Publications

August 2012 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Public Health Insurance Exchanges: The Massachusetts Experience

By: Regina Herzlinger and Jordan Bazinsky

The CEO of Tufts Health Plan, James Roosevelt, is wondering whether to offer insurance products on the Massachusetts Connector, the first U.S. exchange. He wonders if he should enter these uncharted waters at all. And, if yes, with a broad network or a narrow network... View Details

Keywords: Health Insurance Exchange; Healthcare Reform; Public Health Insurance Exchange; Decision Making; Market Entry and Exit; Emerging Markets; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance Industry; Health Industry; Massachusetts

September 2010 (Revised December 2011)
Case

WildChina: Taking the Road Less Traveled

By: Mukti Khaire, Daniel Isenberg, Victoria Song and Shirley Spence

This case deals with supplier difficulties faced by WildChina—a travel service provider in China. WildChina is a classic case of a company that is trying to bring a local, within-country product to a market outside the country (in this case, travelers to China from... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Customer Focus and Relationships; Local Range; Globalized Markets and Industries; Supply Chain Management; Conflict Management; Travel Industry; China

January 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

GLOBALGAP: Food Safety and Private Standards

By: David E. Bell and Mary Louise Shelman

In response to new laws governing liability and several food safety scares in the 1990s, European retailers drove the creation of a universal production standard based on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for fresh fruit and vegetables and a third-party certification... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Food; Governance Compliance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Government Relations; Safety; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Europe

December 2008 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

By: David E. Bell and Brian Matthew Milder

In 2006, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation joined together to form a new organization, AGRA, to tackle the historic challenge of increasing agricultural production in Africa. Launched with much fanfare and led by former U.N.... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Investment Funds; Food; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business and Government Relations; Non-Governmental Organizations; Poverty; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa

July 2002 (Revised March 2003)
Case

Restructuring Bulong's Project Debt

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

Preston Resources, a small Australian gold mining company, bought the Bulong nickel mine for A$319 million in November 1998 and financed the acquisition by issuing a US$185 million (A$294 million) project bond. At the time, mining had been underway for several months,... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Projects; Restructuring; Bonds; Borrowing and Debt; Business Startups; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Valuation; Mining Industry; Australia

August 2001 (Revised March 2003)
Case

PassAct, Inc.

PassAct is a virtual distributor for high-tech R&D components and products, taking orders from researchers within companies, passing them on to appropriate suppliers, and monitoring fulfillment. Customers order from a Web-based catalog with built-in work-flow... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Web Services Industry

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03 Apr 2013
News

A 4-step guide to landing a start-up job

08 Dec 2016
News

A Simple Way to Measure Health Care Outcomes

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Keenan studies barriers to and motivators of prosocial behavior, using a combination of field, laboratory, and online experimental methods. Her recent work investigates donors’ aversion to overhead spending by nonprofits, including its negative effects on the... View Details

09 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Location, Location, Location: The Strategy of Place

Internal Linkages, by Alcácer and Minyuan Zhao of the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. By internalizing its innovations better and faster than nearby competitors, a firm can gain lead-time and a stronger competitive View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

30 May 2024
News

How to Have Effective Conversations

quickly what kind of conversation you're in. AW: In the book you call this Rule One. Rule One of conversation is figuring out what conversation you're having. This is rule one of four, so we're not finished yet. What are the next steps to having these View Details

Research Summary

Capital Controls, Risk and Liberalization Cycles (joint with Fabio Kanczuk)

By: Laura Alfaro

We construct an Overlapping-Generations model where agents vote on whether to open or close the economy to international capital flows. Political decisions are shaped by the risk over capital and labor returns. In an open economy, the capitalists (old) completely hedge... View Details

Research Summary

Strategic and Competitive Dynamics

Professor Coughlan's research in the area of Strategic and Competitive Dynamics applies game theory, industrial organization economics, and laboratory experiments to the investigation of competitive interactions between firms and strategic responses to technological... View Details

Article

People Make It So Hard to Ditch Plastic Straws

By: Scott Duke Kominers

Rarely has a minor consumer product received more vilification than the plastic straw. As a symbol of human wastefulness and our careless disregard for the environment, straws are the near-perfect villain. You use a plastic straw once and toss it, but it stays with us... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Consumer Behavior

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Winter 2016
Article

Improving Store Liquidation

By: Nathan Craig and Ananth Raman

This paper introduces methods for increasing the efficiency of retail store liquidation, which we define as the time-constrained divestment of retail outlets through an in-store sale of inventory. The retail industry depends extensively on liquidation, not only as a... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Operations; Investment; Retail Industry

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September 2012 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Doing Business in China

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Michael Shih-ta Chen, Nancy Dai and G.A. Donovan

This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in China. It highlights China's remarkable economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2012 in the context of its history, culture, and politics. The case summarizes the main obstacles faced... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Market Finance; Emergent Countries; Business History; Economic History; Emerging Markets; Business Ventures; Strategy; China

May 1997
Teaching Note

Module Overview: Coordinating and Managing Supply Chains: Matching Supply and Demand TN

By: Ananth Raman

Prepares students to configure operating and distribution systems to provide product (or service) supply to match customer demand. Begins by introducing students to the supply-demand mismatch problem, documenting its significance in many companies, and suggesting ways... View Details

Keywords: Demand and Consumers; Working Capital; Distribution; Cost of Capital; Management Practices and Processes; Supply Chain Management; Forecasting and Prediction; Supply and Industry