Publications

2013
Working Paper

The Appeal of the Appropriate: Accounting, Risk Management, and the Competition for the Supply of Control Systems

By: Anette Mikes

How do certain risk measurements in organizations come to be seen as more reliable and acceptable than others? Taking a multiple-control perspective, I investigate the aftermath of a control debacle at a financial services company (MultiBank), focusing on its insurance... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Multiple Control Systems; Interactive Control Systems; Performance Measurement; Risk Measurement; Financialization Of Accounting; Institutional Logics; Banking; Risk Management; Fair Value Accounting; Insurance; Financial Services Industry

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Research Summary

Overview

By: Marlous van Waijenburg

Professor van Waijenburg’s research focuses on the historical roots of relative African poverty and state fragility. Where sufficiently reliable and comparable records exist, she creates new datasets from a range of qualitative and quantitative archival sources. The... View Details

November 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Integrating Beam Suntory (A)

By: David G. Fubini, Rawi Abdelal and David Lane

The spring 2014 acquisition of U.S. alcoholic spirits maker Beam Inc. by Japan’s Suntory Holdings vaulted Suntory from 15th to third-largest international spirits company in the world. Yet Suntory had borrowed nearly the entire $16 billion purchase price, and relied on... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Communication; Borrowing and Debt; Globalization; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Retention; Leadership; Supply Chain; Organizational Structure; Ownership; Relationships; Conflict and Resolution; Integration; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Japan; United States; Chicago

January 2002 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Finova Group, Inc. (A), The

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Perry Fagan

Finova Group, a $14 billion commercial finance company, filed for Chapter 11 in early March 2001, in what was one of the largest U.S. bankruptcy filings of all time and the largest corporate bond default since the Great Depression. While in Chapter 11, Finova became... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Startups; Borrowing and Debt; Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Debt Securities; Price; Crisis Management; Bids and Bidding; Partners and Partnerships; Strategy; Valuation; Financial Services Industry; United States

February 2022
Case

Toraya

By: Lauren Cohen and Akiko Kanno

Mitsuharu Kurokawa was the 18th generation leader of a family firm that produced and sold premium Japanese sweets, Toraya Confectionery Co., Ltd. He had succeeded the business from his father, Mitsuhiro Kurokawa who had led the firm for thirty years. Mitsuharu was... View Details

Keywords: Branding; Luxury Brand; Succession; Family Business; Management Succession; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Marketing; Expansion; Globalization; Innovation and Invention; Customer Satisfaction; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; Japan

July 2023
Article

Design and Analysis of Switchback Experiments

By: Iavor I Bojinov, David Simchi-Levi and Jinglong Zhao

In switchback experiments, a firm sequentially exposes an experimental unit to a random treatment, measures its response, and repeats the procedure for several periods to determine which treatment leads to the best outcome. Although practitioners have widely adopted... View Details

Keywords: Switchback Experiments; Design; Analysis; Mathematical Methods

December 2021
Article

Primary Care Access During the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Simulated Patient Study

By: Michael Anne Kyle, Renuka Tipirneni, Nitya Thakore, Sneha Dave and Ishani Ganguli

Background
Primary care practices have experienced major strains during the COVID-19 pandemic, such that patients newly seeking care may face potential barriers to timely visits.
Objective
To quantify availability and wait times for new patient... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Ambulatory Care; Policy/economics; Access; Telemedicine; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment

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January 2021
Case

Anodot: Autonomous Business Monitoring

By: Antonio Moreno and Danielle Golan

Autonomous business monitoring platform Anodot leveraged machine learning to provide real-time alerts regarding business anomalies. Anodot’s solution was used in various industries in order to primarily monitor business health, such as revenue and payments, product... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Knowledge Sharing; Information Management; Sales; Value Creation; Product Positioning; Israel

January–February 2018
Article

Some Customers Would Rather Leave Without Saying Goodbye

By: Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer and Bruce G.S. Hardie

We investigate the increasingly common business setting in which companies face the possibility of both observed and unobserved customer attrition (i.e., “overt” and “silent” churn) in the same pool of customers. This is the case for many online-based services where... View Details

Keywords: Churn; Retention; Attrition; Customer Base Analysis; Hidden Markov Models; Latent Variable Models; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior

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12 Sep 2024
HBS Seminar

Jose Vasquez, London School of Economics

What You Don't Know About Making Decisions

Most executives think of decision making as a singular event that occurs at a particular point in time. In reality, though, decision making is a process fraught with power plays, politics, personal nuances, and institutional history. Leaders who recognize this make... View Details

2013
Dissertation

Designing Freemium: A Model of Consumer Usage, Upgrade, and Referral Dynamics

By: Clarence Lee, Vineet Kumar and Sunil Gupta

Abstract. Over the past decade "freemium" (free + premium) has become the dominant business model among internet start-ups for its ability to acquire and monetize a large install-base with limited marketing resources. Freemium is a hybrid strategy where a firm offers... View Details

Keywords: Discrete-Continuous Choice Dynamic Structural Models; Bayesian Estimation; Word-of-Mouth; Digital Services; Freemium; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Motivation and Incentives; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Reference Programs; Business Startups

March 2024 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Darktrace: Scaling Cybersecurity and AI (A)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Alexis Lefort

In 2023, Darktrace CEO Poppy Gustafsson was contemplating her growth strategy at a leading U.K.-based cybersecurity venture, launched in 2013 by a group of anti-terror cyber specialists, University of Cambridge mathematicians, and artificial intelligence (AI) experts.... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Talent; Scaling; Entrepreneurship; Cybersecurity; Leadership; Business Growth and Maturation; Recruitment; Resignation and Termination; AI and Machine Learning; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Going Public; Technology Industry; United Kingdom; Europe; United States

2006
Other Unpublished Work

Does Competition Increase Patent Litigation? Empirical Evidence of Strategic Patenting in the Telecom Equipment Industry

By: Juan Alcacer and Rachelle C. Sampson

Anecdotal evidence suggests that patent litigation has increased in the last 20 years as firms in knowledge intensive industries use patents more frequently to protect their knowledge stocks and managers focus on extracting new revenue streams from existing patent... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Competition; Lawsuits and Litigation

2010
Working Paper

Lawful but Corrupt: Gaming and the Problem of Institutional Corruption in the Private Sector

By: Malcolm S. Salter

This paper describes how the gaming of society's rules by corporations contributes to the problem of institutional corruption in the world of business. "Gaming" in its various forms involves the use of technically legal means to subvert the intent of society's rules in... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Civil Society or Community; Competitive Advantage; Earnings Management; Trust; Law; Performance; Investment Funds; Private Sector; Behavior; Relationships; Goals and Objectives