Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(815)
- Faculty Publications (93)
- 2021
- Working Paper
No-fault Default, Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, and Financial Institutions
By: Robert C. Merton and Richard T. Thakor
This paper analyzes the costs and benefits of a no-fault-default debt structure as an alternative to the typical bankruptcy process. We show that the deadweight costs of bankruptcy can be avoided or substantially reduced through no-fault-default debt, which permits a... View Details
- September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
- Supplement
Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and The Cost of Capital
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher
In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details
- September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and The Cost of Capital
By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher
In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details
- August 2020 (Revised May 2021)
- Case
PayPal: The Next Chapter
By: Michael Porter, Mark Kramer and Annelena Lobb
Can a social purpose and stakeholder capitalism confer a powerful competitive advantage in the age of COVID-19? For PayPal, the answer is yes. After spinning off from eBay in a 2015 IPO, the company declared its purpose as "democratizing financial services" by ensuring... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Transaction Cost Economics in the Digital Economy: A Research Agenda
By: Frank Nagle, Robert Seamans and Steve Tadelis
Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) theory has played an important role in understanding when it is more efficient for a transaction between two parties to occur within the market or within an organization. However, as more transactions occur in a digitally-mediated... View Details
- June 2020
- Case
RBC: Transforming Transformation (A)
By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Aldo Sesia
In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian financial icon, mandated a swat team of “enablers of collaboration” (their job description) to support the personal and commercial bank in the enterprise-wide RBC Cultural Transformation initiative. Historically,... View Details
Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Transformation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Decision Making; Human Resources; Management Systems; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada
- June 2020
- Supplement
RBC: Transforming Transformation (B)
By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Aldo Sesia
In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian financial icon, mandated a swat team of “enablers of collaboration” (their job description) to support the personal and commercial bank in the enterprise-wide RBC Cultural Transformation initiative. Historically,... View Details
Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Transformation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Decision Making; Human Resources; Management Systems; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada
- Article
Are Cost Advantages from a Modern Indian Hospital Transferable to the United States?
By: R. S. Kaplan, F. Erhun, V.G. Narayanan, B. Mistry and K. Brayton, et al
We use time-driven activity-based costing to estimate the cost of personnel and space for an elective coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery at two U.S. hospitals, Intermountain and Baylor Heart, and Narayana Health (NH), in India. All three hospitals use modern... View Details
- May 2020
- Teaching Note
Talismark
By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 211-097. Talismark negotiated waste hauling contracts for small and medium size companies. Its owners, Charles Muszynski and Marshall Staiman, were able to grow the business by more than 30% per year since it was founded, but believed... View Details
- May–June 2020
- Article
The Agenda for the Next Generation of Health Care Information Technology
By: Thomas W. Feeley, Zachary Landman and Michael E. Porter
As the diffusion of value-based health care efforts accelerates globally, the need for interoperable information technology systems that support value-based care is essential. Such systems are needed to facilitate dramatic improvements in patient outcomes and... View Details
- October 2019
- Supplement
Airbus vs. Boeing (L): Discontinuing the A380 (February 2019)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman
This case describes Airbus’ February 2019 announcement that it was ending production of the A380, with the last delivery scheduled for 2021. The announcement followed an order cancellation by Emirates, a major customer of the A380. The A380 had faced significant... View Details
- Article
Achieving Value in Highly Complex Acute Care: Lessons from the Delivery of Extra Corporeal Life Support
By: Michael Nurok, Jonathan Warsh, Erik Dong, Jeffrey Lopez, Mayumi Kharabi and Robert S. Kaplan
We applied a value (outcomes and cost) analysis to extracorporeal life support (ECLS), a relatively rare but very expensive ICU therapy with highly variable outcomes. To address the outcome component of the value approach, we created guidelines for ECLS delivery; to... View Details
- March 2019 (Revised May 2019)
- Case
Fetchr: A New Way of Last Mile Delivery
By: V.G. Narayanan and Eren Kuzucu
By mid-2016, five years of aggressive growth had transformed Fetchr from a small logistics startup to a 1,000-employee, full-fledged last-mile delivery company operating across four countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Already beneficiaries of the... View Details
Keywords: Startup; Decision; Financial Strategy; UAE; KSA; MENA; Cost Accounting; Business Model; Business Startups; Transformation; Cost Management; Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Logistics; Service Delivery; Supply Chain Management; Performance Evaluation; Mathematical Methods; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Transportation Networks; Middle East; United Arab Emirates; Dubai; Bahrain; Egypt; Saudi Arabia; North Africa
- 2019
- Working Paper
Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 13 Platform Systems vs. Step Processes—The Value of Options and the Power of Modularity
This is the first chapter in Part 3. Its purpose is to contrast the value structure of platform systems with step processes from a technological perspective. I first review the basic technical architecture of computers and argue that every computer is inherently a... View Details
- Article
Operational Efficiency and Effective Management in the Catheterization Laboratory
By: Grant W. Reed, Michael L. Tushman and Samir R. Kapadia
Operational efficiency is a core business principle in which organizations strive to deliver high-quality goods or services in a cost-effective manner. This concept has become increasingly relevant to cardiac catheterization laboratories, as insurers move away from... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Ratcheting, Competition, and the Diffusion of Technological Change: The Case of Televisions Under an Energy Efficiency Program
By: Tomomichi Amano and Hiroshi Ohashi
In differentiated goods markets with societal implications, quality standards are commonly implemented to avoid the under-provision of innovation. Firms have clear incentives to engage in strategic behavior because policymakers use market outcomes as a benchmark in... View Details
- September 2018
- Article
Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services
By: Maria Ibanez, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats
Work-scheduling research typically prescribes task sequences implemented by managers. Yet employees often have discretion to deviate from their prescribed sequence. Using data from 2.4 million radiological diagnoses, we find that doctors prioritize similar tasks... View Details
Keywords: Discretion; Scheduling; Queue; Healthcare; Learning; Experience; Decentralization; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Efficiency; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Decisions; Time Management; Cost vs Benefits; Health Industry
- Fall 2018
- Article
What Problems Will You Solve with Blockchain?: Before Jumping on the Bandwagon, Companies Need to Carefully Consider how Ledger Technologies Fit into their Overall Strategy
By: Teppo Felin and Karim R. Lakhani
Distributed ledger technologies — collectively known as blockchain — have burst onto the business scene, accompanied by a significant amount of hype.They are widely expected to disrupt existing industries and lead to the creation of new types of companies. Some of the... View Details
- March 2018
- Case
EKOL Logistics: Thinking Outside the Box
By: Willy C. Shih and Esel Çekin
This case describes Ekol, an intermodal transportation and logistics company, and how it manages capacity planning. Its busiest routes linked motor vehicle assemblers in Germany and Turkey with many of their parts suppliers, but it had also developed key links in... View Details
Keywords: Growth And Development; Strategy; Intermodal Transportation; Short-sea Transportation; Capacity Management; Capacity Planning; Delivery Planning; Route Optimization; Car Spare Part; Auto Manufacturing; Automotive Supply Chain; Europe; Turkey; Service Design; Fast Fashion; Near-shoring; Supply Chain; Supply Chain Management; Operations; Performance Capacity; Performance Efficiency; Logistics; Transportation Industry; Auto Industry; Turkey; Germany; Spain; European Union; Europe
- March 2018 (Revised July 2018)
- Case
Whole Foods Under Amazon
By: Dennis Campbell, Tatiana Sandino, James Barnett and Christine Snively
In August 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Whole Foods was struggling with high costs and faced growing competition from traditional supermarkets offering more organic products. Prior to the acquisition, Whole Foods began rolling out a new... View Details