Opportunity Costs - Publications - Faculty & Research

27 Apr 2010
First Look

First Look: April 27

is, as more jurisdictions with economic ties to a given country adopt IFRS, perceived benefits from lowering transactions costs to foreign financial-statement users come to outweigh institutional differences (e.g., auditing technology)... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

06 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Motivate Your High Performers to Share Their Knowledge

Financial incentives—the more costly approach—didn’t inspire lasting change, while the more successful intervention didn’t cost anything more than employees’ time to participate in meetings. “If you talk to many managers, they would say... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

25 Mar 2014
First Look

First Look: March 25

impact on the accounting standards under which the investee firms present their financial information; the only change is in the investor's familiarity with these standards. This suggests that differences in accounting standards affect investor demand by imposing... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

24 Jul 2017
Research & Ideas

People Have an Irrational Need to Complete 'Sets' of Things

Red Cross, who decided to collaborate with the research team after meeting Norton through a colleague. “Ultimately, it speaks to how powerful that framing is.” People incur the cost of a bad gamble just so they can complete a pseudo-set... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

11 May 2009
Research & Ideas

The IT Leader’s Hero Quest

appears afterward. Martha Lagace: It's a clever idea to tell your story through the fictional character of Jim Barton, a fledgling CIO. Why describe CIO challenges through fiction? Rob Austin, Dick Nolan, and Shannon O'Donnell: Our decision to use fiction opened up a... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

14 Sep 2023
Blog Post

MBAs Accelerate Their Social Enterprise Ventures

solar-powered irrigation for Indian farmers. While solar irrigation can reduce agricultural production costs by up to 25% and eliminate 132M tons of CO2 emissions annually, upfront costs remain a barrier.... View Details

26 Sep 2011
HBS Case

HBS Cases: Lady Gaga

larger, but the potential rewards increase, too." “The risks increase as the size of the venue increases, but the potential revenue goes up as well” With arena performances, the Gaga team was looking at some $12 million in start-up production View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Entertainment & Recreation; Music

17 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

Amazon, Whole Foods Deal a Big Win for Consumers

Source: 400tmax Editor's Note. Online retailing behemoth Amazon announced June 16 that it would acquire upscale grocery chain Whole Foods Market in a deal valued at more than $13 billion. Though the company has dabbled with the idea of a brick-and-mortar footprint in... View Details

Keywords: by Jose Alvarez and Len Schlesinger; Retail

10 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

Globalization: The Strategy of Differences

how much to adapt a business model is certainly important for extracting value from international operations. But to focus exclusively on the tension between global scale economies and local considerations is a mistake, for it blinds companies to the very real View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat

29 Oct 2020
Blog Post

Delving Deeper into Development with the MBA/MPA-ID Program – a Q+A with Zainab Raji (MBA/MPA-ID 2022)

macro shocks occurred. I discovered a pathway to economic development in management consulting after learning about the huge impact that strategy advisory firms in Africa had helped create. I transitioned to McKinsey after successful rounds of interviews. At McKinsey,... View Details

07 Jul 2003
What Do You Think?

Can We Have Too Much Productivity Improvement?

improvements improve life somewhere in the globe, but not necessarily in the U.S.A." Bill Donohue wrote that "In the 20's ... the root cause may perhaps have been the massive building of low cost assembly line-based industrial... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

27 Mar 2024
Blog Post

Video: Inspirational Women in Business

Lee: Even at the cost of a lot of money to the firm, she prioritized their health and safety. Aastha Bhardwaj: She followed through, and I have huge respect for that. Briti Ghosh: Being empathetic or being sensitive, I feel, is not a... View Details

17 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 17

individuals or firms and open collaborative innovation projects. We analyze the design costs and architectures and communication costs associated with each model. We conclude that innovation by individual... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

2022 Reunion Presentations - Alumni

cost and in less time. I will also discuss the role of ventures in addressing climate change. Some of the popular solutions to these challenges (e.g., Medicare for All, free community college, and elimination of fossil fuels) seem... View Details

21 Jan 2022
Blog Post

Tipping Point: Investing in the Women of Kenya’s Coffee Farms

market is under $1 a pound, while the actual cost to produce that pound is between $1.62 and $2. The coffee farms are profitable only when they rely on free labor, typically from the women in the farming family. During harvest season in... View Details

17 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 17

for fulfilling work. In fact, multiple pieces of evidence suggest that diaspora use of oDesk increases with familiarity of the platform, rather than a scenario where diaspora connections serve to navigate uncertain environments. We further show that diaspora-based... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

08 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: A Sense of Urgency

year. But it never did, and the crisis never came. Big Mistake Number 4: Underestimating what the people who would avoid crises at all costs correctly appreciate: that crisis can bring disaster. Example. Using a technology recently made... View Details

Keywords: by John P. Kotter

05 Mar 2007
Research & Ideas

Risky Business? Protecting Foreign Investments

funds they and their lenders put into such projects, more than the cost of public borrowing. In many projects corruption, government incompetence, or disorganization led to deals that were terrible from the point of view of the host... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Energy; Utilities

Web

Business Economics Online Course | HBS Online

pricing strategies Benchmark costs compared to competitors through relative cost analysis Apply conjoint analysis to understand what features customers value most Understand the power of network effects to... View Details

15 May 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 15, 2018

help senior leaders achieve their goals. Too often, they’re done for short-term gain, but the cost savings are overshadowed by bad publicity, loss of knowledge, weakened engagement, higher voluntary turnover, and lower innovation, which... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

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