Publications

2008
Chapter

Allocating Marketing Resources

By: Sunil Gupta and Thomas J. Steenburgh

Companies spend billions of dollars on marketing every year because it is essential to organic growth. Given these large investments, marketing managers have the responsibility to optimally allocate resources and to demonstrate that their investments generate... View Details

Keywords: Investment Return; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Mathematical Methods

William Sahlman is a Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Mr. Sahlman received an A.B. degree in Economics from Princeton University (1972), an M.B.A. from Harvard University (1975), and a Ph.D. in Business... View Details

May 2015
Article

What Are We Meeting For? The Consequences of Private Meetings with Investors

By: David H. Solomon and Eugene F. Soltes

Regulation Fair Disclosure was passed in 2000 in response to the concern that certain investors were gaining selective access to privileged firm information. In spite of the passage of this regulation, some investors continue to meet privately with executives. Using a... View Details

Keywords: Conferences; Decision Making; Investment

February 2022
Case

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi (Abridged)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

In 2006, the Cleveland Clinic and Mubadala Investment Company partnered with a bold ambition to deliver world class healthcare in the United Arab Emirates. In 2015, after nearly a decade of planning and construction, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi opened its doors. By... View Details

Keywords: Organization Behavior; Culture; Alignment; Organizational Effectiveness; Purpose; Impact; Leadership Development; Diversity; Collaboration; Co-creation; Learning Organizations; Empowerment; Teams; Team Dynamics; Teamwork; Team Effectiveness; Trust; Talent; Talent Development And Retention; Psychological Safety; Organizational Evolution; Coaching; Board; Analytics; Innovation; Data; Data Visualization; Digital Technology; Digital; Customer Experience; Experimentation; Change Management; Data-driven Decision-making; Debates; Ecosystem; Partnership; Telemedicine; Sustainability; Global Organizations; Local; Hospital; Healthcare; United Arab Emirates; Health Care and Treatment; Partners and Partnerships; Globalization; Quality; Organizational Culture; Mission and Purpose; Innovation and Management; Information Technology; Joint Ventures; Leadership; Performance Effectiveness; Abu Dhabi; United Arab Emirates

2014
Working Paper

Entrepreneurship as Experimentation

By: William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Entrepreneurship research is on the rise but many questions about its fundamental nature still exist. We argue that entrepreneurship is about experimentation: the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed and unknowable until an investment is made. At a macro... View Details

Keywords: Experiments; Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

SSRN

April 2017
Article

Financing Risk and Innovation

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We provide a model of investment into new ventures that demonstrates why some places, times, and industries should be associated with a greater degree of experimentation by investors. Investors respond to financing risk―a forecast of limited future funding―by modifying... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Financing and Loans; Innovation and Invention

March 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

CalPERS' Emerging Equity Markets Principles

By: Robert G. Eccles and Aldo Sesia

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CaIPERS)—the largest public pension fund in the U.S.—had adopted a new principles-based approach to investing in emerging market equities in November 2007. Previously, CalPERS internal and external money managers were... View Details

Keywords: Values and Beliefs; Investment Return; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Emerging Markets; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Value; Financial Services Industry; Public Administration Industry; China; California

07 Jun 2023
Blog Post

My One Case: MBA Class of 2023 Looks Back

2023 about a case they read that made an impact on them, how the lessons will help them become leaders who make a difference, and more. Furman Haynes (MBA 2023) Furman is a member of Section H. He will be working to launch an... View Details

January 2003 (Revised September 2007)
Background Note

A Note on Racing to Acquire Customers

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Examines factors that motivate a firm's race to acquire customers in newly emerging markets and explores conditions under which racing strategies are likely to yield attractive returns. Provides a definition of racing behavior, introduces the notion of an optimal level... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Price Bubble; Network Effects; Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Behavior; Competition

January 2020
Case

Terra Nova: A Social Business Trying to Unlock Land Rights for the Urban Poor in Brazil

By: Julie Battilana, Ruth Costas, Marissa Kimsey and Priscilla Zogbi

Brothers André and Daniel Albuquerque founded the company Terra Nova in 2001 to mediate land disputes between poor families illegally living in urban areas and the official landowners—with the aspiration to improve the lives of the poor. A business-led approach to the... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation; Power and Influence; Social Issues; Conflict and Resolution; Business and Government Relations; Infrastructure; Urban Development; Real Estate Industry; Brazil; Latin America

March 2017
Article

Entrepreneurial Beacons: The Yale Endowment, Run-ups, and the Growth of Venture Capital

By: Y. Sekou Bermiss, Benjamin J. Hallen, Rory McDonald and Emily Cox Pahnke

This paper investigates the social context of entrepreneurship in organizational sectors. Prior research suggests that firm foundings are driven by collective patterns of activity—that is, by patterns of prior foundings—including support from related markets as well as... View Details

Keywords: Signals; Social Salience; Venture Capital; Higher Education; Organizations; Entrepreneurship; Investment

January 2012 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Mexico City Water Shortage

By: John D. Macomber, Regina Garcia-Cuellar, Griffin H. James and Frederik Nellemann

In this case, a property company, a water privatizer, and municipal engineers explore the causes of and solutions to a severe water shortage in Mexico City, a great global capital. The protagonist is a real estate investor doing due diligence on the magnitude of the... View Details

Keywords: Infrastructure; Environmental Sustainability; Urban Development; Mexico City

February 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

CPP Investments—The Road to Zero

By: Vikram Gandhi and Radhika Kak

In February 2022, Canadian Pension Plan (CPP) Investments, the investment management organization that managed funds for the CPP, one of the biggest pension plans in the world, announced a net-zero commitment for its portfolio by 2050. Under its CEO, John Graham, it... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Asset Management; Investment Portfolio; Leading Change; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Services Industry; Canada; California

Article

Elevate Employees, Don't Eliminate Them

By: Ryan W. Buell

The last major global shock—the 2008 recession—led to what economists call a “jobless recovery” as companies found they could get by with fewer employees. But post-pandemic, the author writes, managers should focus on changing employees’ roles instead. He has five key... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Customer Relationship Management; Interpersonal Communication; Value Creation

February 2014 (Revised May 2014)
Background Note

Finding the Money: An Overview of Infrastructure Finance Challenges and Opportunities

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Daniel Fox

This overview describes how the United States funds and finances infrastructure investment to maintain its economic competitiveness. It considers the roles of taxpayers, users, government allocators and lenders, and private investors in the infrastructure funding... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Infrastructure; Technology; United States

George A. Riedel is the Henry B. Arthur Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the General Management Unit, where he currently teaches TEM (The Entrepreneurial Manager) and acts as a Section Chair in the Required Curriculum (RC). He has also taught TOM (Technology and... View Details

January 2022
Article

Pushed into a Crowd: Repositioning Costs, Resources, and Competition in the RTE Cereal Industry

By: Young Hou and Dennis Yao

This paper exploits a natural experiment involving self-regulation in the ready-to-eat (RTE) breakfast cereal industry to evaluate the performance impact of product repositioning. It then examines how a product's brand equity value declines with repositioning distance... View Details

Keywords: Positioning; Resources; Brand Equity; Competitive Dynamics; Non-market Strategy; Regulation; Repositioning; Product Positioning; Performance Evaluation; Brands and Branding; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Products Industry