Publications

Article

Network Effects Aren't Enough

By: Andrei Hagiu and Simon Rothman

In many ways, online marketplaces are the perfect business model. Since they facilitate transactions between independent suppliers and customers rather than take possession of and responsibility for the products or services in question, they have inherently low cost... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competition; Internet and the Web; Network Effects; Market Participation

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May 2004 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Ultra: The Quest for Leadership (A)

By: Dwight B. Crane and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

Ultra is one of a small group of competing Brazilian petrochemical companies, each of which buys raw material and is a minority owner of Copene, a "cracking" company that provides ethylene and other materials. Because of an industry restructuring, an auction of shares... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Capital Budgeting; Investment; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Industry Structures; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Bids and Bidding; Economy; Ownership Stake; Chemical Industry; Brazil

January 1998
Case

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corporation (B)

By: H. Kent Bowen, Massimo Russo and Steven J. Spear

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corp. (CSSC), a 50-year-old spring manufacturing and metal stamping firm, is experiencing slow sales growth and feeling the impact of global competition. The company has over 800 customers but little understanding of those customers'... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Competency and Skills; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Production; Customer Relationship Management; Quality; Training; Performance Efficiency; Cost Management; Sales; System

This case explores the long-term relationship between Tempur Sealy (TPX, a mattress manufacturer) and Mattress Firm (MFRM, a bedding retailer and TPX’s largest customer). For almost 20 years, the firms have enjoyed a mutually beneficial and commercially prosperous... View Details

January 2025
Case

Negotiating a Legacy at Sustainable Harvest (A)

By: Jillian Jordan, Julian Zlatev, Alicia Dadlani and Martha Hostetter

The specialty coffee importer Sustainable Harvest was the first certified B Corp in the coffee industry due to its investments in building coffee farmers’ capacity and livelihood. But in 2022, after coffee prices plummeted and the company’s bank declined to extend its... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Acquisition; Trust; Ethics; Agribusiness; Volatility; Futures and Commodity Futures; Social Enterprise; Valuation; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Europe

2023
Working Paper

Estimating Productivity in the Presence of Spillovers: Firm-Level Evidence from the U.S. Production Network

By: Ebehi Iyoha

This paper examines the extent to which productivity gains are transmitted across U.S. firms through buyer-supplier relationships. Many empirical studies measure firm-to-firm spillovers using firm-level productivity estimates derived from control function approaches.... View Details

Keywords: Supply and Industry; Partners and Partnerships; Production

2011
Teaching Note

UFIDA (A) (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Bin Yang and E. Chen

The five-case UFIDA series is about China's largest supplier of management/ERP software, its 20-year evolution, and current strategic challenges. The (A) case is the cornerstone of the series. It introduces the company's history, strategic turning points, current... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Competition; Computer Software; Emerging Markets; Strategy; Applications and Software; China

December 2012
Case

Delwarca Software Remote Support Unit

By: Roy D. Shapiro and Paul E. Morrison

Delwarca Software provides business software to large corporate clients around the world. The firm serves customers who prefer to assemble corporate solutions using a combination of software programs from various suppliers rather than implementing a single enterprise... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Service Delivery; Mathematical Methods; Applications and Software; Problems and Challenges; Customer Satisfaction; Information Technology Industry

September 2004 (Revised December 2004)
Case

Metso Paper: Globalization of Finnish Metal Workshops

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Marikka Heikkila and Kalle Lyytinen

Metso Paper, the world's largest producer of paper machines, aims to transform itself into a knowledge- and information-based service and solution provider for the paper industry by aggressively exploiting information technologies. In the fall of 2002, Jorma Hujala, a... View Details

Keywords: Production; Customer Value and Value Chain; Information Technology; Corporate Strategy; Knowledge Management; Machinery and Machining; Expansion; Service Delivery; Manufacturing Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; Finland

As companies respond to intensifying competitive pressures and challenges, they ask more and more of their employees. But organizations often have very little to show for the efforts of their talented and engaged workers. By selecting fewer initiatives with... View Details

13 Mar 2008
Working Paper Summaries

An Investigation of Earnings Management through Marketing Actions

Keywords: by Craig J. Chapman & Thomas J. Steenburgh

Research Summary

Internalizing Global Value Chains: A Firm-Level Analysis

By: Laura Alfaro

In recent decades, advances in information and communication technology and falling trade barriers have led firms to retain within their boundaries and in their domestic economies only a subset of their production stages. A key decision facing firms worldwide is the... View Details

April 2019
Article

Internalizing Global Value Chains: A Firm-Level Analysis

By: Laura Alfaro, Pol Antràs, Davin Chor and Paola Conconi

In recent decades, advances in information and communication technology and falling trade barriers have led firms to retain within their boundaries and in their domestic economies only a subset of their production stages. A key decision facing firms worldwide is the... View Details

Keywords: Global Value Chains; Sequential Production; Incomplete Contracts; Demand and Consumers; Customer Value and Value Chain; Globalization

2017
Working Paper

Internalizing Global Value Chains: A Firm-Level Analysis

By: Laura Alfaro, Pol Antràs, Davin Chor and Paola Conconi

In recent decades, advances in information and communication technology and falling trade barriers have led firms to retain within their boundaries and in their domestic economies only a subset of their production stages. A key decision facing firms worldwide is the... View Details

Keywords: Global Value Chains; Sequential Production; Incomplete Contracts; Demand and Consumers; Customer Value and Value Chain; Globalization

2010
Working Paper

Competing Complements

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Barry Nalebuff and David B. Yoffie

In Cournot's model of complements, the producers of A and B are both monopolists. This paper extends Cournot's model to allow for competition between complements on one side of the market. Consider two complements, A and B, where the A + B bundle is valuable only when... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Revenue; Monopoly; Game Theory; Competition

March 2024 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Vineyard Wind Starts Spinning: Overcoming Onshore Challenges to Offshore Wind

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small

To activate the first wind turbines in the ocean off Martha’s Vineyard eventually supplying clean energy to 400,000 households, Vineyard Wind’s leaders had to navigate the permitting process, numerous delays, and objections from stakeholders in three communities:... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Renewable Energy; Joint Ventures; Green Technology; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Massachusetts; Martha's Vineyard; New Bedford; New England