Publications

2014
Chapter

Customer Experience and Service Design

By: Uday S. Karmarkar and Uma R. Karmarkar

While services already dominate economic activity in all major economies in the world, there has been curiously little investigation into many aspects of service management. For example, while product design and development have received a great deal of attention, the... View Details

Keywords: Service Design; Service Management; Product Design; Service Operations; Customer Satisfaction; Service Industry

February 2025
Case

Doing Business in Kigali, Rwanda

By: Andy Zelleke, Martin A. Sinozich, Julianne Bliss and Choetsow Tenzin

Rwanda’s transformation from a post-genocide recovery effort to one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies presents a compelling case for investors and business leaders. With an ambitious Vision 2050 strategy, Kigali has emerged as a regional hub for trade, innovation,... View Details

Keywords: Business History; International Relations; Government and Politics; Foreign Direct Investment; Culture; Transformation; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Emerging Markets; Rwanda

18 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

How Economic Clusters Drive Globalization

developing economies and globalization at large. “The cluster concept is often used to consider local factors,” Giacomin says, “but there’s a growing awareness that many clusters are also driven by external... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Agriculture & Agribusiness

20 Mar 2019
Working Paper Summaries

In the Shadows? Informal Enterprise in Non-Democracies

Keywords: by Kristin Fabbe, Allison Spencer Hartnett, and Steve L. Monroe

20 Feb 2009
Working Paper Summaries

When Does Domestic Saving Matter for Economic Growth?

Keywords: by Philippe Aghion, Diego Comin, Peter Howitt & Isabel Tecu

November 2007 (Revised December 2008)
Background Note

China Rising: An Economic Snapshot

"China Rising: An Economic Snapshot" provides readers with an overview of China's economic transformation, relying on economic data from a variety of sources. It is organized into three sections: (1) "The Big Picture" explores macroeconomic indicators, as well as those... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Macroeconomics; Microeconomics; Local Range; Globalized Economies and Regions; Business and Government Relations; China

March 2008
Case

Shangri-La Hotels

By: Dennis Campbell and Brent Kazan

In November 2006, Symon Bridle, the newly appointed chief operating officer of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, was thinking about a number of organizational issues that presented challenges to Shangri-La's rapid expansion strategy. There were three major issues at hand:... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Growth and Development Strategy; Standards; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Accommodations Industry; China; Europe; North America

26 Oct 2020
News

Great promise but potential for peril

March 2011
Article

The New M&A Playbook

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Richard Alton, Curtis Rising and Andrew Waldeck

Companies spend more than $2 trillion on acquisitions every year, yet the M&A failure rate is between 70% and 90%. Executives can dramatically increase their odds of success, the authors argue, if they understand how to select targets, how much to pay for them, and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Model; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Integration

March 2006 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Rwanda: National Economic Transformation

By: Michael E. Porter, Kaia Miller, Michael McCreless, Kjell Carlsson, Jem Hudson and Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason

Set in the year 2004, when Rwanda commemorated the 10th anniversary of a genocide that had claimed the lives of over 10% of its population. Focuses on the formulation of an economic strategy to rebuild the economy and its institutions after the devastation. Rwanda, one... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Developing Countries and Economies; Policy; Government Administration; Crisis Management; Strategy; Rwanda

Professor Louis T. Wells is the Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management at the Harvard Business School. He has served as consultant to governments of a number of developing countries, as well as to international organizations and private firms. His... View Details

Keywords: mining; telecommunications; utilities

17 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 17

Samuel G., and Adi Sunderam Abstract—We develop a novel methodology to infer the amount of capital allocated to quantitative equity arbitrage strategies. Using this methodology, which exploits time-variation in the cross section of short... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January–February 2019
Article

Cracking Frontier Markets

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon

Executive Summary:
With emerging-market giants such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China experiencing slowdowns, investors, entrepreneurs, and multinationals are looking elsewhere. They’ve been eyeing frontier economies such as Nigeria and Pakistan with great... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Innovation and Invention; Development Economics

Register to Read

December 2012 (Revised July 2013)
Case

The “Chongqing Model” and the Future of China

By: Meg Rithmire

Since opening to the global economy in 1979, but especially since entering the WTO in 2001, China's economy grew at rates around 10% annually by attracting FDI and promoting exports. After the financial crisis that began in 2008 and depressed demand in the United... View Details

Keywords: China; Public Sector; Private Sector; Developing Countries and Economies; Macroeconomics; Public Administration Industry; China

April 1993 (Revised May 2009)
Case

Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, India: In Service for Sight, The

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Starting as a modest 20-bed hospital, Aravind had grown into a 1,400-bed hospital complex by 1992. It had by then screened 3.65 million patients and performed 335,000 cataract surgeries, nearly 70% of them free of cost for the poorest of India's blind population.... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Social Marketing; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Welfare; Expansion; Health Industry; India

WILLIAM (WILLIS) EMMONS is Senior Lecturer and Director of the C. Roland Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard Business School, a position he has held since 2004. As Director of the Christensen Center, Emmons oversees programs to... View Details

Keywords: airline; infrastructure industry; pharmaceuticals; telecommunications; utilities

When Technology Gets Ahead of Society

New technologies can be unsettling for industry incumbents, regulators, and consumers, because norms and institutions for dealing with them don't yet exist. Interestingly, businesspeople in emerging economies face similar challenges: The rules are unclear and... View Details

October 29, 2011
Other Article

Upstream Sovereigns

By: Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych

With all the focus on Europe, it is easy to ignore the argument that global imbalances remain a drag on economic recovery. This column decomposes international capital flows into public and private components and claims that upstream flows from emerging to advanced... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Economies and Regions; Business Cycles; Balance and Stability; Capital; Developing Countries and Economies