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- All HBS Web (1,410)
- Faculty Publications (217)
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- April 2025 (Revised May 2025)
- Background Note
Customer Acquisition and the Cash Flow Trap
By: E. Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller
Startups as well as existing firms recognize the need to invest in order to acquire customers for their new ventures. And as each customer is expected at some point to have generated sufficient gross margins to cover their CAC, management expects that, soon enough, the... View Details
Keywords: Business Model; Customers; Forecasting and Prediction; Cash Flow; Business or Company Management
Ofek, E., Barak Libai, and Eitan Muller. "Customer Acquisition and the Cash Flow Trap." Harvard Business School Background Note 525-056, April 2025. (Revised May 2025.)
- 2024
- Working Paper
Primary Capital Market Transactions and Index Funds
By: Marco Sammon and Chris Murray
We document the effects of mechanical buying by CRSP-index-tracking funds on post-IPO returns and IPO deal structure. Leveraging a difference-in-differences-style design built on a 2017 CRSP rule change, we find that expected index fund demand leads fast track IPOs to... View Details
Keywords: Investment Funds; Initial Public Offering; Investment Return; Price; Market Transactions; Financial Markets
Sammon, Marco, and Chris Murray. "Primary Capital Market Transactions and Index Funds." Working Paper, August 2024.
- March 2010 (Revised March 2014)
- Case
Roll Back Malaria and BCG: The Change Initiative
By: Nava Ashraf, Rachel Gordon and Catherine Ross
Roll Back Malaria, a global partnership dedicated to fighting malaria has not met its founders' expectations of effectively combatting malaria. In 2005, after several internal evaluations, RBM leadership has decided to engage the Boston Consulting Group to work on a... View Details
Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Evaluation; Communication Strategy; Communication Intention and Meaning; Non-Governmental Organizations; Change Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Negotiation; Health Industry
Ashraf, Nava, Rachel Gordon, and Catherine Ross. "Roll Back Malaria and BCG: The Change Initiative." Harvard Business School Case 910-023, March 2010. (Revised March 2014.) (Request a courtesy copy.)
- Research Summary
Explaining Returns With Cash-Flow Proxies (with Tuomo Vuolteenaho)
Stock returns are correlated with contemporaneous earnings growth, dividend growth, future real activity, and other cash-flow proxies. The correlation between cash-flow proxies and stock returns may arise from association of cash-flow proxies with one-period expected... View Details
- 17 Feb 2022
- Book
When Employees Feel a Sense of Purpose, Companies Succeed
employees to discover their purpose in life but to then find a connection between our personal life purpose with the purpose of the organization where we work. The great resignation under way over the past year has shown us that employees today View Details
Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati
- April 2024 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
Market Dynamics and Moral Dilemmas: Novo Nordisk’s Weight-Loss Drugs
By: Joseph L. Badaracco, Tom Quinn and John Schultz
Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk was owned by a charitable foundation, and since its founding in the 1920s had focused on producing insulin to treat diabetes. In 2017, however, it released Ozempic, a diabetes treatment with the revolutionary side effect of... View Details
Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Judgments; Values and Beliefs; Global Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Patents; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Product Positioning; Supply and Industry; Supply Chain; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Opportunities; Social Issues; Equality and Inequality; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry; Denmark; United States; Europe; China; India; Middle East; North Africa
Badaracco, Joseph L., Tom Quinn, and John Schultz. "Market Dynamics and Moral Dilemmas: Novo Nordisk’s Weight-Loss Drugs." Harvard Business School Case 324-114, April 2024. (Revised July 2024.)
- June 2014
- Article
Pitfalls and Fraud in Online Advertising Metrics: What Makes Advertisers Vulnerable to Cheaters, and How They Can Protect Themselves
By: Benjamin Edelman
How does online advertising become less effective than advertisers expect and less effective than measurements indicate? The current research explores problems that result, in part, from malfeasance by outside perpetrators who overstate their efforts to increase their... View Details
Keywords: Online Advertising; Measurement; Mismeasurement; Fraud; Invisible; Digital Marketing; Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Marketing Strategy
Edelman, Benjamin. "Pitfalls and Fraud in Online Advertising Metrics: What Makes Advertisers Vulnerable to Cheaters, and How They Can Protect Themselves." Journal of Advertising Research 54, no. 2 (June 2014): 127–132.
- February 2014 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Go Mobile: Aligning District Managers and Store Teams
By: Tatiana Sandino
Indian cell phone retailer Go Mobile had implemented high-powered incentives to motivate its store employees to behave as owners and provide exceptional service. As the company scaled up, it faced multiple challenges in building a layer of district managers that were... View Details
Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth Management; Organizational Design; Salesforce Management; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Telecommunications Industry; India
Sandino, Tatiana. "Go Mobile: Aligning District Managers and Store Teams." Harvard Business School Case 114-034, February 2014. (Revised January 2024.)
- 02 Mar 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Extrapolation and Bubbles
- July 2010
- Case
Metabical: Positioning and Communications Strategy for a New Weight Loss Drug
By: John A. Quelch and Heather Beckham
Cambridge Sciences Pharmaceuticals (CSP) expects final approval for its revolutionary weight loss drug, Metabical. Metabical will be the only weight loss drug with FDA approval that is also clinically proven to be effective for moderately overweight people. Barbara... View Details
Keywords: Product Positioning; Marketing Communications; Product Launch; Consumer Behavior; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States
Quelch, John A., and Heather Beckham. "Metabical: Positioning and Communications Strategy for a New Weight Loss Drug." Harvard Business School Brief Case 104-240, July 2010.
