Publications

Article

The Radical Flank Effect and Cross-occupational Collaboration for Technology Development during a Power Shift

By: Emily Truelove and Katherine C. Kellogg

This 12-month ethnographic study of an early entrant into the U.S. car-sharing industry demonstrates that when an organization shifts its focus from developing radical new technology to incrementally improving this technology, the shift may spark an internal power... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Conflict and Resolution; Power and Influence; Perception; Behavior; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

November 2016
Case

ShotSpotter

By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah McAra

SST, Inc. offered a subscription-based gunfire detection service, ShotSpotter Flex, to cities across the United States in addition to a few abroad. Over its 20-year history, SST had mostly honed a reliable business-to-government sales model, and the company had been... View Details

Keywords: ShotSpotter; SST; Internet Of Things; IoT; Smart Cities; Public Entrepreneurship; Enterprise Sales; Scaling And Growth; Government; Public Sector; Innovation; Ralph Clark; Entrepreneurship; Sales; Innovation and Invention; Public Administration Industry; California; United States

2016
Working Paper

Options-Pricing Formula with Disaster Risk

By: Robert J. Barro and Gordon Y. Liao

A new options-pricing formula applies to far-out-of-the money put options on the overall stock market when disaster risk is the dominant force, the size distribution of disasters follows a power law, and the economy has a representative agent with Epstein-Zin utility.... View Details

Keywords: Option Pricing; Rare Disaster; Price; Stock Options; Financial Crisis

August 2013
Article

The Price of Diversifiable Risk in Venture Capital and Private Equity

By: Michael Ewens, Charles Jones and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

This paper explores the private equity and venture capital (VC) markets and extends the standard principal-agent problem between the investors and venture capitalist to show how it alters the interaction between the venture capitalist and the entrepreneur. Since the... View Details

Keywords: Price; Risk and Uncertainty; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Contracts; Investment; Competition; Agency Theory; Investment Return; Forecasting and Prediction; Theory; Diversification

April 2009 (Revised December 2015)
Case

Dot.com: Online Pet Retailing

By: Tom Nicholas and David Chen

From 1995 to 1999, the U.S. experienced a period of tremendous growth in its information technology (IT) sector. The IT industry, although it accounted for less than 10% of the U.S. economy's total output, contributed disproportionately to economic growth. One market... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Price Bubble; Growth and Development Strategy; Failure; Competitive Strategy; Online Technology; Retail Industry

October 2002 (Revised November 2002)
Case

The EU's 13th Directive on Takeover Bids: Unlucky for Some?

By: Huw Pill and Ingrid Vogel

In the late 1990s, the United States boomed in the context of the so-called New Economy. The countries of the European Union--despite their progress with integration in the form of the Single Market 1992 program and the adoption of a single currency in January... View Details

Keywords: Horizontal Integration; Corporate Governance; Germany; European Union

September 1999 (Revised April 2000)
Case

Novell: World's Largest Network Software Company

By: Richard L. Nolan

After phenomenal growth and market leadership in networking, founder and CEO Ray Noorda made a frontal assault on Microsoft's core strengths. In 1994, Noorda spend over $1.5 billion acquiring companies such as WordPerfect to combat Microsoft Word, products such as... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Competition; Internet and the Web; Strategic Planning; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology Industry

March 2015
Teaching Note

CVS Health: Promoting Drug Adherence

By: Leslie John, John Quelch and Robert Huckman

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

This Teaching Note explains the theory of the case and teaching plan for the case: CVS Health: Promoting Drug Adherence (515010). The case finds Helena Foulkes, Executive... View Details

May 2016
Article

Matching with Slot-Specific Priorities: Theory

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Tayfun Sönmez

We introduce a two-sided, many-to-one matching with contracts model in which agents with unit demand match to branches that may have multiple slots available to accept contracts. Each slot has its own linear priority order over contracts; a branch chooses contracts by... View Details

Keywords: Matching With Contracts; Stability; Strategy-proofness; School Choice; Affirmative Action; Airline Seat Upgrades; Contracts; Market Design; Marketplace Matching; Balance and Stability

