Publications

January 2021
Supplement

A Half-Deal

By: Marco Di Maggio, Pedro Levindo and Carla Larangeira

In June 2020, XP and Itaú faced intensified competition and tension in their partnership, with the latter owning a minority stake at XP. Two years earlier, in May 2017, Itaú had announced it would acquire 49.9% of XP for $1.8 billion, followed by three additional... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Financing Strategy; Competition; Partners and Partnerships; Financing and Loans; Strategy; Latin America; Brazil

January–February 2017
Article

Africa's New Generation of Innovators

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Efosa Ojomo and Derek van Bever

With a young, urbanizing population, abundant natural resources, and a growing middle class, Africa seems to have all the ingredients necessary for huge growth. Nevertheless, a number of multinationals have recently left the continent, discouraged by widespread... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Economic Growth; Africa

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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

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Product Design; Product Development; Product; Supply Chain Management; Business Model; Service Delivery; Customer Value and Value Chain; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry

22 Mar 2018
News

Sustainability: A New Way of Doing Business

February 2011 (Revised August 2021)
Case

Gemini Investors

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Gemini Investors was a private equity firm focused on small and lower middle market businesses. Gemini's target investment size was between $4 million and $6 million and a typical portfolio company had revenue of between $8 million and $30 million. In early 2015,... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Investment; Investment Funds; Markets; Size; Financial Services Industry; United States

December 2020
Case

Château Margaux: Serving Up the Third Wine

By: Elie Ofek

In fall 2019, Corinne Mentzelopoulos, owner of the famous first-growth Château Margaux, is pondering a series of decisions with respect to the chateau's third wine. Margaux du Château Marguax, as this wine was called, was launched in 2013 with a particular goal in mind... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Pricing; Wine Industry; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Performance Evaluation; Price; Distribution Channels; Growth and Development Strategy; France

May 2014
Article

Making 'Freemium' Work: Many Start-ups Fail to Recognize the Challenges of This Popular Business Model

By: Vineet Kumar

The article discusses the "freemium" business model, which is used by some Internet businesses and smartphone application developers to give users free basic features of a digital product and access to premium functionality for a subscription fee. The discussion topics... View Details

Keywords: Freemium; Startups; Product Design; Business Model; Marketing; Business Startups

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July 2012
Article

The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love

By: Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely

In four studies in which consumers assembled IKEA boxes, folded origami, and built sets of Legos, we demonstrate and investigate boundary conditions for the IKEA effect—the increase in valuation of self-made products. Participants saw their amateurish creations as... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Product; Valuation; Labor

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02 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Why We Still Need Twitter: How Social Media Holds Companies Accountable

In May 2021, the Twitter account Brands Getting Owned posted images of signs that workers had taped to the windows of a Chipotle in the United States. One large cardboard sign read, “Sorry for the inconvenience, but due to us being overworked, understaffed, and... View Details

Keywords: by Kasandra Brabaw; Technology

January 2014 (Revised November 2021)
Case

Filene's Basement: Inside a Fired Customer's Relationship

By: Jill Avery and Susan Fournier

How, in a business climate in which building relationships with customers has dominated both managerial thought and marketing budgets, could Filene's Basement have fired a loyal customer, one who was formally and informally recognized as a best customer? This case... View Details

Keywords: CRM; Retailing; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Retail Industry; United States

30 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Donors Are Turned Off by Overhead Costs. Here’s What Charities Can Do

need to be paid, if given the choice of where their money would go, most people donating money wouldn’t choose to contribute to the salary of the organization’s CEO,” says Elizabeth A. Keenan, an assistant professor in the Marketing unit... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

September 2015
Teaching Note

Sustainability at IKEA Group

By: Michael W. Toffel

Can IKEA Group double its global sales within a decade by expending in emerging markets while implementing on its ambitious sustainability strategy that included focusing on raw material sourcing and suppliers’ production processes? The case focuses on IKEA Group’s... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Emerging Markets; Environmental Sustainability; Globalized Markets and Industries; Consumer Products Industry

Web

Food & Agriculture - Business & Environment

climate change is expected to worsen conditions for growing food. [27] Barclays predicts that markets for meat alternatives could be worth $140 billion within 10 years (by 2029). [28] Challenge Agriculture’s contributions to climate... View Details

25 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Could a Business Model Help Big Pharma Save Lives and Profit?

markets. As an HBS marketing professor, he understands the mindset of the average pharmaceutical executive, who obsesses about protecting their organization’s inventions to drive profits. But as the world emerges from the coronavirus,... View Details

Keywords: by Esther Schrader; Pharmaceutical; Health

September 2004 (Revised December 2004)
Case

Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund

In 2001, Bank Leu, a Swiss private bank, is considering creating the world's first public fund for catastrophe bonds. Cat bonds are securities whose payments depend on the probability of a catastrophe occurring, such as an earthquake or hurricane. Cat bonds are... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Bonds; Natural Disasters; Insurance; Capital Markets; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Insurance Industry; Switzerland

21 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Buy Now, Pay Later: How Retail's Hot Feature Hurts Low-Income Shoppers

$100 for the item, plus shipping, plus taxes. Now, the bill [for the first installment] says $25. You say, ‘OK, now I'm going to buy it for sure.’” Consumers spend more with BNPL BPNL credit burst onto the market within the past several... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Retail; Financial Services; Technology

2024
Working Paper

Omnia Juncta in Uno: Foreign Powers and Trademark Protection in Shanghai's Concession Era

By: Laura Alfaro, Cathy Bao, Maggie X. Chen, Junjie Hong and Claudia Steinwender

We investigate how firms and markets adapt to trademark protection, an extensively utilized but under-examined form of IP protection to address asymmetric information, by exploring a historical precedent: China’s 1923 trademark law. Exploiting unique, newly digitized... View Details

Keywords: Trademark; Firm Dynamics; Intermediaries; Intellectual Property Institutions; Trademarks; Intellectual Property; Laws and Statutes; Outcome or Result; Organizational Change and Adaptation; China

SSRN

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12 Jul 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Sticky Capital Controls

Keywords: by Miguel Acosta-Henao, Laura Alfaro, and Andrés Fernández

December 2020
Supplement

VIA Science (B)

By: Juan Alcácer, Rembrand Koning, Annelena Lobb and Kerry Herman

Via (a) captures the early days of the data analytics startup as founders Gounden and Ravanis considered which markets offer the right opportunities for their firm and what kinds of experiments will help them narrow their choice. Supplement Via (b) reveals the... View Details

Keywords: Data Analytics; Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence; Strategy; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Telecommunications Industry; Utilities Industry; United States; Japan