Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,579)
- Faculty Publications (596)
- March 2004 (Revised April 2005)
- Case
Midwest Office Products
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Presents an easy introduction to time-driven activity-based costing (ABC) that allows students to build a simple ABC model of order profitability. Midwest's time-driven ABC approach is based on two categories of parameter estimates. The first is the cost per hour of... View Details
- Article
Why Hospitals Don't Learn from Failures: Organizational and Psychological Dynamics That Inhibit System Change
By: A. Tucker and A. Edmondson
The importance of hospitals learning from their failures hardly needs to be stated. Not only are matters of life and death at stake on a daily basis, but also an increasing number of U.S. hospitals are operating in the red. This article reports on in-depth qualitative... View Details
- October 2003
- Case
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company: Building a Platform for Distributed Innovation
By: Marco Iansiti and Marcin Strojwas
Surging costs of building a state-of-the-art fabrication facility were pushing firms to outsource manufacturing while advanced technologies were requiring a tighter coupling between design and manufacturing. Explores the development of strategy in this environment.... View Details
- September 2003 (Revised January 2005)
- Case
Emergence, Valhalla, and Orchid: Divergent Models for Venture Capital Funds
By: William A. Sahlman and Matthew Willis
Compares and contrasts three different venture capital funds from the perspective of a potential investor. The first fund has a technology-enabled services preference, the second a Mid-Atlantic region preference, and the third a seed round preference. Students are... View Details
- 2003
- Working Paper
Dynamic Mixed Duopoly: A Model Motivated by Linux vs. Windows
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pankaj Ghemawat
This paper analyzes a dynamic mixed duopoly in which a profit-maximizing competitor interacts with a competitor that prices at zero (or marginal cost), with the cumulation of output affecting their relative positions over time. The modeling effort is motivated by... View Details
- July 2003 (Revised October 2013)
- Case
Model N Inc.
By: Marco Iansiti and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
The CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up needed to make organizational and product changes to deliver a new software solution to a Fortune 500 customer. He was wondering how he should structure the company to best meet the requirements for this particular customer, while... View Details
- 2003
- Conference Paper
Follow the Money: What Really Drives Technology Innovation in Construction
By: John D. Macomber
Technology enthusiasts, academics, and software companies remain concerned about the slow pace of innovation in the construction industry. Tools are widely available that seem to provide eminently sensible and clearly apparent improvement to the process of design and... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised May 2003)
- Case
VendQuest (A): The Business Idea
By: Dwight B. Crane and David Foster
A potential founder of a company is considering whether to start up a new enterprise that would link parts distributors with customers in the construction industries via the Internet. This case describes the industry and the potential advantages to distributors and... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised November 2005)
- Case
Endeavor-Determining A Growth Strategy
By: William A. Sahlman and Michael J. Roberts
Describes the progress of a nonprofit organization, Endeavor, focused on nurturing entrepreneurship in emerging markets. At the time of the case, it has successfully expanded to five Latin American countries and is contemplating the next phase in its growth.... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Zipcar: Refining the Business Model
By: Myra M. Hart, Michael J. Roberts and Julia Stevens
Zipcar is a start-up organized around the idea of "sharing" car usage via a membership organization. This case describes several iterations of the Zipcar business model and financial plan. These iterations include a very early version and a version developed just prior... View Details
- December 2002 (Revised February 2015)
- Case
Jim Sharpe: Extrusion Technology, Inc. (Abridged)
By: H. Kent Bowen and Barbara Feinberg
Jim Sharpe, 10 years after receiving his MBA from Harvard and working for others, has finally become his own boss and 100% owner of manufacturer of aluminum extrusions. After 10 months of an unfunded search, he acquires the business in an LBO and prepares to face his... View Details
Keywords: Search Funds; Search; Entrepreneurial Management; Operations Strategy; Acquisitions; Work/family Balance; Unions; Union; Turnarounds; Funding Model; LBO; Bank Debt; Bank Loans; Equity Investment; Career Management; Small Business; Work-Life Balance; Negotiation; Operations; Labor Unions; Investment; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Business Strategy; Manufacturing Industry
- December 2002 (Revised October 2006)
- Case
Commerce Bank
By: Frances X. Frei and Corey B. Hajim
Commerce Bank has become one of the fastest growing banks in the country, despite having defied conventional wisdom about how to grow deposits. Banks historically have grown either by competing on deposit rates or through acquisitions that expand their deposit base.... View Details
- 2002
- Other Unpublished Work
Legal Management: The Case for a Managed Model for the Delivery of Legal Services
This essay takes a brief look at the innovations in the delivery of legal services made due to the expansion of the pre-paid sector and uses those changes in the power dynamics of the industry to make a compelling case for a more widespread, managed model. The managed... View Details
- November 2002 (Revised August 2003)
- Case
MedSource Technologies
Considers the issues facing Richard Effress, MedSource's chairman and CEO, as the firm approaches the Precision Cut project--the first test of MedSource's capabilities as an integrated, contract manufacturer in the medical device industry. MedSource Technologies was... View Details
- October 2002 (Revised December 2003)
- Case
eShip-4U
By: Roy D. Shapiro and Timothy M. Laseter
eShip is a small Israeli start-up with a potentially exciting new concept for the residential package-delivery value chain--the Automatic Delivery Machine (ADM). Much like today's ubiquitous ATMs, ADMs would allow consumers to have parcels delivered to a nearby ADM... View Details
- July 2002 (Revised August 2014)
- Case
WellSpace Treatment Centers for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (A)
By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Jun HuangPu and Bing Lin
How should WellSpace, a venture capital-backed purveyor of alternative health services, expand? Although it was nearing breakeven in its first location, the right business model remained unclear. View Details
- January 2002
- Case
Teledesic
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Daniel J. Green and Douglas R Rogers
Management of a satellite-delivered broadband data communications company sets strategy in an uncertain environment, using Michael Porter's scenario planning tools to assess likely outcomes and determine which actions to take. This case draws a distinction between... View Details
- October 2001 (Revised November 2002)
- Case
Herman Miller(B): Creating Innovation Streams
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Stacy McManus
In 1997, Mike Volkema faced the difficulty of attempting to revitalize a once dynamic organization. Volkema wondered how he could incorporate advances made within subsidiaries, such as Miller SQA's business model innovation, into the company as a whole while also... View Details
- October 2001 (Revised November 2002)
- Case
Herman Miller (A): Innovation by Design
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Stacy McManus
Gary Van Spronsen, president of Miller SQA, has been asked to leave the thriving subsidiary he helped to reinvent to join Herman Miller's corporate initiative on innovation. Miller SQA has pioneered processes new to the Herman Miller organization, such as... View Details
- July 2001 (Revised August 2005)
- Case
Medicines Company, The
It is early 2001 and the Medicines Co. just received FDA approval to market Angiomax, a blood thinner to be used during angioplasties and heart procedures. It is intended to be a better alternative to Heparin, an 80-year-old drug that costs less then $10 per dose. The... View Details