Publications

March 2002 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Microsoft: Positioning the Tablet PC

By: Youngme E. Moon and Christina L. Darwall

Microsoft is preparing for the launch of the Tablet PC, which allows users to use a pen (stylus) to run Windows and Windows applications, annotate documents, and create handwritten documents for later reference or even conversion to text. Microsoft's original equipment... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Product Positioning; Market Entry and Exit; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Computer Industry

15 Feb 2017
News

You Should Consider Buying a Small Business. But When?

31 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Checking Your Ethics: Would You Speak Up in These 3 Sticky Situations?

yourself, he says. They are best positioned to judge whether the behavior is outside the norms of the client organization and whether the behavior could impact that ability of the client to implement the recommendations you might be suggesting. The case of the AI... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Consulting

February 2020
Case

Halftime for Heidelberg

By: Debora L. Spar

The case follows President Rob Huntington as he seeks to find a viable way forward for Heidelberg University. Located in Tiffin, Ohio, Heidelberg is a small, private, four-year university. As with many similar institutions of higher education, it currently faces a... View Details

Keywords: University; University Administration; University Endowment; Endowments; Brand Management; Higher Education; Strategic Planning; Brands and Branding; Education Industry; Ohio

July 2012
Case

Owen's Precision Machining

By: Ramana Nanda and James McQuade

For the second time in fourteen months, Christopher Owen, the second-generation owner of Owen's Precision Machining (OPM), found himself running out of cash. Owen wondered what he was doing wrong. How much additional money would he need to raise to get OPM through the... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Cash Flow; Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Making; Problems and Challenges; Business Strategy; Corporate Finance; Manufacturing Industry; Massachusetts

09 Nov 2023
HBS Case

What Will It Take to Confront the Invisible Mental Health Crisis in Business?

industry, [employees] have become more important. Also, my [research] focuses on families. Families run a large percentage of the world’s organizations. How do these families work? How do they make decisions? What can cause them to... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Health

15 Mar 2024
HBS Case

Let's Talk: Why It's Time to Stop Avoiding Taboo Topics at Work

touch global business, but many believe it’s still taboo to talk about politics at work, Wing says. Economic issues that intertwine with politics, like monetary policy and trade restrictions, feel off limits as well, even though addressing them may be crucial to a... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

02 Apr 2024
What Do You Think?

What's Enough to Make Us Happy?

who fail to have this conversation with ourselves run the risk of chasing and acquiring things that are never enough. These matters are highly personal. I like to think that how we make decisions on these matters determines, as the old... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2024
Working Paper

Design of Panel Experiments with Spatial and Temporal Interference

By: Tu Ni, Iavor Bojinov and Jinglong Zhao

One of the main practical challenges companies face when running experiments (or A/B tests) over a panel is interference, the setting where one experimental unit's treatment assignment at one time period impacts another's outcomes, possibly at the following time... View Details

Keywords: Research

SSRN

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May 2024
Supplement

DRSi (B)

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Pre-Abstract: Instructors should consider the timing of making videos available to students, as they may reveal key case details.

Abstract: In March of 2019, Jen Ransom Fuller purchased DRSi. DRSi, located in Bellevue, Washington, printed and reproduced... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Small Business; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Business Education; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Problems and Challenges; Health Pandemics; Selection and Staffing; Employee Relationship Management; Production; Logistics; Safety; Washington (state, US); United States

November 2018 (Revised June 2022)
Teaching Note

AirFox (A): Embracing the Blockchain and an ICO

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Nathaniel Schwalb

Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-097. In summer 2017, Victor Santos, CEO of AirFox, considered whether to pivot his startup towards a new product built with blockchain—a quickly growing technology at the time. AirFox was an early stage startup that sold... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Cryptocurrency; Initial Coin Offering; ICO; Business Startups; Finance; Currency; Strategy; Decision Making; United States

July 2016
Article

Under New Management: Equity Issues and the Attribution of Past Returns

By: Malcolm Baker and Yuhai Xuan

There is a strong link between measures of stock market performance, such as changes in Tobin's Q or past stock returns, and equity issues. Typically, this performance is thought to be a characteristic of the firm, not the CEO who happens to run the firm. In contrast... View Details

Keywords: Performance; Management Teams; Equity

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October 2013
Article

Ad Revenue and Content Commercialization: Evidence from Blogs

By: Monic Sun and Feng Zhu

Many scholars argue that when incentivized by ad revenue, content providers are more likely to tailor their content to attract "eyeballs," and as a result, popular content may be excessively supplied. We empirically test this prediction by taking advantage of the... View Details

Keywords: Ad-sponsored Business Models; Media Content; Blog; Revenue Sharing; User-generated Content; Platform-based Markets; Blogs; Business Model; Digital Platforms; Commercialization; Digital Marketing

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March 1996 (Revised October 1996)
Case

Singapore's Trade in Services

By: Debora L. Spar

Focuses on the efforts of Singapore's Economic Development Board (EDB) to grow the tiny island almost wholly through an expansion of its service economy. Between 1965 and 1990, Singapore achieved a remarkable rate of growth, largely by opening its economy to foreign... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Service Operations; Government and Politics; Developing Countries and Economies; Macroeconomics; Service Industry; Singapore

03 Oct 2016
News

How to Manage a Toxic Employee

Design of Panel Experiments with Spatial and Temporal Interference

One of the main practical challenges companies face when running experiments (or A/B tests) over a panel is interference, the setting where one experimental unit's treatment assignment at one time period impacts another's outcomes, possibly at the following time... View Details

Using AI to Adjust Your Marketing and Sales in a Volatile World

Why are some firms better and faster than others at adapting their use of customer data to respond to changing or uncertain marketing conditions? A common thread across faster-acting firms is the use of AI models to predict outcomes at various stages of the customer... View Details

September 2015
Article

Banks as Patient Fixed-Income Investors

By: Samuel G. Hanson, Andrei Shleifer, Jeremy C. Stein and Robert W. Vishny

We examine the business model of traditional commercial banks when they compete with shadow banks. While both types of intermediaries create safe "money-like" claims, they go about this in different ways. Traditional banks create money-like claims by holding illiquid... View Details

Keywords: Shadow Banking; Safe Money-like Claims; Commercial Banking