Publications

October 2013
Article

Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Dina Wang and Derek C. M. van Bever

Consulting fundamental business model has not changed in more than 100 years: very smart outsiders go into organizations for a finite period of time and recommend solutions for the most difficult problems confronting their clients. But at traditional... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Consulting Industry

Register to Read

03 Nov 2015
First Look

November 3, 2015

Child Left Behind Affects the Allocation of School Leaders By: Li, Danielle Abstract—The move toward increased school accountability may substantially affect the career risks that school leaders face without providing commensurate changes... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2008
Case

EFI, Inc. (A)

By: David B. Godes and Lauren Barley

EFI has a unique sales compensation challenge. They cannot allocate sales credit for their core product to individual salespeople. So, they've historically paid the sales force as a team. This has worked out fine, since they've been a near-monopoly seller of a single... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Compensation and Benefits; Performance Evaluation; Groups and Teams; Salesforce Management; Motivation and Incentives

28 Nov 2011
Research & Ideas

Rethinking the Fairness of Organ Transplants

A proposal out of Harvard and MIT to rethink how kidney transplants are allocated could result in a fairer system giving patients longer lives. The new empirical model, which is intensely data driven, would provide a flexible framework to... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Health

26 Jun 2012
First Look

First Look: June 26

by a public health organization are randomly allocated to four groups. Agents in the control group receive a standard volunteer contract often offered for this type of task, whereas agents in the three treatment groups receive small... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2013 (Revised August 2017)
Case

TaKaDu

By: Elie Ofek and Matthew Preble

In December 2012, Amir Peleg, founder and CEO of TaKaDu, reflected on how to position his young firm for the next fiscal year and beyond. The small Israeli startup had developed an innovative software system that used patented algorithms and statistical analysis to... View Details

29 May 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Some Neglected Axioms in Fair Division

Keywords: by John W. Pratt

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

Read Now

June 2008
Journal Article

Strategic Alliances: Bridges Between 'Islands of Conscious Power'

By: George P. Baker, Robert Gibbons and Kevin J. Murphy

Strategic alliances range from unstructured collaborations, through consortia and joint ventures that superimpose new governance structures on existing firms, to transactions that restructure firm boundaries and asset ownership. In this paper, we draw on detailed... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Contracts; Agreements and Arrangements; Alliances; Strategy; Theory

July 2011
Article

Kidney Paired Donation

By: C. Bradley Wallis, Kannan P. Samy, Alvin E. Roth and Michael A. Rees

Kidney paired donation (KPD) was first suggested in 1986, but it was not until 2000 when the first paired donation transplant was performed in the U.S. In the past decade, KPD has become the fastest growing source of transplantable kidneys, overcoming the barrier faced... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Success; Problems and Challenges; Programs; System; United States

Read Now

December 2009 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Woolf Farming and Processing

By: David E. Bell, Laura Winig and Mary Louise Shelman

Woolf Farming Company, a privately owned family farming business in California's Central Valley, found its business threatened by a lack of water, brought on by a combination of drought, poor quality well water and unavailability of surface water due to federally... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Resource Allocation; Quality; Business and Government Relations; Decision Choices and Conditions; Infrastructure; Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Climate Change; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; California

22 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries

well-grounded research on how improvements can be brought to services through some of these lean concepts." Not all lean manufacturing ideas translate from factory floor to office cubicle. For example, tools such as the andon cord, a rope that manufacturing... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Computer

2014
Book

Reinventing State Capitalism: Leviathan in Business, Brazil and Beyond

By: Aldo Musacchio and Sergio G. Lazzarini

In this book we describe the transformation of state capitalism from a model in which governments owned and ran corporations and broadly controlled the allocation of financial resources into two new varieties of state capitalism: Leviathan as a majority and as a... View Details

September 2004 (Revised June 2005)
Case

QUALCOMM, Inc. 2004

By: David B. Yoffie, Pai-Ling Yin and Elizabeth Kind

QUALCOMM, Inc. had transitioned from a fledgling startup into a Fortune 500 wireless technology leader. Its CDMA technology was considered the preeminent technology and was the world's fastest growing wireless communications technology. CEO Irwin Jacobs had a number of... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Government and Politics; Leadership Style; Resource Allocation; Product Positioning; Problems and Challenges; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; China; India

May 2013 (Revised September 2013)
Case

The Kashagan Production Sharing Agreement (PSA)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Florian Bitsch

When discovered in the 1990s, the Kashagan oil field was the second largest oil field in the world. The project sponsors (equity investors) signed a 40-year production sharing agreement (PSA) with the Kazakh government in 1997, with the expectation the field would... View Details

February 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Regulating Radio in the Age of Broadcasting

By: David Moss, Marc Campasano and Colin Donovan

When the Titanic tragically sank on April 15, 1912, potentially life-saving help was delayed as a result of failures in radio communication. In part as a result, Congress moved swiftly to regulate radio, passing the Radio Act of 1912 four months later. Although at... View Details

Keywords: Radio; Regulation; Communication Technology; Government Legislation; History; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

Research Summary

Overview

My main topics of interest in research all center around Africa. It is my ambition to take HBS more into Africa and to bring Africa more into HBS. I am particularly interested in a) the building of businesses in Africa. I want to focus on those elements that an HBS MBA... View Details

28 Jan 2002
Research & Ideas

Read All About It! Newspapers Lose Web War

different markets with different customers and employ different business models than those traditionally successful in the established organization, they are typically undervalued by that organization. Managers refuse to provide the necessary financing or they simply... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Entertainment & Recreation; Information; Publishing

August 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Unifying Divisions: Joro's Mission to Preserve the Planet

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Marilyn Morgan Westner

The case focuses on the initial startup team and Founders’ agreements. In March 2018, Sanchali Pal proposed renegotiating the informal founders’ agreement and equity split she and her co-founders had drafted the previous spring. They had been working together for over... View Details

Keywords: Founders' Agreements; Business Startups; Climate Change; Agreements and Arrangements; Conflict Management