Publications

2013
Article

How Concentrated Is the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services Industry? Myth vs. Reality

By: Alvin J. Silk and Charles King III

We analyze changes in concentration levels in the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services industry using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's quinquennial Economic Census and the Service Annual Survey. These data, heretofore largely ignored, allow us to redress some of... View Details

Keywords: Concentration Levels; Data; U.S. Census Bureau’s Quinquennial Economic Census And The Service Annual Survey; Measurement Problems; Herfindahl-Hirschman Index; Concentration Ratios; Advertising; Advertising Industry; North and Central America

August 2023
Case

Stay or Go? Sarah Reynolds at Kensington Partners

By: David G. Fubini, Amr Seifeldin and Patrick Sanguineti

Sarah Reynolds, a Partner at the global Kensington Partners strategy consulting firm, has headed the firm's Telecommunications Group for a few years. Thanks to her stellar track record with clients, she has brought the group, and herself, a range of accolades and... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Consulting Firms; Client Service; Career Management; Success; Time Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Development and Career

2025
Working Paper

Too Much, Too Soon? Early Funding, Technological Unconventionality, and Innovation Capabilities

By: Harsh Ketkar and Maria Roche

The availability of financial resources significantly shapes firm innovation outcomes, especially for early-stage, innovation-focused technology firms. However, prior research has provided conflicting findings about this relationship: On the one hand, resource... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Technology Strategy; Novelty; Unconventionality; Resource Constraints; Early Stage Firms; Business Startups; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurial Finance

May 2023 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Stay or Go? Sarah Reynolds Kensington Partners

By: David G. Fubini, Amr Seifeldin and Patrick Sanguineti

Sarah Reynolds, a relatively new Partner at the global Kensington Partners strategy consulting firm, has headed the firm's Telecommunications Group for a few years. Thanks to her stellar track record with clients, she has brought the group a range of accolades and... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Consulting Firms; Client Service; Career Management

1991
Article

Kei-haku-tan-shou Shouhin no Kaihatsu: Global Shijou deno Nihon Kigyou no Kyousou Yuuisei (Development of Light-Thin-Short-Small Products: Competitive Advantage of Japanese Firms in the Global Market)

By: Hirotaka Takeuchi

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Business Ventures; Japan

Article

Search-Based Peer Firms: Aggregating Investor Perceptions Through Internet Co-Searches

By: Charles M.C. Lee, Paul Ma and Charles C.Y. Wang

Applying a "co-search" algorithm to Internet traffic at the SEC's EDGAR website, we develop a novel method for identifying economically-related peer firms and for measuring their relative importance. Our results show that firms appearing in chronologically adjacent... View Details

Keywords: Peer Firm; EDGAR Search Traffic; Revealed Preference; Co-search; Industry Classification; Perception; Internet and the Web; Investment

October 2016
Case

Supercell

By: William R. Kerr, Benjamin F. Jones and Alexis Brownell

Supercell is a young Finnish smartphone game company with an unusual team structure and company philosophy. It is already one of Finland’s most valuable companies, and despite being only six years old, it has put up some impressive numbers: as of 2016, it has released... View Details

Keywords: Supercell; Finland; Video Games; Firm Structure; Startups; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Groups and Teams; Video Game Industry; Finland

01 Mar 2024
News

Turning Point: Eternal Returns

Louisa Wong (MBA 1981) (Illustration by Gisela Goppel) Louisa Wong (MBA 1981) (Illustration by Gisela Goppel) I was born in the middle of Typhoon Gloria in 1957 and spent my early childhood in Kowloon’s Walled City, which at the time was an extremely poor and densely... View Details

Keywords: life experience; search firm; entrepreneurship

2014
Working Paper

Search-Based Peer Firms: Aggregating Investor Perceptions Through Internet Co-Searches

By: Charles M.C. Lee, Paul Ma and Charles C.Y. Wang

Applying a "co-search" algorithm to Internet traffic at the SEC's EDGAR web-site, we develop a novel method for identifying economically-related peer firms and for measuring their relative importance. Our results show that firms appearing in chronologically adjacent... View Details

Keywords: Peer Firm; EDGAR Search Traffic; Revealed Preference; Co-search; Industry Classification; Analytics and Data Science; Internet and the Web; Mathematical Methods; Corporate Finance

