Publications

April 2023 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Fermenting Accounting Problems at Vermont Kombucha Corp.

By: Tatiana Sandino and Marshal Herrmann

Founded in 2005, Vermont Kombucha Corp. (V-Ko) was an early mover in the fledgling U.S. market for kombucha, a drink brewed for its health benefits. Early on, the company captured more than 90% of market share. Under the leadership of its founder and CEO, Joe Williams,... View Details

Keywords: Going Public; Business Model; Financial Reporting; Ethics; Corporate Governance; Stock Shares; Food and Beverage Industry

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

September 2001
Background Note

Financial Reporting Environment, The

By: Paul M. Healy, Amy P. Hutton, Robert S. Kaplan and Krishna G. Palepu

Provides a framework for understanding the role of financial reporting and various intermediaries as mechanisms for reducing both adverse selection and moral hazard problems in capital markets. Financial reports reduce adverse selection by providing basic information... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Capital Markets; Venture Capital; Corporate Disclosure; Conflict of Interests

July 2020 (Revised September 2020)
Case

Property Finder's Strategy for Online Classifieds in the MENA Region

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Gamze Yucaoglu and Fares Khrais

The case opens in 2020 as Michael Lahyani, founder and CEO of Property Finder, Dubai’s leading online real estate classifieds portal, contemplates the company’s five-year growth strategy.
Since its founding in 2005 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Property... View Details

Keywords: General Business; Real Estate; Entrepreneurship; Property; Strategy; Emerging Markets; Growth Management; Online Technology; Real Estate Industry; Technology Industry; United Arab Emirates; Saudi Arabia; Egypt; Turkey

05 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Structural Transformation: A Competitiveness-based View

Keywords: by Christian Ketels

04 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 4, 2018

shareholders' economic interests and low corporate profitability, Japan introduced the JPX-Nikkei400 in 2014. The index highlighted the country's "best-run" companies by annually selecting the 400 most... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Web

Black Business Leaders and Entrepreneurship | Baker Library

potential target customers including jobs and occupations, educational attainment, employment status, school enrollment, health, housing, and more. Suggested Resources United... View Details

March 2013
Article

Advertising's New Medium: Human Experience

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Standard ad messaging and conventional creative executions and placements are rapidly becoming outmoded. To win consumers' attention and trust, marketers must think less about what advertising says to its targets and more about what it does for them. Rather than... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Advertising

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

Research Summary

When Does IT Foster Markets, When Does it Foster Hierarchies?

The 'Electronic Markets Hypothesis' is, at present, essentially taken for granted. It holds that greater use of IT leads to greater use of market mechanisms for coordinating activity, basically because of IT's ability to reduce the costs of coordination.

The... View Details

July 2011 (Revised April 2012)
Case

The Clorox Company: Leveraging Green for Growth

By: Elie Ofek and Lauren Barley

The Clorox Company needs to decide on the marketing strategy going forward for its three sustainable brands, Brita, Burt's Bees and Green Works. These brands had fared differently over the past 3 years and each presents multiple courses of action heading into 2011.... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Managerial Roles; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Sales; Opportunities; Corporate Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Chemical Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

John Beshears is the Albert J. Weatherhead Jr. Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit, teaching the second-year MBA course "Negotiation." He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.... View Details

02 May 2009
News

Electoral ATMs

June 1996 (Revised January 1999)
Case

XcelleNet, Inc. (A)

By: Stephen P. Bradley, Richard L. Nolan and James Leonard

XcelleNet, a $35 million system software company based in Atlanta, was founded in 1986 to address the computing needs of a class of remote and mobile users and data that were rarely connected to a network. Though the clear first mover and leader in the remote... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Opportunities; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Technology Networks; Computer Industry; Atlanta

May 2016 (Revised September 2016)
Case

Hillside Beach Club: Delivering the Ultimate Family Vacation in the Mediterranean

By: Rajiv Lal and Gamze Yucaoglu

In 2015, Edip Ilkbahar, HBC’s founder and CEO, was looking over the plans for a new branch in Cyprus. Since the inception of the company by the Alarko Group of companies in 1994, Ilkbahar’s company had enjoyed high occupancy, high guest satisfaction, and high... View Details

December 1998 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Trilogy (A)

Trilogy is a rapidly growing company that is taking a highly unusual approach to capturing an enterprise software market (the "selling chain") that is also the target of much larger competitors. The case offers students an opportunity to assess the company's methods,... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Competition; Growth Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Software; Web Services Industry

14 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Web Surfers Have a Schedule and Stick to It

ubiquitous, the average online encounter shifted to someone of lower income and longer sessions. “We expect that trend to continue,” says Greenstein. The researchers note that the typical household spends more than half its time at two... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail; Web Services

31 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 31, 2018

addresses interventions that firms, governments, and other parties deploy to shape household financial outcomes: education and information, peer effects and social influence,... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

August 2014
Case

Rent the Runway (Abridged)

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Brent Goldfarb and David A. Kirsch

Two months after a successful launch In November 2009, the cofounders of Rent the Runway (RTR), a website that rented designer dresses, are debating whether to grow their startup at a measured pace and focus on improving operational effectiveness, or raise a new round... View Details

Keywords: Lean Startup; Electronic Commerce; Fashion; Expansion; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Fashion Industry