Publications

May 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Benetton Group S.p.A., 2000

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In 2000, Benetton was one of the leading mass fashion competitors in the world with approximately $1.9 billion in sales across 5,500 stores in 120 countries. But the company's fortunes seemed to be on the wane. Operating profits had fallen 9% from the prior year to... View Details

Keywords: Fashion; Strategic Change; Strategic Management; Globalized Firms and Management; Marketing Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Performance Consistency; Management Teams; Strategy; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; Italy

Educators

20 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Blind Spots: We’re Not as Ethical as We Think

of the trap is the subject of the new book, Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It, by Max H. Bazerman, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Ann E. Tenbrunsel, a professor of business ethics at the University of Notre Dame. In short,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2008
Book

On Competition

By: M. E. Porter

Competition is one of society's most powerful forces for making things better in many ﬁelds of human endeavor. The study of competition and the creation of value, in their full richness, have preoccupied me for several decades. Competition is pervasive, whether it... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Practice; Competitive Strategy; Theory; Value Creation

February 2013 (Revised February 2013)
Case

Wayne Ferrari: iAutomation at a Crossroads

By: Jim Sharpe and Michael Norris

Wayne Ferrari has bridged the gap between being an independent entrepreneur and a "professional manager." After selling his business to a Private Equity (PE) firm, Ferrari takes on the role of CEO and with their support implements a roll-up strategy to attain growth... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Organizations; Leveraged Buyouts; Roll-up; Career Planning; Acquisitions; Pricing; Pricing Policies; Pricing Strategy; Pricing Structure; Acquisition; Entrepreneurship; Private Equity; Distribution; Integration; System; Electronics Industry; Distribution Industry; United States

Educators

06 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

How Younger Immigrants Gain an Edge in American Business

arrivals were also more likely to marry a US native or have a college-educated spouse. Older refugees showed gaps in language fluency, education, and income relative to their younger peers. Today, the younger group of immigrants are more... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

Research Summary

Overview

For the past several decades, income inequality in the United States has steadily increased. The extent of this inequality is exacerbated when making comparisons between the very rich and poor or men and women. Professor Exley’s research is driven by a desire to better... View Details

Article

The Evolution of Science-Based Business: Innovating How We Innovate

By: Gary P. Pisano

Science has long been connected to innovation and to business. As early as the late 19th century, chemical companies, realizing the commercial potential of science, created the first industrial research laboratories. During much of the 20th century, large-scale... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Governance; Innovation and Management; Risk Management; Research and Development; Science-Based Business; Commercialization

Article

Transition to Clean Technology

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, Douglas Hanley and William R. Kerr

We develop a microeconomic model of endogenous growth where clean and dirty technologies compete in production and innovation, in the sense that research can be directed to either clean or dirty technologies. If dirty technologies are more advanced to start with, the... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology Industry

03 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

Why a Failed Startup Might Be Good for Your Career After All

trajectories. Before founding their start-ups, founders attain jobs with wages up to 40 percent higher than those of similar non-founders. This wage gap between founders and non-founders only increases after founders reenter the labor... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Overview

By: Matthew C. Weinzierl

My academic research centers on uncovering and closing gaps between the theory and reality of tax policy. My main contribution has been to identify and address a mismatch between the goals for taxation typically assumed in theory and the goals the public and... View Details

07 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Supervisor of Sandwiches? More Companies Inflate Titles to Avoid Extra Pay

see it happening at the Gap and Pizza Hut, but we also see it happening at Facebook, JPMorgan, and health care firms.” There are now hundreds of thousands of workers across the US with dubious managerial titles doing jobs that would... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

2023
Working Paper

Life After Death: A Field Experiment with Small Businesses on Information Frictions, Stigma, and Bankruptcy

By: Shai Benjamin Bernstein, Emanuele Colonnelli, Mitchell Hoffman and Benjamin Iverson

In a randomized control trial (RCT) with U.S. small businesses, we document that a large share of firms are not well-informed about bankruptcy. Many assume that bankruptcy necessarily entails the death of a business and do not know about Chapter 11 bankruptcy, where... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Knowledge Dissemination; Outcome or Result

November 2019
Case

Celebrity Fashions Limited (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan, Tanvi Deshpande and Shreya Ramachandran

In May 2017 in Chennai, India, the chairman of Celebrity Fashions doubted whether the company could last until the end of the year. Venkatesh Rajagopal had found that the company, a readymade garment manufacturing and exporter he founded in 1989, was having a hard time... View Details

Keywords: Turnarounds; Operations; Management; Financial Condition; Problems and Challenges; Communication; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Transformation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Manufacturing Industry

Educators

April 2009
Case

Invest Early: Early Childhood Development in a Rural Community

By: Stacey M. Childress and Geoff Eckman Marietta

Invest Early was an early childhood development partnership in rural northern Minnesota between 14 different organizations, which worked together through an advisory board, governing board, and leadership team in order to deliver coordinated early childhood services to... View Details

Keywords: Early Childhood Education; Rural Scope; Management Teams; Managerial Roles; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Community Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Social and Collaborative Networks

21 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Sure Thing to Increase Productivity

using them can’t use the technology correctly. “AI tools might be good at predictions, but, if they are not used properly, there is no value in investing in such tools,” Choudhury says. Choudhury aims to fill that gap with a new working... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology; Information

23 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Men Want Powerful Jobs More Than Women Do

New research from Harvard Business School reveals a stark gap in the professional ambitions of men and women. Having surveyed a diverse sample of more than 4,000 men and women, a team of social scientists reports a list of potentially... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

July 2021
Article

Medical Debt in the U.S., 2009–2020

By: Raymond Kluender, Neale Mahoney, Francis Wong and Wesley Yin

Importance: Medical debt is an increasing concern in the US, yet there is limited understanding of the amount and distribution of medical debt, and its association with health care policies.

Objective: To measure the amount of medical debt nationally and by... View Details

Keywords: Debt; Borrowing and Debt; Health Care and Treatment; United States

10 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

In Empowering Black Voters, Did a Landmark Law Stir White Angst?

officials elected at the same time. Moreover, white voter registration rates spiked after the election of Black officials and continued to climb for at least a decade, the researchers find. “Even if the [Voting Rights Act] lowers the Black-white View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

2023
Article

A Review of Commercialisation Mechanisms for Carbon Dioxide Removal

By: Conor Hickey, Sam Fankhauser, Stephen Smith and Myles Allen

The deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) needs to be scaled up to achieve net zero emission pledges. In this paper we survey the policy mechanisms currently in place globally to incentivise CDR, together with an estimate of what different mechanisms are paying... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Dioxide Removal; Climate Change; Markets; Cost; Policy; Environmental Regulation