Web

Online Leadership and Management Courses | HBS Online

course best aligns with your career level and experience, learning objectives, and educational goals. Access Your Free Flowchart You May Also Be Interested In Strategy Business Essentials Entrepreneurship & Innovation Finance & Accounting Business in Society View Details

March 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Reinventing Best Buy

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

On March 1, 2017, Best Buy Company, Inc., North America’s largest retailer of consumer electronics and appliances, announced a third year of comparable-store sales increases and a 20.8% increase in domestic comparable online sales. These results were in marked contrast... View Details

Keywords: Best Buy; Hubert Joly; Renew Blue; Showrooming; Webrooming; E-commerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Online Retail; Multichannel Retailing; Omnichannel; Marketplaces; Turnaround; Consumer Electronics; Consumer Electronics Accessories; Appliances; Stores-within-stores; Store Experience; Store Size; Store Pickup; Store Management; Delivery; Delivery Models; Amazon; Amazon.com; Pricing Strategy; Business Subsidiaries; Business Units; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Theater Entertainment; Price; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Business History; Cost; Selection and Staffing; Reports; Technological Innovation; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Human Capital; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Media; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Distribution Channels; Infrastructure; Product; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Programs; Groups and Teams; Sales; Salesforce Management; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Resource Allocation; Computer Industry; Electronics Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Information Technology Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Video Game Industry; United States; Minnesota; Minneapolis; Saint Paul; St. Paul

June 2018
Article

Deviations from Covered Interest Rate Parity

By: Wenxin Du, Alexander Tepper and Adrien Verdelhan

We find that deviations from the covered interest rate parity (CIP) condition imply large, persistent, and systematic arbitrage opportunities in one of the largest asset markets in the world. Contrary to the common view, these deviations for major currencies are not... View Details

Keywords: Interest Rates; Financial Markets; Banks and Banking; Price

Article

Competition for Scarce Resources

By: Peter Eso, Volker Nocke and Lucy White

We model a downstream industry where firms compete to buy capacity in an upstream market that allocates capacity efficiently. Although downstream firms have symmetric production technologies, we show that industry structure is symmetric only if capacity is sufficiently... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Natural Environment; Technology; Production; Business Cycles; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost; Demand and Consumers; Industry Structures; Performance Capacity

Web

General Merchants to Commodities Brokers | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

represented a futures market in which buyers and sellers made deals before the cotton was harvested or brought to the factories. Later, Lehman Brothers branched out into other commodities and joined the Coffee, Sugar, and Cocoa Exchange,... View Details

Web

Research - Behavioral Finance & Financial Stability

They show that funding loans to these borrowers lead to better economic outcomes for the borrowers and higher returns for the fintech platform. See Marco’s other research here , Dimuthu’s other research here , and Don’s other research here . More Info Stock View Details

13 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Picture This: Why Online Image Searches Drive Purchases

Professor of Business at HBS, who is a coauthor of the new research. “Companies are finally coming to this realization and adjusting online search tools accordingly.” The market for AI technology in retail—and the promise of a more... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology; Technology; Consumer Products; Retail

01 Dec 2023
News

Venturing Forth

Illustration by Adam McCauley Venture capital is a heady industry: Big bets mean big checks when the deals hit right. And for most of the last decade, those taking part in the funds were riding high: Capital was abundant, valuations were soaring, and the stock market... View Details

Keywords: Janelle Nanos; Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles; Finance

June 2018 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Voice War: Hey Google vs. Alexa vs. Siri

By: David B. Yoffie, Liang Wu, Jodie Sweitzer, Denzil Eden and Karan Ahuja

By early 2018, voice-controlled intelligent assistants had become a major new front in the battle between the giants of the technology sector. "Voice War" focuses on Alphabet’s strategy for Google Assistant, its entrant in the voice assistant space, and asks how the... View Details

Keywords: Alphabet; Amazon; Apple; Strategy; Technology; Intelligent Assistants; Smart Speaker; Voice Assistants; Voice; Platform; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Competitive Strategy; Product Positioning; Technology Industry