Publications

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June 2007 (Revised December 2007)
Case

AFL-CIO: Office of Investment and Home Depot

By: Rakesh Khurana and James Weber

Describes the AFL-CIO: Office of Investments activities in their campaign to improve governance at Home Depot by calling attention to Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli's compensation package and the company's poor performance. The AFL-CIO Office of Investments advocates... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Labor Unions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Shareholder Relations

19 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 19

"co-specializes" in related areas (complementarities). In our setting, we find evidence of such complementarities in specialization. Decoding Inside Information Authors:Lauren Cohen, Christopher Malloy, and Lukasz Pomorski Publication:Journal of View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

14 Nov 2007
First Look

First Look: November 14, 2007

sectors beyond the original bath soap category. The development causes the brand team to take a fresh look at the clichés of the beauty industry. The result is the controversial Real Beauty campaign. As the campaign unfolds, Unilever... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

19 Jun 2007
First Look

First Look: June 19, 2007

launched the highly successful Go Red For Women campaign to help women understand their risk for heart disease. But Go Red became more than a fundraising vehicle. It energized the AHA and its 22 million volunteers, and potentially sparked... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 23

borrowing in the mid-1990s, but a severe financial crisis later that decade created a new layer of economic problems. In 2010, in the context of the global economic downturn, Jamaica once again returned to the IMF for financing support.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Corporate Lobbying Strategy and Foreign MNEs

“U.S. Defense Contracts and the Lobbying Strategies of Foreign MNEs: The Liability of Foreignness and Make-or-Buy Decisions about Political Goods”

Many firms engage in lobbying with the expectation that their lobbying efforts will... View Details

Keywords: Non-market Strategy; Political Strategy; Lobbying; Make V. Buy; Multinational Enterprise; Global Strategy; United States

04 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 4

regressions should be complemented by realized-returns regressions. Download working paper: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1967706 Cases & Course Materials Harvard Business School Case 713-074 Currency Wars In February 2013, the G-20 View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2023
Case

Roblox: Virtual Commerce in the Metaverse

By: Ayelet Israeli and Nicole Tempest Keller

In 2022, Roblox had 58.8 million daily active users, including over half of all children and teens under the age of 16 in the United States. Roblox, a free-to-use “co-experience platform”, allowed users to come together in immersive 3D experiences to socialize, work,... View Details

27 Jan 2023
Op-Ed

Have We Lost Sight of Integrity?

On January 9, Santos was accused of violating campaign finance laws in a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission. In Santos’s recent interview on Fox News, Tulsi Gabbard asked him, “What does... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

May 2022
Case

Maestro Pizza: Coming in Hot!

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais

Maestro Pizza opened its first store in 2013 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of... View Details

06 Jul 2016
What Do You Think?

How Do We Pay for the Costs of Globalization?

political process.(including Marco’s comment that “political campaign financing is a related issue”). Those proposing remedies implicitly seemed to agree with RCW’s comment that, “Historic thinking seems to... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett; Manufacturing

March 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Amperity: First-Party Data at a Crossroads

By: Elie Ofek, Hema Yoganarasimhan and Alexis Lefort

In the summer of 2023, Amperity management was facing a critical decision on its future direction. Given the dramatic changes occurring within the digital advertising ecosystem, as concerns over consumer privacy placed limits on the ability to engage in third-party... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Business Strategy; Digital Marketing; Price; Product; Business or Company Management; Advertising Industry

16 Feb 2023
HBS Case

ESG Activists Met the Moment at ExxonMobil, But Did They Succeed?

The impact-investment hedge fund Engine No. 1 made a big splash in May 2021 when it managed to get three nominees elected to the ExxonMobil board of directors. It was an open effort to prod the oil giant toward renewable energy and test whether activist investing could... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Financial Services

September 2011 (Revised August 2013)
Case

The Pepsi Refresh Project: A Thirst for Change

By: Michael I. Norton and Jill Avery

In 2010, for the first time in 23 years, PepsiCo did not invest in Superbowl advertising for its iconic brand. Instead, the company diverted this $20 million to the social media-fueled Pepsi Refresh Project: PepsiCo's innovative cause-marketing program in which... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Marketing Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Advertising Campaigns; Investment Return; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Social Marketing; Cost vs Benefits; Food and Beverage Industry

21 Nov 2019
Research & Ideas

Do TV Debates Sway Voters?

voters have already made up their mind,” the team writes. Given the importance of a campaign’s ground game, Pons says that governments should consider ways to improve the quality of information that voters receive. That might involve setting View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

01 Sep 2022
What Do You Think?

Is It Time to Consider Lifting Tariffs on Chinese Imports?

the two countries have managed to alienate each other. It includes everything from blame about COVID-19 to suppression of minorities in China to the US policy toward Taiwan and “One China” to military action in waters adjacent to China to support for Russia in its... View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

08 May 2023
Research & Ideas

How Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Crushed Crowdfunding for Minority Entrepreneurs

bastions, as well as in more conservative-leaning locales. “When there is the greatest anxiety, we see this funding shortfall,” says Kerr, the D’Arbeloff Professor of Business Administration. He cowrote the paper with John (Jianqui) Bai, an associate professor of View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

12 Jan 2016
First Look

January 12, 2016

the funding cutoff and find that these angel investors have a positive impact on the growth, performance, and survival of firms as well as their follow-on fundraising. The positive impact of angel financing is independent of the level of... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

October 2021 (Revised June 2022)
Case

PittaRosso: Artificial Intelligence-Driven Pricing and Promotion

By: Ayelet Israeli

PittaRosso, a traditional Italian shoe retailer, is implementing an AI system to provide pricing and promotion recommendations. The system allows them to implement changes that would affect both the top of funnel and bottom of funnel activities for the company: once... View Details