalization of finance. These institutional foundations are both informal and formal. Until the 1980s the formal rules of the international financial architecture – most consequentially in the European Union... View Details

Keywords: Policy; International Finance; Globalization; France; European Union