2014
Working Paper

Profits and Economic Development

By: Dan Schwab and Eric Werker

Are rents, or excess profits, good for development? Using industry-level manufacturing data, this paper demonstrates a negative effect of rents, measured by the mark-up ratio, on productivity growth. The negative effect is strongest in poor countries, suggesting that... View Details

Keywords: Firm Performance; Rent; Mark-up; Competition; Manufacturing; Development Economics; Profit; Economic Growth; Renting or Rental

October 2013
Supplement

Dongfeng Nissan's Venucia (B)

By: Forest Reinhardt, Mayuka Yamazaki and G.A. Donovan

The (A) case describes the launch of a new passenger vehicle in China, produced jointly by Nissan of Japan and by Chinese automaker Dongfeng. Early sales results following the April 2012 launch were disappointing and the joint venture's managers had to decide how to... View Details

Keywords: China; Japan; Multinational Firms; Cross-cultural/cross-border; Environment; Sustainability; Competitive Strategy; Product Launch; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Crisis Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Auto Industry; China; Japan

July–August 2013
Article

Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity among Professionals

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Katherine L. Milkman

We investigate the role of workgroup sex and race composition on the career mobility of professionals in "up-or-out" organizations. We develop a nuanced perspective on the potential career mobility effects of workgroup demography by integrating the social... View Details

Keywords: Professional Service Firms; Race And Ethnicity; Ethnicity; Race; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Legal Services Industry

Find at Harvard

March 2013
Supplement

Equitas Microfinance (B): Response to the Andhra Pradesh Crisis

By: V.G. Narayanan, V. Kasturi Rangan and Vidhya Muthuram

Keywords: Business Model; For-profit Firms; Microfinance; Growth And Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility And Impact; Financial Services Industry; Social Enterprise; India

2024
Working Paper

Private Equity Fund Valuation Management during Fundraising

By: Brian K. Baik

I investigate whether and how private equity fund managers (GPs) inflate their interim fund valuations (net asset values or NAVs) during fundraising periods. Specifically, I study the extent to which the GPs inflate NAVs by managing valuation assumptions (e.g.,... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Institutional Investors; Valuation Multiples; Earnings Management; Private Firms; Valuation; Investment Funds

September 2020
Teaching Plan

Harlem Capital: Changing the Face of Entrepreneurship

By: George Serafeim

Jarrid Tingle and Henri Pierre-Jacques had spent the summer between their first and second years of their MBA program fund raising for their start-up venture capital (VC) firm, Harlem Capital Partners. Harlem Capital was founded upon the principle that addressing the... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital Firm Compensation; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurial Financing; Black Entrepreneurs; Black Leadership; Black Inventors; Inclusion; Minority-owned Businesses; Race And Ethnicity; Race Characteristics; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Diversity; Race; Gender; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Financial Services Industry; United States

2014
Working Paper

Bridging Science and Technology Through Academic-Industry Partnerships

By: Sen Chai and Willy C. Shih

Scientific research and its translation into commercialized technology is a driver of wealth creation and economic growth. Partnerships to foster the translational processes from public research organizations, such as universities and hospitals, to private firms are a... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Firm Performance; Public-private Partnership Funding; Translational Research; Small And Medium Enterprises; Partners and Partnerships; Public Sector; Private Sector; Performance; Science-Based Business; Innovation and Invention

March 1995 (Revised April 1995)
Background Note

Scope of the Corporation, The

By: David J. Collis

Describes analyses that determine the appropriate limit to the scope of the firm. Examines both the production cost justification for firm diversification--economies of scope and shared resources, and the governance cost justification for including transactions inside... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Agency Theory; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Expansion

2025
Working Paper

Bringing Science to Market: Knowledge Foundations, Inventor-Founders, and Performance

By: Justine Boudou and Maria Roche

In this paper, we examine how a startup’s knowledge foundations—embedded in its core technology—influence its performance in the exit market. Using a dataset of 1,006 biomedicine startups founded between 2005 and 2015, we focus on two key factors: (1) the degree of... View Details

Keywords: Firm Performance; Knowledge Foundations; Exits; Academic Startups; Inventor-founder; Specialized Scientific Knowledge; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Research; Information Publishing; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship