Publications

August 2013 (Revised August 2014)
Case

Aon Hewitt's Private Health Insurance Exchange

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Aiden Y. Feng and Meghan D. Oliver

Aon Hewitt, a leading health insurance broker and consultant, is one of the first movers in forming exchanges to sell health insurance. What kinds of products should it offer on this exchange? View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Insurance

September 1992
Case

Kodak Business Imaging Systems Division

By: Marie-Therese M. Flaherty and Steven C. Wheelwright

Describes Kodak's decision regarding a manufacturing site for some of its products. Compares several types of products (with different cost structures) and several worldwide locations (with different characteristics). Provides a framework (model) for comparing and... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Production; Product; Global Range; Supply Chain Management; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Electronics Industry

February 2020 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Prime Coalition: Catalytic Capital for Climate Innovation

By: Ramana Nanda, Benjamin N. Roth and Olivia Hull

With long development timelines and high risk, new energy technologies were often left to languish in the “valley of death,” unable to raise enough funds to bring a product to market. In 2014, Sarah Kearney founded the nonprofit Prime Coalition to solve this problem.... View Details

Keywords: Energy Conservation; Renewable Energy; Social Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Mission and Purpose; Science-Based Business; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Enterprise; Energy Industry; Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States

5 Jan 2011
Other Presentation

Rethinking Capitalism

By: Michael E. Porter

Michael E. Porter, Harvard University professor, explains why business leaders must focus on shared value—creating products and services that benefit not only the company but also society. He is the coauthor of the HBR article Creating Shared Value. View Details

Keywords: Society; Strategy; United States

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October 1989 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Texas Eastman Co.

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The company as part of a commitment to Total Quality Management has installed a computer system that accumulates 30,000 observations on its processes every 2-4 hours. Operating people have found the monthly summaries of financial performance not too useful in this... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Information Technology; Reports; Business or Company Management

Frances Frei is a Professor of Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School. Her research investigates how leaders accelerate performance and design for excellence in leadership, strategy, and operations. She regularly advises senior executives... View Details

Keywords: airline; banking; fast food; financial services; health care; hotels ＆ motels; management consulting; media; nonprofit industry; professional services; retail financial services; service industry; sports; telecommunications; tourism; travel

April 2000
Article

The Fable of Fisher Body

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Daniel F. Spulber

General Motors' (GM) acquisition of Fisher Body is the classic example of market failure in the literature on contracts and the theory of the firm. According to the standard account, GM merged vertically with Fisher Body in 1926, a maker of auto bodies, because of... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Failure; Contracts; Vertical Integration; Market Transactions; Investment; Trust; Production; Assets; Supply Chain; Opportunities; Technology; Auto Industry

Find at Harvard

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2008
Working Paper

Contracting for Servicizing

By: Michael W. Toffel

Servicizing, a novel business practice that sells product functionality rather than products, has been touted as an environmentally beneficial business practice. This paper describes how servicizing transactions mitigate some problems associated with sales... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Contracts; Market Transactions; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Sales

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19 Nov 2024
HBS Seminar

Christian Terwiesch, Wharton

22 Feb 2017
News

What Mark Zuckerberg Understands About Corporate Purpose

Research Summary

Exploring the Tail of Creativity: An Evolutionary Model of Breakthrough Invention

This research, under the direction of Lee Fleming, argued for a distributional approach to new product development and has formed the basis for my subsequent research. View Details

Video

Hani Berzi

Hani Berzi, founder and CEO of Egypt-based Edita Food Industries, explains the positioning of Edita’s packed croissants ‘Molto’ as a mass product in the Egyptian market. View Details

01 Aug 2014
News

A High-Tech New Way for Your Boss to Follow You Everywhere

30 Nov 2018
News

Be a disruptor to avoid disruption

02 May 2023
Blog Post

From Harvard Business School to Spotify: Four Lessons in My Journey to Land My Dream Job

Rodolfo A. Diaz Cabello (MBA 2021) reflects on how his experiences at Harvard Business School supported his path to building new products at Spotify. In October 2022 I joined Spotify as a Senior Product... View Details

September 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

RightHand Robotics: Choosing the First Market

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Stacy Straaberg

In early 2015, RightHand Robotics’s (RHR) leadership faced a set of decisions in commercializing the startup’s robotic picking solution. RHR’s central product was the RightPick integrated robotic picking system which featured a robotic arm, a three-fingered robotic... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Market Entry and Exit; Product; Research and Development; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Information Infrastructure; Technological Innovation; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Massachusetts