Publications

February 2003
Other Article

The Emergence and Sustainability of Abnormal Profits

By: Michael E. Porter and Anita M. McGahan

In this paper, we examine the emergence and the sustainability of abnormal profits among businesses that were part of U.S. public corporations between 1981 and 1994 and that reported financial results for at least six years. Our results reveal strong asymmetries... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; United States

Article

On the Division of Profit in Sequential Innovation

By: Jerry R. Green and Suzanne Scotchmer

In markets with sequential innovation, inventors of derivative improvements might undermine the profit of initial innovators through competition. Profit erosion can be mitigated by broadening the first innovator's patent protection and/or by permitting cooperative... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Innovation and Invention

29 May 2001
Research & Ideas

Good News, Not Blues, For the Inner City

insisted that the greatest barriers for inner city development today are negative perceptions. These areas are not just economically distressed because of social issues, he said, adding that unless... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Column

It's Not Intuitive: Strategies for Negotiating More Rationally

By: M. H. Bazerman and Deepak Malhotra

Keywords: Negotiation; Strategy; Cognition and Thinking

2008
Book

Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage

By: James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Joe Wheeler

Hundreds of large organizations worldwide have used the groundbreaking Service Profit Chain to improve business performance. Now The Ownership Quotient reveals the next generation of the chain: customer and employee "owners" of your business. Employee-owners exhibit... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Customer Ownership; Employee Ownership; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation

November 2013 (Revised December 2013)
Case

Endeavor: Miami Heats Up

By: William A. Sahlman, Ramana Nanda, David Lane and Lisa Mazzanti

Endeavor Global was a nonprofit that for 15 years had worked to nurture entrepreneurship in emerging markets by selecting local high-impact entrepreneurs for mentoring and aid in scaling up their businesses from committed local business leaders. In summer 2012,... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Entrepreneurs; Scaling; Emerging Market Entrepreneurship; Not For Profit; Entrepreneurial Finance; Mentoring; Business Networks; Hybrid Nonprofit Funding; Mission and Purpose; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Entrepreneurship; Emerging Markets; Problems and Challenges; Finance; Miami

Article

Support for Free Speech Is Not Support for More Surveillance, 2015

By: Amar Bhidé

September 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Zalora Philippines: From Growth to Profitability

By: Donald Ngwe and Thales Teixeira

In May 2015 Paulo Campos, co-founder and CEO of Zalora Philippines, found himself at a crucial turning point in his young company’s development. In just three years, Zalora had come from entering the Philippine fashion retail industry as an unknown quantity to becoming... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Business Subsidiaries; Business Growth and Maturation; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Sweden; Southeast Asia; Philippines

29 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

Pride Goeth Before a Profit

reversed, he says. The next scene shows the plant's general manager. Maybe we can't save the plant, he declares, but we can make them feel really stupid for deciding to close it. That's exactly what plant workers did. With nothing to... View Details

Keywords: by Theodore Kinni

May 2021
Teaching Note

BlackRock: Linking Purpose to Profit

By: Aiyesha Dey

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 120-042 View Details

Keywords: BlackRock; Investment Management; Stewardship Codes; Stewardship Role Of Institutions; ESG; Purpose; Corporate Purpose; Investment; Asset Management; Corporate Governance; Mission and Purpose; Financial Services Industry; United States

July 2010
Supplement

Marketing Analysis Toolkit: Pricing and Profitability Analysis (CW)

By: Thomas J. Steenburgh and Jill Avery

Pricing is one of the most difficult decisions marketers make and the one with the most direct and immediate impact on the firm's financial position. This toolkit will introduce the fundamental terminology and calculations associated with pricing and profitability... View Details

Keywords: Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Marketing Strategy; Decisions; Strategic Planning; Price; Partners and Partnerships; Cost; Demand and Consumers; Revenue; Profit; Mathematical Methods; Measurement and Metrics

Research Summary

Portfolio Betas Do Not Make for Better Asset Pricing Tests

Many papers claim that because using portfolios instead of individual stocks as test assets minimizes idiosyncratic volatility, their use also yields more precise estimates of risk premia. I show that while portfolio formation does lead to more efficient beta... View Details

February 2014 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Should Corporate Profits Be Taxed? (A)

By: Matthew Weinzierl, Katrina Flanagan and Michael Cianellli

Taxing corporations is popular, but why? Corporations do not bear the burden of taxes, people do, and the incidence of the corporate income tax burden is likely to be far different from what many of its supporters assume.
Instructors may also obtain a Teaching... View Details

Keywords: Economic Versus Statutory Incidence; Basics Of Corporate Taxation; Business Ventures; Taxation; Profit

summer 2007
Article

Fast-Track Profit Models: Creating the New Due-Diligence Process for Mergers and Acquisitions

By: Steven R. Anderson, Kevin J. Prokop and Robert S. Kaplan

Keywords: Profit; Mergers and Acquisitions

19 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

How Charitable Organizations Can Thwart Excuses for Not Giving

motivations for prosocial behavior, such as volunteering and charitable giving. These insights are important not only for nonprofits trying to motivate donors to give, but also... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

13 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

3 Ways Firms Can Profit From Environmental Investments

Zipcar approach environmental issues with profit margins in mind. The paper lays out three ways for firms to profit from investing in sustainability: forestalling risk,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities

February 1992 (Revised January 1999)
Background Note

Selected Profitability Data on U.S. Industries and Companies

Describes the importance of industry structure and competitive positioning to the profitability of U.S. corporations between 1981 and 1994. Cites recent research indicating that persistent industry differences and persistent competitor differences account for 19% and... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Industry Structures; Profit; United States

2022
Working Paper

The Gender Gap in Confidence: Expected But Not Accounted For

By: Christine L. Exley and Kirby Nielsen

We investigate how the gender gap in confidence affects the views that evaluators (e.g., employers) hold about men and women. If evaluators fail to account for the confidence gap, it may cause overly pessimistic views about women. Alternatively, if evaluators expect... View Details

Keywords: Confidence; Experiments; Gender; Perception; Values and Beliefs; Performance Evaluation; Analysis