Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(7,010)
- Faculty Publications (1,761)
- September 2017 (Revised June 2021)
- Supplement
Tempur Sealy International (C)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Lauren G. Pickle
Analyzes the commercial relationship between Tempur Sealy and Mattress Firm following the events discussed in the (B) case. View Details
Keywords: Porter's 5 Forces; Bargaining Power; Buyer Power; Customer Power; Supplier Power; Negotiations; Value Capture; Consumer Durables; Consumer Discretionary; Mattresses; B-2-B; Industry Dynamics; Compensation; Corporate Strategy; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Competition; Cooperation; Private Equity; Distribution; Negotiation; Industry Structures; Leadership; Customers; Relationships; Distribution Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States; South Africa
- September 2017 (Revised March 2018)
- Case
Chai Point: Disrupting Chai
By: Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani
Chai Point is India’s largest organized chai retailer. It has missed its target for retail store openings by approximately 25%, goals that are very important to its investors who are also board members. However, it has developed an exciting new internet-based tea... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Venture Capital; Stock; Business Model; Mobile Technology; Technological Innovation; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Food; Selection and Staffing; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Resignation and Termination; Compensation and Benefits; Resource Allocation; Product Positioning; Distribution Channels; Product Design; Supply Chain; Governing and Advisory Boards; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Asia; India; Karnataka; Bangalore
- August 2017
- Case
Infection Control at Massachusetts General Hospital (Abridged)
By: Robert S. Huckman and Nikolaos Trichakis
The case explores the challenges facing Massachusetts General Hospital concerning the adoption of a new infection control policy, which promises to improve operational performance, patient safety, and profitability. The new policy requires coordination between... View Details
- August 2017 (Revised November 2017)
- Case
VTS
By: Mark Roberge and Michael Roberts
The case raises issues around sales force deployment and management issues in the SaaS industry. Specifically, VTS sells a software product to the real estate industry and has designed a Go-to-Market strategy for what the founders perceive to be the unique... View Details
- November 2017
- Comment
Discussion: Do Common Inherited Beliefs and Values Influence CEO Pay?
By: Lauren Cohen
The origin of preferences is something we know strikingly little about in economics. Given the central importance of preferences, we have not invested nearly the time we should into this concept. And so, as an overarching research direction, I am heartened by the push... View Details
- August 2017
- Article
Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment
By: Doug J. Chung and Das Narayandas
We conduct a field experiment in which we vary the sales force compensation scheme at an Asian enterprise that sells consumer durable goods. With variation generated by the experimental treatments, we model sales force performance to identify the effectiveness of... View Details
- July 2017 (Revised November 2017)
- Case
Propel
By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah McAra
In 2014, Jimmy Chen, a former product manager at Facebook, founded the start-up Propel to build software for low-income Americans. After conducting in-depth behavioral research, Chen and his small team in New York City began to develop technology to address the... View Details
Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Govtech; Food Stamps; EBT; Mobile App; User Research; Financial Services Referrals; Grocery Marketing; Customer Discovery; Social Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Public Sector; Business Model; Research; Social Enterprise; Poverty; Welfare; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Industry; United States
- 2017
- Working Paper
Rethinking Measurement of Pay Disparity and its Relation to Firm Performance
By: Ethan Rouen
I develop measures of firm-level pay disparity and examine their relation to firm accounting performance. Using comprehensive compensation data for a large sample of firms, I find no statistically significant relation between the ratio of CEO-to-mean employee... View Details
- June 2017 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank
Set in early 2017, this case examines widespread sales misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank. Wells Fargo's governance and controls are described in the lead up to the September 2016 announcement that Wells Fargo had settled with regulators for $185 million in... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Lawsuits and Litigation; Crisis Management; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Design; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Crime and Corruption; Business Organization; Business Model; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Governance Compliance; Policy; Compensation and Benefits; Resignation and Termination; Laws and Statutes; Legal Liability; Business or Company Management; Risk Management; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Failure; Agency Theory; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Salesforce Management; Public Opinion; Banking Industry; North and Central America
