Publications

01 Apr 2014
First Look

First Look: April 1

market, we induce a theoretical framework to explain how firms win the race to find a viable business model. As the new market emerged, high-performing firms enacted three strategies in sequence that helped them achieve their objective... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Make Restructuring Work for Your Company

question the status quo and consider alternative ways of doing business. This sense of "organizational unease" was encouraged by Humana's CEO-founder, who twice before had shifted the company's course to a brand-new industry. As the company's integrated... View Details

Keywords: by Stuart C. Gilson

24 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 24, 2007

Student Outcomes in U.S. Public Education Harvard Business School Note 307-068 Surveys educational outcomes among public school students in the United States. Educational outcomes are categorized as achievement outcomes (measured primarily by students' performance on... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2016
Article

Organizational Decision-Making and Information: Angel Investments by Venture Capital Partners

By: Andy Wu

We study information aggregation in organizational decision-making for the financing of entrepreneurial ventures. We introduce a formal model of voting where agents face costly tacit information to improve their decision quality. Equilibrium outcomes suggest a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Angel Investors; Organization Design; Voting; Group Decision-making; Information; Strategy; Organizations; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Financing and Loans

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January 2008
Case

Procter & Gamble Brazil (A): 2 1/2 Turnarounds

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Matthew Bird

Juliana Azevedo Schahin, a local marketing director for Procter & Gamble in Sao Paulo, had worked closely with Tarek Fahahat, a regional executive based in Caracas, to solve the growth and profitability problems of P&G Brazil. They did so through the creation of... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Demand and Consumers; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Expansion; Consumer Products Industry; Caracas

Research Summary

Reforming Social Science

By: Max H. Bazerman

Social science research affects all of us. When researchers learned organ donation rates are higher in countries where human organs are automatically available for donation unless you specifically “opt-out” of the system, as opposed to countries like the U.S., where... View Details

2008
Working Paper

Structural Closure and Exposure: Market Reactions to Announcements of Acquisitions and Divestitures

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and Nitin Nohria

This paper develops an exchange-network perspective on corporate diversification and proposes two measures of corporate scope: structural closure and structural exposure. Structural closure focuses on exchanges of goods and services inside the firm... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Market Transactions; Diversification; Boundaries; Valuation

22 Jul 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Reputation and Competition: Evidence from the Credit Rating Industry

Keywords: by Bo Becker & Todd Milbourn; Financial Services

September 2020
Case

Minerva 2010: Turbulent Times

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In 2010, amid a flurry of new discoveries, Cynthia Bamdad, founder and CEO of Minerva Biotechnologies Corporation (Minerva), raised $6.6 million to test her new cancer drugs in mice. It had been more than 6 years since she had announced that she and her small team at... View Details

Keywords: Biotechnology; Research; Product Development; Commercialization; Strategy

2008
Working Paper

The Internalization of Advertising Services: An Inter-Industry Analysis

By: Sharon Horsky, Steven C. Michael and Alvin J. Silk

The common perception appears to be that vertical integration of advertising services is more the exception than the rule in the U.S. advertising industry. This study investigates the extent of such outsourcing and examines inter-industry variation in the use of... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Cost; Analytics and Data Science; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Service Operations; Creativity; Perception; Vertical Integration; Information Technology; Advertising Industry; United States

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18 Feb 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence and Exceptions

Keywords: by Lyra Colfer & Carliss Y. Baldwin

29 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Is There a Method to Musk’s Madness on Twitter?

technology entrepreneurs and the strategies they use to gain a competitive edge. Wu spoke to the Harvard Gazette about his take on Musk’s recent moves. Interview has been edited for clarity and length. Harvard Gazette: Many of Elon Musk’s... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Technology

30 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 30, 2019

2019 HarperBusiness The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power By: Cusumano, Michael A., Annabelle Gawer, and David B. Yoffie Abstract—The Business of Platforms explores the strategic,... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

January 2011
Article

Let the Right One In: A Microeconomic Approach to Partner Choice in Mutualisms

By: Marco Archetti, Francisco Ubeda, Drew Fudenberg, Jerry R. Green, Naomi E. Pierce and Douglas W. Yu

One of the main problems impeding the evolution of cooperation is partner choice. When information is asymmetric (the quality of a potential partner is known only to himself), it may seem that partner choice is not possible without signaling. Many mutualisms, however,... View Details

Keywords: Microeconomics; Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; System; Problems and Challenges; Information; Economics; Theory; Cost; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cooperation

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November 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Tim Ferriss: What Might This Look like If It Were Easy?

By: Reza Satchu and Denise Koller

In April 2024, writer-podcaster Tim Ferriss—celebrated as the “Oprah of audio” for his billion-download show and known for NYT-bestsellers like The 4-Hour Workweek—found himself at a crossroads. Despite generating a multi-million-dollar annual revenue with just three... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Personal Development and Career; Business Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Media and Broadcasting Industry