Publications

19 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

Unlocking Your Investment Capital

always the potential of a sort of death spiral taking place with these instruments if the market they're in turns sour? A: What I find more amazing is the extraordinary global progress that has been made over the past twenty-five years in... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

24 Jul 2018
Op-Ed

4 Ways Managers Can Exercise Their 'Agency' to Change the World

proven business tactic. For every newsworthy instance of a corporation putting profit ahead of social good, there are multiple unheralded examples of companies using social good-oriented initiatives to expand their markets or enhance... View Details

Keywords: by George Serafeim

December 2000
Case

Drug Wars, The: Pfizer's Hostile Bid for Warner-Lambert in 1999

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Matthew Sandoval

Describes Pfizer's hostile bid for Warner-Lambert in the fall of 1999. Allows for an evaluation of the possible synergies created and poses the question as to whether Pfizer will pay too much. View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Bids and Bidding; Competitive Strategy; Valuation

December 1996 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Studio Realty

By: Clayton M. Christensen and Bret J. Baird

Studio Realty created an "electronic open house" technology, by which home buyers sitting in a comfortable setting, could tour a home, viewing its rooms, its exterior, and surroundings, by clicking on digital images. Studio Realty attempted to sell or license its... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Sales; Demand and Consumers; Failure; Innovation and Management; Market Entry and Exit; Real Estate Industry

February 2024 (Revised January 2025)
Case

AGENTS.inc: Pathways to Growth at an AI Startup

By: Frank Nagle, Manuel Hoffmann, Karoline Ströhlein and Susan Pinckney

The case describes the history of AGENTS.inc. Despite being a small startup, with only four employees, that had never had a funding round, the company boasted an impressive client portfolio including multiple Fortune 500 companies. While AGENTS.inc had been an early... View Details

24 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

Managing Alignment as a Process

To create synergy, we require more than a concept and a strategy. The enterprise value proposition defines the strategy for value creation through alignment, but it doesn't describe how to achieve it. The alignment strategy must be... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion; Consumer Products; Retail

Research Summary

Physician vs. Patient Incentives in Prescription Drug Choice

The market for medical care involves interactions among patients, providers, and the insurers who pay for the care of their enrollees. The division of responsibilities creates scope for agency costs and moral hazard in the physician's treatment choice.... View Details

March 2025 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Primetime Partners: Investing in Healthspan, Wealthspan, and Workspan

By: Rembrand Koning, Nicole Tempest Keller and Susan Wilner Golden

In the fall of 2024, Abby Miller Levy (HBS ’01), co-founder and managing partner of Primetime Partners, was preparing to raise a second fund. Founded in 2020 with veteran investor Alan Patricof, Primetime was a horizontal fund focused on early-stage companies serving... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Age; Social Issues; Financing and Loans; Investment Return; Business Strategy; Financial Services Industry; United States

March 2012
Case

Angry Birds

By: Sunil Gupta and Dharmishta Rood

Within months of its launch in December 2009, Angry Birds, a mobile game created by a small Finnish company, Rovio Entertainment Ltd., became an international hit. By late 2011, Rovio was not only making Angry Birds games for the iPhone, Android and other mobile... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Video Game Industry; Finland

02 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

Why Good Deeds Invite Bad Publicity

Do companies with reputations for acting in socially responsible ways receive public goodwill when unpleasant news hits? The question of how much (or even if) corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies benefit companies beyond the knowledge that they are good... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy

20 Apr 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Why Every Company Needs a CSR Strategy and How to Build It

Keywords: by Kash Rangan, Lisa A. Chase & Sohel Karim

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

May 2025
Case

Initial Financial Statements at Blank Corporation: Bridging Content and Commerce

By: Jung Koo Kang, Panje Jayden Kim and David Allen

This accounting case is intended to teach students how to compile an income statement, a balance sheet, and a cash flow statement. It focuses on Blank Corporation, an innovative South Korean company that bridged content and commerce by selling products directly through... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Financial Statements; Business Startups; Social Media; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Cash Flow; Consumer Products Industry; South Korea

14 Aug 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 14, 2018

allergens. Now, the new company had to turn its product into a brand and map its go-to-market strategy, including creating a compelling value proposition, choosing a path to market that was either... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

25 Jan 2000
Research & Ideas

Strategic Alliances

interviewed key executives on both sides of each partnership to document the process of their unfolding relationships. This initial research corroborated Austin's hypothesis that these alliances were creating value for themselves and... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy O. Perry

26 May 2003
Research & Ideas

What Your Competition is Telling You

favor, says David J. Reibstein, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School, Philadelphia. By building primary demand—demand for a category of offerings, in addition to demand for a particular brand—Starbucks has given the entire... View Details

Keywords: by David Stauffer

28 Jul 2016
Op-Ed

Where is TripAdvisor for Doctors?

behavior as their doctors' interventions. POTENTIAL OPPORTUNITIES So, creating review sites around the medical profession has built-in challenges. But do some medical specialties lend themselves more than others to online reviews? Say I... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Health

November, 2016
Article

Fixing Discrimination in Online Marketplaces

By: Ray Fisman and Michael Luca

Online marketplaces such as eBay, Uber, and Airbnb have the potential to reduce racial, gender, and other forms of bias that affect the off-line world. And in the early days of Internet commerce, the relative anonymity of transactions did make it harder for... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Race; Gender