Publications

November – December 2011
Article

Explaining Influence Rents: The Case for an Institutions-Based View of Strategy

By: Gautam Ahuja and Sai Yayavaram

Research in strategy has identified and tried to explain four types of rents: monopolistic rents, efficiency rents, quasi rents, and Schumpeterian rents. Building on previous work on political and institutional strategies, we add a fifth type of rent: influence rents.... View Details

Keywords: Institutions; Influence Rents; Generic Strategies; Strategy; Organizations; Renting or Rental; Economics

Most books thus far on emerging markets are either investing-oriented (Mobius, Pereiro), or country - or market-specific (Farrell, Lindahl), or descriptive (Friedman, van Agtmael). No book has definitively targeted the corporate strategists who need a practical... View Details

Innovation and Design in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

At the heart of any innovation process lies a fundamental practice: the way people create ideas and solve problems. This “decision making” side of innovation is what scholars and practitioners refer to as “design.” Decisions in innovation processes have so far been... View Details

Research Summary

Anonymity and Identity

By: John A. Deighton

In most consumer markets, consumers are accustomed to operating in relative anonymity. A complex social adjustment is occurring as people realize that anonymity is often no longer their default condition - it must be sought and in some cases bought. New conceptions of... View Details

Keywords: Privacy; Anonymity

April 2012 (Revised February 2013)
Case

Learning About Reducing Hospital Mortality at Kaiser Permanente

By: Anita Tucker

In 2011, Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) region's efforts to reduce mortality in their 21 hospitals is showing promise. They developed and launched a region-wide initiative to improve the treatment of sepsis, a serious and often deadly medical condition.... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Improvement; Health Industry; California

March 1997
Background Note

Asymmetric Information: Market Failures, Market Distortions, and Market Solutions

Presents a conceptual framework for thinking about markets characterized by asymmetric information. Presents the standard economic analysis of "the lemons problem," and demonstrates how asymmetric information may lead to market inefficiencies and alter the distribution... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy

01 May 2012
News

Report or Explain: A policy proposal for sustainability reporting to be adopted as a common practice for the advancement of a Green Economy

2009
Chapter

Nonlinear Pricing

By: Raghuram Iyengar and Sunil Gupta

A nonlinear pricing schedule refers to any pricing structure where the total charges payable by customers are not proportional to the quantity of their consumed services. We begin the chapter with a discussion of the broad applicability of nonlinear pricing schemes. We... View Details

Keywords: Price; Demand and Consumers; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Monopoly; Service Operations; Research

2014
Book

Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World

By: John P. Kotter

Based on the award-winning article in Harvard Business Review, from global leadership expert John Kotter. It's a familiar scene in organizations today: a new competitive threat or a big opportunity emerges. You quickly create a strategic initiative in response and... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Organizational Structure

WILLIAM (WILLIS) EMMONS is Senior Lecturer and Director of the C. Roland Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard Business School, a position he has held since 2004. As Director of the Christensen Center, Emmons oversees programs to... View Details

Keywords: airline; infrastructure industry; pharmaceuticals; telecommunications; utilities

2020
Working Paper

Measuring the Cost of Corporate Water Usage

By: DG Park, George Serafeim and T. Robert Zochowski

We develop a methodology that calculates the impact that organizations have on the environment through their water consumption relating to water stress risk. Using the methodology, we derive estimates for four companies that show how assumptions on the geographic... View Details

Keywords: Water; Water Management; Environment; Sustainability; Environmental Impact; Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Organizations; Environmental Sustainability; Valuation

2011
Chapter

Financing Constraints and Entrepreneurship

By: William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

Financing constraints are one of the biggest concerns impacting potential entrepreneurs around the world. Given the important role that entrepreneurship is believed to play in the process of economic growth, alleviating financing constraints for would-be entrepreneurs... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Investment; Policy; Research

2006
Chapter

The Social Dimensions of Entrepreneurship

By: Amir Licht and Jordan I. Siegel

Schumpeter's canonical depiction of the entrepreneur as an agent of social and economic change implies that entrepreneurs are especially sensitive to the social environment. We use an organizing framework based on institutional economics, in combination with lessons... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Social Institutions; Culture; Law; Social Networks; Reputation; Social Entrepreneurship; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

07 Oct 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Sovereign Debt Portfolios, Bond Risks, and the Credibility of Monetary Policy

Keywords: by Wenxin Du, Carolin E. Pflueger, and Jesse Schreger

September 2009
Case

ZINK Imaging: 'Zero Ink™'

By: William A. Sahlman and Sarah Flaherty

"ZINK Imaging" describes the issues confronting CEO Wendy Caswell as she uses a partnership model to commercialize ZINK's disruptive printing technology platform, ZINK Paper. The case focuses on the frameworks ZINK has used to decide which markets to target and which... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Capital; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Marketing Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Horizontal Integration; Technology Industry

July 2017
Article

The Four Stages to Becoming an Excellent Front-Line Sales Manager

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Sales occupations account for more than 10% of the total U.S. labor force, and that official estimate is almost certainly low: In an increasingly service economy, many people who do business development for a living are not listed as “sales” for reporting purposes.... View Details

Keywords: Salesforce Management

July 1999 (Revised January 2004)
Case

Chrysler and BMW: Tritec Engine Joint Venture

By: H. Kent Bowen and Courtney Purrington

A gifted project leader lacks significant new product development experience. The case highlights the issues and procedures related to defining the project strategy: organizing senior management approvals and support for creating a "heavyweight" team; aligning the... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Joint Ventures; Projects; Business Strategy; Management Teams; Groups and Teams; Machinery and Machining; Design; Business Processes; Product Design; Product; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Auto Industry

Article

Best Practices in Estimating the Cost of Capital: Survey and Synthesis

By: Robert Bruner, Kenneth M. Eades, Robert S. Harris and Robert F. Higgins

This paper presents the results of a cost-of-capital survey of 27 highly regarded corporations, ten leading financial advisers, and seven best selling textbooks and trade books. The results show close alignment among all these groups on the use of common theoretical... View Details

Keywords: Cost of Capital

2005
Book

Multinationals and Global Capitalism: From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book provides an essential framework for understanding global business. It shows how entrepreneurs built a global economy in the nineteenth century by creating firms that pursued resources and markets across borders. It demonstrates how firms shifted strategies as... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalization; History; Economy; Trade; Strategy