Publications

30 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 30

and its implied elasticities are in the ballpark of a range of micro estimates. We find industrial policy subsidizing either the R&D or the continued operation of incumbents reduces growth and welfare. For example, a subsidy to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Lakshmi Ramarajan

Professor Ramarajan is the Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Her research examines the management and consequences of identities in organizations.

She teaches the... View Details

Keywords: nonprofit industry

March 2000 (Revised April 2004)
Case

VacationSpot.com & Rent-A-Holiday: Negotiating a Trans-Atlantic Merger of Start-Ups

Describes a potential trans-Atlantic merger between two young companies in the Internet space. VacationSpot.com, based in Seattle, and Rent-A-Holiday, based in Brussels, both offer online listings and reservations for independent leisure lodging (i.e., villas,... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Valuation; Internet and the Web; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Startups; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Travel Industry; United States; Brussels

January 2000 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Officenet (A): Making Entrepreneurship Work in Argentina

Describes the creation and financing of Officenet, an office supply distributor in Argentina. The company serves the business-to-business market through a catalog (combined with phone orders) and also through an Internet-based catalog. Officenet is a pioneer in both... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Argentina

September 1997 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Bankruptcy and Restructuring at Marvel Entertainment Group

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Jason Auerbach

Marvel Entertainment Group is the leading comic book publisher in the United States, with superheros like Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, and Captain America. It is also one of the leading manufacturers of sports and entertainment trading cards under the... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Decision Choices and Conditions; Borrowing and Debt; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governance Controls; Courts and Trials; Planning; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

2007
Working Paper

Incompatible Assumptions: Barriers to Producing Multidisciplinary Knowledge in Communities of Scholarship

By: Corinne Bendersky and Kathleen L. McGinn

Co-locating knowledge workers from different disciplines may be a necessary but insufficient step to generating multidisciplinary knowledge. We explore the role of assumptions underlying knowledge creation within the field of organizational studies, and investigate how... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Management; Knowledge Sharing; Business Processes; Groups and Teams

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09 Jun 2024
Blog Post

The EC Formula: MBA Class of 2024 Looks Back

industries and functions. We asked members of the MBA Class of 2024 what EC course will help them succeed in their various sectors, why they pursued an MBA, what advice they would give to prospective MBA students in their fields, and... View Details

December 2001
Case

Dairy.com

By: Ray A. Goldberg and James M Beagle

Dairy.com's ecommerce exchange attempts to provide value to the dairy industry through price discovery mechanisms. View Details

Keywords: Food; Innovation and Invention; Business Strategy; Technology Adoption; Internet and the Web; Price; Value Creation

June 2023
Teaching Note

Connecting Students in Chattanooga (A) and (B)

By: Jan W. Rivkin

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 722-449 and 722-451. As this case opens, it is the spring of 2020 in Chattanooga. COVID-19 has hit, public schools have closed their buildings, remote learning has begun, and more than 28,000 schoolkids lack the high-quality Internet... View Details

Keywords: K-12 Education; Pandemic; COVID-19; Accessibility; Education; Urban Development; Wealth and Poverty; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure; Education Industry; Tennessee

Eva Ascarza is the Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Marketing Unit. She is the co-founder of the Customer Intelligence Lab at the D^3 institute at Harvard Business School. She teaches the Marketing core in the MBA required... View Details

Keywords: e-commerce industry; e-commerce industry; e-commerce industry; e-commerce industry; e-commerce industry

June 2007 (Revised January 2008)
Case

BBC Worldwide: Global Strategy

By: John A. Quelch and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In January 2007, John Smith, chief executive officer of BBC Worldwide (BBC WW), the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), was preparing to meet with his senior managers to discuss BBC WW's global strategy options. BBC WW exploited and exported... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Channels; Expansion; Internet; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Great Britain

Lynda M. Applegate is a Baker Foundation Professor at HBS and is Chair of the Advisory Committee for Harvard University’s Masters Degree of Liberal Arts in Finance and Management at the Harvard University Extension School. She has also played a... View Details

June 2001 (Revised March 2003)
Case

Alibris (A)

By: Andrew P. McAfee and Kerry Herman

Alibris is an Internet-era company providing search and fulfillment services for hard-to-find (rare, used, and out-of-print) books. At the time of the case, the company had made decisions to change its revenue model, to become involved in the fulfillment process for... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Service Delivery; Applications and Software; Problems and Challenges; Books; Service Industry

October 2017 (Revised January 2018)
Case

Bitfury: Blockchain for Government

By: Mitchell Weiss and Elena Corsi

In the Republic of Georgia, legend had it their land was a precious gift from God he had intended to keep for his mother. But over time, the land had been under intermittent threat from without and within. In 2017, the Bitfury Group, which Valery Vavilov had... View Details

March 2021 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Ayn Rand: Changing the World

By: Robert Simons and Max Saffer

This case traces the life of Ayn Rand from Russia to Hollywood to New York City. The case describes how Rand fled communist Russia and, in reaction to the deprivations she experienced under communism, developed a philosophy idealizing free will and personal... View Details

Keywords: Writing; Values and Beliefs; Economic Systems; Society; Mission and Purpose; Success; Work-Life Balance; Ethics; Personal Development and Career; Publishing Industry

January 2011 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

One of the leading publishers of textbooks and other educational materials for the U.S. K-12 educational instruction market has suffered a dramatic decline in sales and profits in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial market crisis and economic recession, and is now... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Capital Structure; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Publishing Industry; Massachusetts

September 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Icahn Enterprises: Ponzi Scheme or Sound Investment

By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and James Weber

Icahn Enterprises, a publicly traded limited partnership founded and operated by famed activist investor Carl Icahn, had earned above market returns for over a decade. Between 2018 and early 2023, it had a compound annual return of 31%. Icahn invested in undervalued... View Details

Keywords: Stock Shares; Investment Return; Business Model; Valuation; Financial Services Industry

March 2020
Case

Aereo

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Jacey Taft

Aereo aimed to disrupt television program distribution by providing consumers access to local broadcast TV programming using offsite antennas, cloud-based DVRs, and an Internet connection. With Aereo, consumers could “cut the cord” and avoid the high cost of a cable TV... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Failure; Lawsuits and Litigation; Internet and the Web; Media; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States