Publications

This paper studies exclusive vertical contracts in network industries and asks whether exclusive arrangements intended to be anti-competitive in one market segment can be pro-competitive in another. The setting is news agencies in the early 20th-century United States,... View Details

March 2023
Teaching Note

Sustainability Reporting at Dollar Tree, Inc.

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 122-044. The case discusses the ESG strategy of Dollar Tree Inc., a U.S. Fortune 500 company in the deep discount retail industry and the shareholder pressure faced by the company. In 2022, the company faced a shareholder resolution from... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Sustainability; Shareholder Activism; Dollar Tree; Sustainability Reporting; ESG Reporting; Board Of Directors; Shareholder Engagement; GHG; Environmental Accounting; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Trends; Communication; Announcements; Voting; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Reports; Business or Company Management; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Outcome or Result; Strategic Planning; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Situation or Environment; Opportunities; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Public Opinion; Strategy; Adaptation; Alignment; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Retail Industry; United States; Virginia

06 Sep 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Cross Functional Alignment in Supply Chain Planning: A Case Study of Sales & Operations Planning

Keywords: by Rogelio Oliva & Noel Watson

Article

Biosimilars and Follow-On Products in the United States: Adoption, Prices, and Users

By: Ariel Dora Stern, Jacqueline L. Chen, Melissa Ouellet, Mark R. Trusheim, Zeid El-Kilani, Amber Jessup and Ernst R. Berndt

Biologic drugs account for a disproportionate share of the increase in pharmaceutical spending in the U.S. and worldwide. Against this backdrop, many look to the expanding market for biosimilars—follow-on products to biologic drugs—as a vehicle for controlling... View Details

Keywords: Pharmaceuticals; Drug Spending; Drug Pricing; Health Care and Treatment; Spending; Price; Markets; Cost Management; United States

April 2020 (Revised May 2020)
Case

NTT DOCOMO's Race to 5G

By: Juan Alcácer, Horst Melcher and Akiko Kanno

The case, based on extensive interviews with NTT DOCOMO’s technology leaders, focuses on the opportunities and challenges that NTT DOCOMO faces with the launch of infrastructure and services for 5G wireless telecommunication technology. With higher data rates and... View Details

Keywords: 5G; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Product Launch; Strategic Planning; Decision Making; Strategy; Telecommunications Industry; Technology Industry

2014
Working Paper

Institutional Strategies in Emerging Markets

By: Christopher Marquis and Mia Raynard

We review and integrate a wide range of literature that has examined the strategies by which organizations navigate institutionally diverse settings and capture rents outside of the marketplace. We synthesize this body of research under the umbrella term... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Organizations; Emerging Markets

SSRN

June–July 2014
Article

Language as a Lightning Rod: Power Contests, Emotion Regulation, and Subgroup Dynamics in Global Teams

By: Pamela J. Hinds, Tsedal Neeley and Catherine Durnell Cramton

Through an ethnographic study comprised of interviews with and observations of 96 globally distributed members in six software development teams, we propose a model that captures how asymmetries in language fluency contribute to an us vs. them dynamic so common in... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Communication Intention and Meaning; Groups and Teams; Applications and Software; Emotions; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Power and Influence; Information Technology Industry

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November 2012
Case

CSIRO: The Light Metals Flagship Decision

By: Willy Shih, Margaret P. Pierson and Dawn Lau

This case explores the challenge of investing in basic research as a public good. CSIRO was Australia's leading science and research agency, and it was chartered to enhance national prosperity through R&D. Its Flagships program was designed to align research interests... View Details

2012
Article

Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank

By: B. Staats and F. Gino

Sustaining operational productivity in the completion of repetitive tasks is critical to many organizations' success. Yet research points to two different work-design-related strategies for accomplishing this goal: specialization to capture the benefits of repetition... View Details

Keywords: Motivation; Productivity; Specialization; Variety; Work Fragmentation; Boundaries; Performance Productivity; Organizations; Research; Strategy; Motivation and Incentives; Opportunities; Market Transactions; Resource Allocation; Performance; Goals and Objectives; Learning

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December 2006 (Revised February 2009)
Case

China Merchants Bank: Here Just For You

By: F. Warren McFarlan, GuoQing Chen, HengYuan Zhu, Bin Yang, Michael Shih-ta Chen, G.A. Donovan, Waishun Lo and Yan Yang

Founded in 1987, China Merchants Bank (CMB) is a pioneer in the use of technical innovation and IT as a competitive tool in the rapidly evolving Chinese banking sector. With a relatively small branch network when compared to its larger competitors, CMB uses an... View Details

Keywords: Credit Cards; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Innovation Leadership; Competitive Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Emerging Markets; Opportunities; Banking Industry; China; Hong Kong

2025
Working Paper

Transferability MATTRs: Towards Understanding Antecedents of Strategic Licensing

By: Dafna F. Bearson and Maria P. Roche

This paper examines the antecedents of firms’ decisions to license intellectual property (IP). We propose a conceptual framework emphasizing two critical factors: (1) transferability, which we define as the ease of moving knowledge embodied in inventions across firm... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Intellectual Property; Value Creation

Other Article

Sustainable Strategies and Net-Zero Goals

By: Mark L. Frigo, Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Kaplan and Ramanna describe a rigorous approach, the E-liability method, for companies’ ESG reporting, especially as it pertains to GHG emissions measurements. They argue that the current standards for measuring... View Details

Keywords: Measurement; Sustainability; Net-zero Emissions; Environmental Sustainability; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Measurement and Metrics; Strategy

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January 2017
Teaching Note

SOHO China: Transformation in Progress

By: Charles F. Wu and Alexander W. Schultz

In 2016 against the backdrop of a challenging Chinese macroeconomic environment, SOHO China, the largest owner and developer of Class-A real estate in Beijing and Shanghai, was struggling to convince analysts of the merits of their new “build-to-hold” strategy. Founded... View Details

Keywords: Merchant Builder; Real Estate Development; Public Markets; China; Shared Office Space; Growth and Development Strategy; Property; Construction; Stocks; Financial Markets; Marketing Strategy; Real Estate Industry; Construction Industry; China

September 2016 (Revised January 2017)
Case

SOHO China: Transformation in Progress

By: Charles F. Wu

In 2016, against the backdrop of a challenging Chinese macroeconomic environment, SOHO China, the largest owner and developer of Class-A real estate in Beijing and Shanghai, was struggling to convince analysts of the merits of its new “build-to-hold” strategy. Founded... View Details

Keywords: China; REIT; Real Estate; Shared Office; Coworking; Public Company; NAV; Macroeconomics; Going Public; Transition; Growth and Development Strategy; Real Estate Industry; China

2013
Working Paper

Imprinting: Toward A Multilevel Theory

By: Christopher Marquis and Andras Tilcsik

The concept of imprinting has attracted considerable interest in numerous fields—including organizational ecology, institutional theory, network analysis, and career research—and has been applied at several levels of analysis, from the industry to the individual. This... View Details

Keywords: History; Situation or Environment; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure

SSRN

2010
Working Paper

Mixed Source

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gaston Llanes

We study competitive interaction between a profit-maximizing firm that sells software and complementary services and a free open source competitor. We examine the firm's choice of business model between the proprietary model (where all software modules are... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Monopoly; Open Source Distribution; Quality; Competition; Information Technology Industry

May 2005 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Gallardo's Goes to Mexico

By: Clayton M. Christensen

The theories of market segmentation and brand building in Chapter 3, What Products Will Customers Want to Buy? in The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor suggest that when companies segment markets and build brands in ways that match how the... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Global Strategy; Brands and Branding; Segmentation; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Mexico