Publications

July 2013
Case

Jackson Automotive Systems

By: William E. Fruhan and Wei Wang

Jackson Automotive Systems produces automotive parts for advanced heating and air conditioning systems, engine cooling systems, fuel injection and transfer systems, and various other engine parts and it supplies them to the automotive industry primarily in Michigan.... View Details

Keywords: Production; Financial Crisis; Corporate Finance; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Michigan

16 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 16, 2008

encourage participation—or closed. This paper reviews factors that motivate decisions to open or close mature platforms. At the platform provider and sponsor levels, these decisions entail 1) interoperating with established rival platforms; 2) licensing View Details

07 Jun 2023
HBS Case

3 Ways to Gain a Competitive Advantage Now: Lessons from Amazon, Chipotle, and Facebook

capabilities that they as a firm can hone, monitor, and manage,” she says. Those capabilities then allow the company to continuously produce innovative products at the same time they are creating more efficiency in manufacturing and... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

September 2019 (Revised May 2020)
Supplement

Keroche (F): Future Growth Plans

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pippa Tubman Armerding

This case describes Keroche co-founder Tabitha Karanja’s 2012 decision to invest in additional production capacity. In November 2012, with a loan from Barclay’s bank, Keroche began constructing a new state-of-the-art beer brewery using German technology. The new plant,... View Details

28 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 28, 2008

preparation offices were given the option to purchase U.S. Savings Bonds in addition to existing Block savings products. The fraction of filers who did any savings at the tax-site was 8.5 times higher at these treatment sites offering... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October, 2022
Article

The Economic Dynamics of Competing Power Generation Sources

By: Gunther Glenk and Stefan Reichelstein

Competing power generation sources have experienced considerable shifts in both their revenue potential and their costs in recent years. Here we introduce the concept of Levelized Profit Margins (LPM) to capture the changing unit economics of both intermittent and... View Details

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December 2017
Case

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Sarah Mehta

It is July 2017, and Dr. Nteranya Sanginga, the director general of the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), is making progress toward two of his primary strategic objectives for the nonprofit research Institute: 1) to scale the impact... View Details

Keywords: Scaling Technologies; Youth Unemployment; Innovation In Nonprofits; Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Cash Flow; Labor; Employment; Commercialization; Problems and Challenges; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa; Nigeria

08 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

The Return of the Salesman

and arranged terms of credit in case the "prospect" wanted to buy. In some cases, like the refrigerator, manufacturers relied on salespeople to introduce a product, but once it was accepted by consumers, they turned to advertising. In... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

17 Oct 2023
HBS Case

With Subscription Fatigue Setting In, Companies Need to Think Hard About Fees

buyers who felt they had already paid for the installed features when they bought the cars. “The ubiquity of subscription offerings has led many customers to feel that ‘everything today is a subscription,’” Ofek and Konary write. Choosing the subscription that makes... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Consumer Products; Information; Information Technology

15 Apr 2008
First Look

First Look: April 15, 2008

alternative definitions of market-type dispersion and to other determinants of franchising such as the stores' geographic distance from headquarters and geographic dispersion. Additional analyses also suggest that chains that do not... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Jan 2007
First Look

First Look: January 23, 2007

technology would provide the country with greater agricultural production, a major source of exports, without the need to convert additional areas of the Cerrado or Amazon to farmland. However, producers have been slow to adopt it due to... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 1994 (Revised April 1995)
Case

Volkswagen de Mexico's North American Strategy (A)

In 1988, Volkswagen (VW) consolidated its North American operations in Puebla, Mexico, after shutting down its plant in Pennsylvania. Volkswagen de Mexico had been in operation since the 1960s, but produced almost exclusively for the Mexican market. In the late 1980s,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Trade; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Canada; Germany; United States; Mexico

July 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Teaching Note

Argentina Power—Don’t Cry for Me Argentina

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Sayiddah Fatima McCree

Teaching Note for HBS No. 218-041. This case concerns a complex potential energy infrastructure investment in Argentina by a global conglomerate shortly after Mauricio Macri (“Macri”) became President of Argentina in 2015. The central issues are (i) why was a country... View Details

Keywords: Argentina; Argentine Exceptionalism; Infrastructure Finance; Investing; Finance; Inflation and Deflation; Government and Politics; Energy Generation; Infrastructure; Utilities Industry; Energy Industry; Financial Services Industry; Argentina; South America

15 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

GM: What Went Wrong and What’s Next

and revolutionized millions of Americans' lives. Riding the wave of the Model T's success, Ford Motor Company became the undisputed leader of this young market and by the early 1920s, it was producing 60 percent of all the motor vehicles View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto

01 Jun 2023
HBS Case

A Nike Executive Hid His Criminal Past to Turn His Life Around. What If He Didn't Have To?

shot and killed a teenager. Miller had served four years in juvenile detention for that murder and had later spent five additional years in prison for a smattering of armed robberies. Eventually, while behind bars, he had gotten his head... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Apparel & Accessories

March 2015 (Revised April 2015)
Case

The Heat Is On: Emerging Ecosystems in the Thermostat Industry

By: David Collis and Ashley Hartman

Beth Wozniak, President of Honeywell Environmental and Combustion Controls (ECC) at Honeywell International Inc., spun around in her office chair, reflecting about how the classic, mature thermostat industry was rapidly evolving. In February 2014, Google paid $3.2... View Details