- June 2017
- Teaching Note
The U-Turns of National Truck Stops
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Alexander W. Schultz
Raj Makam had spent months trying to restructure a 2006 investment he had made in National Truck Stops, Inc. (“NTS”) as a senior member of Oaktree Capital Management’s (“Oaktree”) Mezzanine finance business within their Corporate Debt platform. It was the first time... View Details
- 2019
- Chapter
Network Effects
By: Andrei Hagiu and David B. Yoffie
Network effects are a key economic and strategic phenomenon in 'new economy' industries. They can, but do not necessarily, lead to market tipping, unless they outweigh customers' benefits from differentiation and are accompanied by high switching and multi-homing... View Details
Keywords: Network Effects
- 2019
- Chapter
Technology Adoption
By: Chris Forman, Avi Goldfarb and Shane Greenstein
Using examples from information technology adoption, we emphasize the role of costs, benefits, communications channels and dynamic considerations in the decision to adopt new technology. We discuss differences between adoption by consumers and adoption by firms. We... View Details
Keywords: Technology Adoption
- June 2017
- Article
The Social Trajectory of a Finance Professor and the Common Sense of Capital
By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana
This paper traces the career of Michael Jensen, a Chicago finance PhD turned Harvard Business School professor to reveal the intellectual and social conditions that enabled the emergence and institutionalization of what we call the “neoliberal common sense of capital,”... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Expressive Voting and Its Cost: Evidence from Runoffs with Two or Three Candidates
By: Vincent Pons and Clémence Tricaud
In French parliamentary and local elections, candidates ranked first and second in the first round automatically qualify for the second round, while a third candidate qualifies only when selected by more than 12.5 percent of registered citizens. Using a fuzzy RDD... View Details
- Article
Third-Party Punishment as a Costly Signal of High Continuation Probabilities in Repeated Games
By: Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand
Why do individuals pay costs to punish selfish behavior, even as third-party observers? A large body of research suggests that reputation plays an important role in motivating such third-party punishment (TPP). Here we focus on a recently proposed reputation-based... View Details
- Editorial
How Laws and Culture Hold Back Socially Minded Companies
By: George Serafeim, Daniela Saltzman and Bronagh Ward
- May–June 2017
- Article
Multiple Identity Configurations: The Benefits of Focused Enhancement for Prosocial Behavior
By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Ida Berger and Itay Greenspan
- May 2017 (Revised July 2017)
- Supplement
Aadhaar: From Voluntary to Mandatory
By: Tarun Khanna, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla
Approximately 1.1 billion residents of India (99% of the population) had a unique biometric identity—Aadhaar—by 2017. In six years, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had achieved an unprecedented milestone in emerging and developed markets. The... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Emerging Markets; Information; Information Technology; Organizational Design; Infrastructure; Identity; Projects; Information Management; Government and Politics; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Transformation; Society; Welfare; Social Issues; Private Sector; Public Sector; Information Technology Industry; Asia; India; New Delhi
- May 2017
- Case
Buffer.com
By: Susanna Gallani, Tiffany Y. Chang, Brian J. Hall and Jee Eun Shin
Social media company Buffer wanted to establish clear company values early in its growth. One of these values was a commitment to transparency in its company practices. Buffer openly shared its business strategies and fundraising decks, among lots of other information.... View Details
- May 2017
- Supplement
Buffer.com (B)
By: Susanna Gallani, Tiffany Y. Chang, Brian J. Hall and Jee Eun Shin
Buffer decided to release its salaries and compensation calculation formula to the public, and the public reaction was greater and more positive than they would have imagined. The company experienced both an increase in volume and a change in the kinds of inbound... View Details
Keywords: Compensation; Compensation Design; Company Values; Culture; Transparency; Attraction; Selection; Performance Measurement; Performance Measures; Performance Metrics; Startup Management; Compensation and Benefits; Organizational Culture; Values and Beliefs; Performance Evaluation; Measurement and Metrics