by Zeynep Ton - Publications - Faculty & Research

24 Mar 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Cutting Jobless Aid Isn't the Answer to Worker Shortages

About half of US states—mostly run by Republican governors—cut off extended unemployment benefits months before the federal government was planning to end them on Labor Day last year, convinced workers would flood back to employers who... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

11 Aug 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Perfecting the Project Pitch

reasons. "Some people just don't know how to talk about an idea. They'll give you tons of background information, and at the end of the five minutes, they're just getting around to the actual idea. It should be just the... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher

17 Dec 2007
Research & Ideas

The Rise of Medical Tourism

sense it was all around us. It took a set of entrepreneurs to begin to make it happen. By the late 1990s, when I was teaching courses in global strategy, some of my Thai, Malaysian, and Singaporean students were perfectly aware of the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health; Medical Devices & Supplies

11 Jun 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching the Next Generation of Energy Executives

You may think that being an energy executive—especially a manager in a leading oil company—might be the easiest job around. Just flip the production switch, and watch gas prices head toward $4 a gallon. But students enrolled in Harvard Business School professor Forest... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

20 Aug 2014
Research & Ideas

Dragging Patent Trolls Into the Light

looks overwhelmingly like NPEs are just targeting firms that are more likely to pay out” Known as Non-Practicing Entities (NPEs), the companies in the Baxter Building are located in Marshall for one reason: the federal courthouse next door. There, they bring View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Legal Services

29 Jan 2018
Book

How 'Teaming' Saved 33 Lives in the Chilean Mining Disaster

meters below ground at which the miners were trapped in the aftermath of an explosion that left half a million tons of rock blocking the mine's entrance. The number of miners trapped (33), the hardness of the rock, the instability of the... View Details

Keywords: by Amy C. Edmondson; Mining

16 Aug 2022
Op-Ed

Now Is the Time for Entrepreneurs to Play Offense

demonstrably bright future ahead. Like the talent point above, C-level executives at companies that were rocket ships at one point find themselves either laid off or disillusioned by their future prospects. That stretch VP of sales? Go... View Details

Keywords: by Jeffrey Bussgang

06 May 2013
Research & Ideas

How Local Events Shake Up Corporate Philanthropy

Historically, though, such research has neglected to consider how firms are affected by major local events, whether they be planned (the Super Bowl or FIFA World Cup, for instance) or unplanned (an earthquake or hurricane). Marquis and... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

February 2024
Supplement

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

By: George Serafeim

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; Entrepreneurial Finance; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Technology Industry; Boston; Sao Paulo

Citation

Purchase

20 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

Rocket-tunity: Can Private Firms Turn a Profit in Space?

space race have been blessed somewhat by the glamour of it all. Investors enthusiastically, maybe too much so, backed a host of startups including those headed by superstar names like Sir Richard Branson,... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Wallask; Aerospace; Tourism; Transportation

15 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Remembering Alfred Chandler

academics talk a good game about the need for interdisciplinary thinking, but we usually fall back on the strengths (or prejudices) of our primary discipline. Chandler was heavily influenced by sociologists such as Max Weber and Talcott... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

13 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Your Company Wants to be a 'Cognitive Referent' (Hint: SpaceX)

to think the firm has failed rather than evolved. GETTING THE LABEL RIGHT How the firms dealt with labels, which often were attached to them by external sources like analysts or the media, also factored into a company’s success. As... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Aerospace; Food & Beverage; Retail

16 Nov 2016
Research & Ideas

Turning One Thousand Customers into One Million

soliciting feedback from its most loyal and vocal customers” As impressive as that accomplishment was, 1,000 customers is hardly enough to ensure long-run success. For that, these companies had to scale up dramatically, from 1,000 to over 1 million, which is the... View Details

Keywords: by Thales S. Teixeira and Michael Blanding; Retail; Transportation; Accommodations

24 Jun 2002
Research & Ideas

Four Keys of Enduring Success: How High Achievers Win

would you want your children to be these people? Defining your own yardstick for success can often be quite difficult, according to Stevenson. "A ton of books on success all say, 'Choose your target and shoot at it,'" he said.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

06 Sep 2004
Research & Ideas

The Innovator’s Battle Plan

replacement to silver halide film in our core market?" By seeking to create high-priced, performance-competitive digital products, Kodak missed much of the disruptive growth driven by inexpensive... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony & Erik A. Roth

08 Jun 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Twenty-first Century Skill: Trading Carbon Credits

reinforces the role of uncertain prices in a cap-and-trade mechanism," Coles says. "It contrasts with a simple command-and-control approach to regulation that specifies maximum pollution levels allowed by industry, or a carbon... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

30 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Market Makers Bid for Success

happened in natural gas in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And, there's always money to be saved in industrial sourcing. If management really focuses on purchasing and puts effort into it, you can always save money by creating more... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Web Services; Technology

12 Feb 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

‘UpTick’ Brings Wall Street Pressure to Students

conjectured they would get a much more natural and powerful way of reaching a conclusion by creating a setting where the students actually go through some kind of competitive process to reach the same outcomes they would otherwise be... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Financial Services; Education

April 1999 (Revised March 2002)
Background Note

Aluminum Industry in 1994, The

After reaching all-time highs in excess of $2,500 per ton in 1988 and 1989, aluminum prices fall dramatically in the early 1990s as the former Soviet Union begins exporting far larger quantities of metal. By the beginning of 1994, the price has hit all-time lows (in... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Price; Supply and Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Soviet Union