Publications

Ramon Casadesus-Masanell is the Herman C. Krannert Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He joined HBS in 2000 where he has taught the required MBA Strategy course, an elective course on Competing Business Models, and Ph.D. courses on... View Details

Keywords: apparel; energy; paper; semiconductor; software

January 2001 (Revised May 2010)
Case

BP Amoco (B): Financing Development of the Caspian Oil Fields

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

British Petroleum and Amoco were the two largest members of the Azerbaijan International Oil Consortium (AIOC), an 11-firm consortium that was spending $10 billion to develop oil fields in the Caspian Sea. As of March 1999, AIOC had completed a $1.9 billion development... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Policy; Capital Budgeting; Project Finance; Emerging Markets; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financing and Loans; Financial Strategy; Mining Industry; Energy Industry; United Kingdom; Europe

January–February 2018
Article

The Leader's Guide to Corporate Culture: How to Manage the Eight Critical Elements of Organizational Life

By: Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price and J. Yo-Jud Cheng

Executives are often confounded by culture, because much of it is anchored in unspoken behaviors, mindsets, and social patterns. But when properly managed, culture can help them achieve change and build organizations that will thrive in even the most trying times. In... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Performance Effectiveness; Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation

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15 Sep 2008
Research & Ideas

The Coming Transformation of Social Enterprise

but in many cases they won't. If you are looking for a social and not an economic return, then loyalty to the program rather than an exit strategy may be a better use of funds.... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

Article

Capturing Value from Intellectual Property (IP) in a Global Environment

By: Juan Alcácer, Karin Beukel and Bruno Cassiman

Globalization should provide firms with an opportunity to leverage their know-how and reputation across countries to create value. However, it remains challenging for them to actually capture that value using traditional Intellectual Property (IP) tools. In this paper,... View Details

Keywords: Appropriation Strategy; Counterfeit; Intellectual Property Rights; Litigation; Value Capturing; Intellectual Property; Rights; Value; Lawsuits and Litigation; Global Range; Situation or Environment

01 Mar 2019
News

INK: The Lessons of Blitzscaling

Need for Speed Entrepreneur and investor Chris Yeh (MBA 2000) and Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and a partner at Greylock Partners, have been fixtures in Silicon Valley since the early days of the... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint

February 1997 (Revised November 2007)
Case

Tale of Two Electronic Components Distributors

By: Ananth Raman and Bharat P. Rao

Discusses the role of distribution intermediaries in the electronic components industry, and describes operations at two of these distributors. Serves as a vehicle to discuss the functions provided by distributors in the channel. Also lets students understand the... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Distribution Channels; Consolidation; Internet; Distribution Industry; Electronics Industry

January 2020
Article

Rethinking Measurement of Pay Disparity and Its Relation to Firm Performance

By: Ethan Rouen

I develop measures of firm-level pay disparity and examine their relation to firm performance. Using comprehensive compensation data for a large sample of firms, I find no statistically significant relation between the ratio of CEO-to-mean employee compensation and... View Details

Keywords: Pay Disparity; Pay Ratio; CEO Pay Ratio; Income Inequality; Executive Compensation; Employees; Wages; Equality and Inequality; Business Ventures; Performance

December 1982 (Revised July 1985)
Case

Kennedy and the Balance of Payments

By: David B. Yoffie

In 1960, the United States was facing a balance of payments problem. Gold reserves were being drained, American products were losing competitiveness, and the dollar was under attack. This case analyzes the roots of this problem, provides an opportunity to discuss in... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Accounting; Macroeconomics; Money; Currency; Trade; United States

2019
Chapter

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

By: Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona

N.S.B. Gras, the father of business history in the United States, argued that the era of mercantile capitalism was defined by the figure of the “sedentary merchant,” who managed his business from home, using correspondence and intermediaries, in contrast to the earlier... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; History; Business History

What’s behind the phenomenal success of entertainment businesses such as Warner Bros., Marvel Enterprises, and the NFL—along with such stars as Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, and LeBron James? Which strategies give leaders in film, television, music, publishing, and sports an edge... View Details

September 2023 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Seeds of Innovation: GALY's Quest to Cultivate the Future of Agriculture in the Lab

By: George Serafeim and Michael Norris

In 2023, Luciano Bueno, CEO and founder of plant cell culture agriculture company GALY, was considering the best path forward for his company as he planned to pitch Series B investors. GALY, founded in 2019, aimed to produce cotton and other crops from cells grown in... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Green Technology; Goods and Commodities; Growth and Development Strategy; Science-Based Business; Entrepreneurship; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Startups; Decisions; Technological Innovation; Production; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Technology Industry; Boston; Sao Paulo

February 2019 (Revised September 2021)
Case

The a2 Milk Company

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) became the most valuable company listed on the New Zealand stock exchange in 2018 by capitalizing on a biochemical discovery related to the protein composition of cow's milk. Because many people find the A1 protein difficult to digest, and... View Details

Web

Media Coverage - Managing the Future of Work

Workforce With AI: Harvard Business School’s Raffaella Sadun Re: Raffaella Sadun 19 Mar 2025 Hill Fed Keeps Rates Unchanged as Trump Tariffs, Economic Concerns Loom Re: Willy Shih 10 Mar 2025 Harvard Business Review How Gen AI Could... View Details

25 Feb 2015
HBS Seminar

Jeffrey Schnapp, Harvard Graduate School of Design

02 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

The Dubious Logic of Global Megamergers

actually been marked by steady decreases in concentration since World War II. Executives, they write, "need to break free of the biases that lead them to pursue larger and larger cross-border deals. There are better, more profitable... View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat & Fariborz Ghadar

01 Dec 2017
News

The Power of Cultural Understanding

Jafar says that it is important to understand and tackle the root causes of the problems. He also believes in empowering the private sector and building an eco-system that supports economic growth, improved... View Details

06 Jul 2016
What Do You Think?

How Do We Pay for the Costs of Globalization?

Research has shown that the benefits of globalization are substantial. For example, a study of the effects of the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership by the Peterson Institute... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett; Manufacturing

August 2002
Other Article

The Determinants of National Innovative Capacity

By: Jeffrey L. Furman, Michael E. Porter and Scott Stern

Motivated by differences in innovation intensity across advanced economies, this paper presents an empirical examination of the determinants of country-level production of international patents. We introduce a novel framework based on the concept of national innovative... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Growth and Development