- March 2011
- Case
Valuation of AirThread Connections
By: Erik Stafford and Joel L. Heilprin
This case can be used as a capstone valuation exercise for first-year MBA students in an introductory finance course. A senior associate in the business development group at American Cable Communications, one of the largest cable companies in the U.S., must prepare a... View Details
Keywords: Communication; Present Value; Tax Accounting; Capital Costs; Synergy; Telephony; Wireless Technologies; Communication Technology; Assets; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Cash Flow; Capital Structure; Accounting; Wireless Technology; Communications Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry
Stafford, Erik, and Joel L. Heilprin. "Valuation of AirThread Connections." Harvard Business School Brief Case 114-263, March 2011.
- Research Summary
Branding in Digital and Social Media
By: Jill J. Avery
This very contemporary line of research explores the rapidly changing digital world, and investigates how emerging technologies are creating a new consumer culture in which consumers expect to be partners in the co-creation of brands. The work explores the branding... View Details
- Article
Isolating the Symbolic Implications of Employee Mobility: Price Increases after Hiring Winemakers from Prominent Wineries
By: Peter W. Roberts, Mukti Khaire and Christopher I. Rider
When a skilled employee moves from one organization to another, the effects on the hiring organization can be substantive (i.e., changes in actual outcomes) and symbolic (i.e., changes in expectations or valuations and therefore prices). We theorize that strong or even... View Details
Keywords: Employees; Organizations; Performance Expectations; Price; Competency and Skills; Quality; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Selection and Staffing; Valuation; Food and Beverage Industry
Roberts, Peter W., Mukti Khaire, and Christopher I. Rider. "Isolating the Symbolic Implications of Employee Mobility: Price Increases after Hiring Winemakers from Prominent Wineries." American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 101, no. 3 (May 2011): 147–151.
- October 2012 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Kleiner-Perkins and Genentech: When Venture Capital Met Science
By: Felda Hardymon and Tom Nicholas
Genentech is a rare success story in the biotechnology industry. Hundreds of billions of dollars of venture capital have been invested without the expected transformational effects. Established in 1976, Genentech was to develop the new science of recombinant DNA into... View Details
Keywords: Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Science; Biotechnology Industry; United States
Hardymon, Felda, and Tom Nicholas. "Kleiner-Perkins and Genentech: When Venture Capital Met Science." Harvard Business School Case 813-102, October 2012. (Revised March 2022.)
- May 2018
- Article
The Changing Craft of Selling
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Tiffani Bova
This article draws on two surveys: one with more than 3,100 sales professionals about trends affecting the role(s) of sales in their companies, and the other with over 7,000 consumer and business buyers about their expectations when dealing with sales people. The... View Details
- 2012
- Chapter
Integrated Reporting Requires Integrated Assurance
By: Robert G. Eccles, Michael P. Krzus and Liv A. Watson
In the wake of the recent financial crisis, increasing the effectiveness of auditing has weighed heavily on the minds of those responsible for governance. When a business is profitable and paying healthy dividends to its stockholders, fraudulent activities and... View Details
- Research Summary
Industry Dynamics Following Competitive Shocks
Robert E. Kennedy and Pankaj Ghemawat are using industrial organization theory to study industrial development in countries that have undergone major competitive shocks. Their goal is to develop a set of hypotheses regarding how industry factors effect change in entry... View Details
- 2007
- Book
When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance
By: Thomas J. DeLong, John J. Gabarro and Robert Lees
For too long, professional services firms (PSFs) have relied on the "producer-manager" model, which works well in uncomplicated business environments. However, today's managing directors must balance conflicting roles, more demanding clients, tougher competitors, and... View Details
Keywords: Leadership; Management Practices and Processes; Service Operations; Performance Effectiveness; Strategy
DeLong, Thomas J., John J. Gabarro, and Robert Lees. When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance. Harvard Business School Press, 2007.
- 2009
- Working Paper
Strategic Interactions in Two-Sided Market Oligopolies
By: Emmanuel Farhi and Andrei Hagiu
Strategic interactions between two-sided platforms depend not only on whether their decision variables are strategic complements or substitutes as for one-sided firms, but also -and crucially so- on whether or not the platforms subsidize one side of the market in... View Details
Keywords: Two-Sided Markets; Strategic Complements; Strategic Substitutes; Cost; Investment; Profit; One-Sided Platforms; Two-Sided Platforms; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Competitive Advantage
Farhi, Emmanuel, and Andrei Hagiu. "Strategic Interactions in Two-Sided Market Oligopolies." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 08-011, August 2007. (Revised February 2009.)
- April 2014
- Article
Awards Unbundled: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment
By: Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Scott S. Lee
Organizations often use non-monetary awards to incentivize performance. Awards may affect behavior through several mechanisms: by conferring employer recognition, by enhancing social visibility, and by facilitating social comparison. In a nationwide health worker... View Details
Keywords: Social Comparison; Awards; Optimal Expectactions; Zambia; Status and Position; Performance Expectations; Motivation and Incentives; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Zambia
Ashraf, Nava, Oriana Bandiera, and Scott S. Lee. "Awards Unbundled: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 100 (April 2014): 44–63.