Publications

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February 2020 (Revised June 2020)
Case

From Cradle to Heaven: Taikang Insurance Group

By: William C. Kirby, Shu Lin, John P. McHugh and Yuanzhuo Wang

Taikang Insurance Group was a leading Chinese insurance and financial services institution. It operated in the insurance, asset management, and health and senior care industries. Due to China’s underdeveloped social welfare state, Taikang saw an opportunity for the... View Details

Keywords: Health; Insurance; Strategy; Insurance Industry; China

22 Mar 2024
Blog Post

Driving Impact in Emerging Markets with HBS Alum Nneka Chime (MBA 2015)

Nneka Chime’s (MBA 2015) career path offers an alternative road map for HBS students and alumni seeking to make a difference in the world. While seeking, she aligned her professional choices with a larger mission rather than following a... View Details

March 1996
Case

Ernst & Young United Kingdom (A) (Abridged)

By: John J. Gabarro and Samantha Graff

Intended to be a robust example of the challenges encountered during the early stages of a large-scale organizational transformation effort in a professional service firm. Describes a massive change program initiated and led by the new managing partner along with a... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Leading Change; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Restructuring; Problems and Challenges; United Kingdom; London

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January 2015
Article

Competing with Privacy

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Andres Hervas-Drane

We analyze the implications of consumer privacy for competition in the marketplace. We consider a market where firms set prices and disclosure levels for consumer information, and consumers observe both before deciding which firm to patronize and how much information... View Details

Keywords: Information Acquisition; Information Disclosure; Online Privacy; Privacy Regulation; Information; Rights; Internet and the Web; Competition; Internet and the Web; Corporate Disclosure; Ethics; Knowledge Acquisition

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August 1992 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Euro Disney: The First 100 Days

By: Gary W. Loveman and Leonard A. Schlesinger

The Walt Disney Co. theme parks historically have thrived on the basis of a formula stressing excellent customer service and a magnificent physical environment. The formula has proven successful in Japan, as well as the United States. With the controversial opening of... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Corporate Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Service Industry; Service Industry; Japan; France; United States

September 2022
Case

Proactive for Her

By: Rembrand Koning and Kairavi Dey

Proactive for Her began amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in August 2020 as a digital platform to provide accessible, evidence-based, primary, preventive non-judgmental healthcare services for Indian women, who were often dissuaded from seeking help as premarital sex and... View Details

Keywords: Women's Health; Healthcare; India; Start-up; Telehealth; Digital Platforms; Health Care and Treatment; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Startups; Health Industry; Asia; South Asia; India

September 2004 (Revised June 2005)
Case

Otis Elevator: Accelerating Business Transformation with IT

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Brian DeLacey

Focuses on a major transformation of Otis Elevator's infrastructure. Led by the CEO, this transformation represents a remarkable long-term reengineering of all the processes of the firm to drive its operating costs down and service image up. The transformation is the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Cost Management; Infrastructure; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology

January 2002 (Revised May 2003)
Case

ProfitLogic

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Michael J. Roberts and Taslim Pirmohamed

Describes an "application software" company that has been through several evolutions--from consulting firm to applications service provider (ASP). The firm has received significant venture funding to pursue the ASP model but this has not worked, at least at the time... View Details

Keywords: History; Business Model; Venture Capital; Cash Flow; Decision Choices and Conditions; Balanced Scorecard; Service Industry; Service Industry

12 Sep 2023
Research & Ideas

How Can Financial Advisors Thrive in Shifting Markets? Diversify, Diversify, Diversify

with more clients who received services like education planning and retirement planning, and the other had a lesser focus there,” he says. Perhaps more significantly, offering more services helped the... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Financial Services

29 Feb 2024
Blog Post

African American Student Union Spotlight on Social Enterprise

Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa. Following this experience, I joined Deloitte as a consultant, supporting the public sector and providing pro bono services to global social enterprises through Halcyon and FINCA... View Details

2015
Working Paper

Discretion in Hiring

By: Mitchell Hoffman, Lisa B. Kahn and Danielle Li

Who should make hiring decisions? We propose an empirical test for assessing whether firms should rely on hard metrics such as job test scores or grant managers discretion in making hiring decisions. We implement our test in the context of the introduction of a... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Management Practices and Processes

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30 Oct 2013
HBS Seminar

Ryan McDevitt, Fuqua School of Business at Duke University

30 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 30, 2008

and service quality. Using longitudinal data from stores of a large retailer, I find that increasing the amount of labor at a store is associated with an increase in profitability through its impact on conformance quality but not its... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

September 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Kana Communications

Kana is a young Internet software company wondering how it should react to the rapid emergence of Application Service Providers (ASPs), firms that host software applications for customers who can reach those via the Internet. ASPs may be a new channel of distribution... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Distribution Channels; Web Services Industry

August 2021
Case

BYJU’S: EdTech Giant Investing in Brick and Mortar

By: John J-H Kim and Rachna Tahilyani

The founder and CEO of BYJU’S, India’s largest edtech firm and one of the world’s most valuable edtech companies, is considering acquiring Aakash Educational Services (Aakash), one of India’s largest brick-and-mortar test-prep firms, for $1 billion. Is this a good... View Details

Keywords: Edtech; Business Strategy; Diversification; Investment; Acquisition; Education Industry; Asia; India; United States

January 2009 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Solvay Group: International Mobility and Managing Expatriates

By: Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria and Kerry Herman

Marcel Lorent, head of International Mobility at Brussels-based Solvay Group, faces decisions on the expatriation status of four of his firm's talented executives. Each decision will impact the candidate's professional and personal life and will have implications for... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Globalized Firms and Management; Work-Life Balance; Talent and Talent Management; Residency; Employees; Brussels