Publications

March 2014 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Teach For China and the Chinese Nonprofit Sector

By: William C. Kirby and Erica M. Zendell

Teach For China was founded in 2008 with the mission of expanding educational opportunity across China. By 2013, Andrea Pasinetti's lofty dream had taken flight: over 300 graduates from top American and Chinese universities were participating in its 2-year teaching... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit; China; Business And Government Relations; Business And Poverty; Business And Society; Emerging Market Entrepreneurship; Emerging Market; NGO; Education; Entrepreneurship; Social Enterprise; Emerging Markets; Non-Governmental Organizations; Nonprofit Organizations; Education Industry; China

November 2010
Case

Esquel Group: Building a Sustainable Partnership with Cotton Farmers in Xinjiang (A)

By: James K. Sebenius and Jason Cheng Qian

Esquel Group, leading manufacturer of quality shirts, sought to negotiate long-term partnerships with often-exploited farmers in Xinjiang (western China) to procure a superior cotton variety. Seeking to secure a large supply of specialty cotton in an ethical and... View Details

Keywords: Contracts; Agreements and Arrangements; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Leasing; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Hong Kong; Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu

November 2010
Supplement

Esquel Group: Building a Sustainable Partnership with Cotton Farmers in Xinjiang (B)

By: James K. Sebenius and Jason Cheng Qian

Details and evaluates results in Esquel's 2002 initiative to negotiate long-term partnerships with often-exploited farmers in Xinjiang (western China) to procure a superior cotton variety. View Details

Keywords: Contracts; Agreements and Arrangements; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Outcome or Result; Leasing; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Hong Kong; Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu

2004
Case

Neology: Embedded Opportunities in the RFID Space (A)

By: Roberto Charvel and Atul Joshi

Neology was a pioneer in the RFID industry that was able to attract U.S. Army contracts and secure financing by creating a holding company in the U.S., while being a Mexican company. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Venture Capital; Emerging Market; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Technology

Article

Reaching for Yield in the Bond Market

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

Reaching for yield—the propensity to buy riskier assets in order to achieve higher yields—is believed to be an important factor contributing to the credit cycle. This paper analyzes this phenomenon in the corporate bond market. Specifically, we show evidence for... View Details

Keywords: Fixed Income; Reaching For Yield; Financial Intermediation; Insurance Companies; Insurance; Assets; Bonds; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Risk Management; Insurance Industry

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10 Apr 2023
Blog Post

Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series - Innovations to Address the Global Water Crisis

has interviewed leaders in agribusiness from emerging markets who have successfully implemented such water-conserving innovations. Below, we highlight two of these View Details

May 2011
Article

Underdog Branding: Why Underdogs Win in Recessions

By: Neeru Paharia, Anat Keinan and Jill Avery

Underdog stories about overcoming great odds through passion and determination are particularly resonant during difficult times as they inspire us and give us hope when the outlook we face is bleak. They promise that success is still possible, a much needed message in... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brand Building; Brand Management; Brand Positioning; Competitive Positioning; Brands and Branding; Economics; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Advertising Campaigns; Advertising Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

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20 Feb 2020
News

Productive Innovation: Building a Culture of Experimentation

February 2022 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Aleph Farms: A New Culture of Meat

By: Elie Ofek and Jeff Huizinga

Aleph Farms, an Israeli food-tech start-up, was hoping to play a major role in disrupting the conventional meat sector. Compared to intensive agricultural practices, Aleph’s cultured (or lab-grown) meat solution held the promise of considerably reducing greenhouse gas... View Details

03 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

The Basics of Consumer Marketing in Asia

Consumer product makers looking to sell in Asia cannot expect the relative homogeneity they find in the U.S. or European countries, according to the panelists at the "Consumer View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette

14 Sep 2016
News

Building a Disclosure Box for the Digital Age

10 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt--‘Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World’

book excerpt Management Is Not Leadership From Chapter 4, Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World By John Kotter Listen to how most people talk in... View Details

Keywords: Re: John P. Kotter

January 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Cisco Systems (2001): Building and Sustaining a Customer-Centric Culture

By: Ranjay Gulati

Customer centricity has been an important part of the culture at Cisco Systems since its inception. While part of this is attributable to values put in place by the founders and retained by subsequent management, it is also closely interwoven with its organizational... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Organizational Culture; Research and Development; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Employees; Brands and Branding; Customer Relationship Management; Business Units

05 May 2003
What Do You Think?

Is This a Golden Era for Marketing Productivity?

Summing Up Questions raised in this month's column about the possibility of an era of marketing productivity based on innovative research techniques evoked a number of... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

October 2022
Case

Volt Lines: Leading a B2B Service Provider through a Crisis (A)

By: Navid Mojir and Gamze Yucaoglu

Volt Lines was a next-generation transportation service in Istanbul, Turkey. The company was trying to disrupt the traditional corporate transportation market by developing software that allowed it to offer subscription-based transportation. Under the subscription... View Details

Keywords: Business To Business Marketing; B2B Marketing; B2B Pricing; Subscription Model; Crisis Marketing; Startup; Service Management; Information Technology; Transportation; COVID-19 Pandemic; Disruptive Innovation; Digital Platforms; Business Model; Price; Crisis Management; Opportunities; Transportation Industry; Technology Industry; Turkey

2024
Working Paper

Do Collusive Norms Maximize Profits? Evidence From a Vegetable Market Experiment in India

By: Abhijit Banerjee, Greg Fischer, Dean Karlan, Matt Lowe and Benjamin N. Roth

Social norms have been shown to facilitate anti-competitive behavior in decentralized markets. We demonstrate that these norms can also reduce aggregate profits. First, we present descriptive evidence of competition-suppressing norms in Kolkata vegetable markets.... View Details

Keywords: Collusion; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Small Business; Microeconomics; Kolkata

SSRN

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May 2009
Case

Ceres Gardening Company: Funding Growth in Organic Products

By: John H. McArthur and Sunru Yong

Ceres is a leading player in the growing organic gardening industry, selling seeds, small plants, and related items. Their distribution depends heavily on retail sales through independent nurseries and garden centers. Because these small dealers are unable to finance... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Procedures; Marketing; Business Growth; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Marketing Strategy; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Marketing Channels; Credit; Financial Statements; Sales; Retail Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

January 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

ZBJ: Building a Global Outsourcing Platform for Knowledge Workers (A)

By: Feng Zhu, Weiru Chen and Shirley Sun

ZBJ.com (ZBJ), an online platform that connects knowledge workers to small- and medium-sized enterprises, is China’s largest outsourcing platform. Founded by Mingyue Zhu in 2006, ZBJ had grown into a unicorn with 4,000 employees and a daily transaction volume of RMB15... View Details

Keywords: Outsourcing; Disintermediation; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Problems and Challenges; Global Strategy; Information Technology Industry; China