Publications

2021
Chapter

Governing for Growth in Scope: Cultivating a Comparative Understanding of How Peer Production Collectives Evolve

By: Rebecca Karp, Amisha Miller and Siobhan O'Mahony

One of the early challenges for any peer production collective is how to govern the growth of new members or contributors. Scope growth was not a topic of concern when scholars were focused on understanding the emergence of peer production collectives as a phenomenon... View Details

Keywords: Peer Production Collectives; Scope Growth; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Governance; Growth Management

November 1990 (Revised August 1992)
Case

American Airlines (B): Compensation and Cost Reduction

American Airlines' strategy in the 1990s calls for continued growth, improvements in customer service, and cost reduction. Central to cost reduction efforts is the need to contain labor costs. After having signed a very expensive new contract with its pilots' union in... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Labor Unions; Compensation and Benefits; Air Transportation Industry; United States

March 2010 (Revised April 2014)
Case

American Well: The Doctor Will E-See You Now

By: Elie Ofek and Ron Laufer

What is next for healthcare IT provider American Well, whose innovative Online Care technology allows physicians to deliver care to patients online in real time? Using American Well's platform, patients with non-emergency health concerns can communicate with physicians... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Service Delivery; Online Technology; Health Industry

09 Jun 2015
News

American Pharoah Captures The Triple Crown (And American Hearts)

Jul 2009
Article

Restoring American Competitiveness

For decades, U.S. companies have been outsourcing manufacturing in the belief that it held no competitive advantage. That has been a disaster. View Details

April 1993 (Revised December 1994)
Case

American Express TRS Charge-Card Receivables

By: Andre F. Perold and Kuljot Singh

American Express (TRS) Co. is considering a proposal to securitize a portion of their consumer charge-card receivables portfolio. In the past, they have relied exclusively on a captive finance subsidiary, Credco, to perform this function. The proposed securitization... View Details

Keywords: Credit Cards; Restructuring; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Debt Securities; Travel Industry

May 2013 (Revised September 2013)
Case

The Kashagan Production Sharing Agreement (PSA)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Florian Bitsch

When discovered in the 1990s, the Kashagan oil field was the second largest oil field in the world. The project sponsors (equity investors) signed a 40-year production sharing agreement (PSA) with the Kazakh government in 1997, with the expectation the field would... View Details

Spring 2017
Article

Globalizing Latin American Beauty

By: Geoffrey Jones

This article discusses the growth over time of the beauty industry in Latin America and its bias towards celebrating whiter rather than darker skin. Although alleged Latin American fascination with beauty is regularly ascribed to culture, Latin sensuousness, and... View Details

Keywords: Latin America; Race And Ethnicity; Globalization; Race; Ethnicity; Prejudice and Bias; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Latin America

2021
Working Paper

Note on Productive Knowledge

By: Amar Bhidé

This Note examines the development of ideas (‘knowledge’) embodied in products (including ‘intangibles’) that do not exist in nature. It focuses on ‘multi-player’ development—advances by and for the many—and highlights its technical scaffolding and venturesome spirit.... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge; Framework

SSRN

December 1997
Case

American Cyanamid (A) & (B) (Combined)

American Home Products' (AHP) $9 billion hostile takeover of American Cyanamid (Cyanamid) was the largest merger-and-acquistion transaction in 1994, and made AHP the fourth largest pharmaceutical firm in the United States. At the time of AHP's offer, Cyanamid had... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Governance; Conflict and Resolution; Pharmaceutical Industry

2020
Book

Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity

By: Joseph Allen and John D. Macomber

By the time you reach 80, you will have spent 72 years of your life indoors. Like it or not, humans have become an indoor species. This means that the people who design, build, and maintain our buildings can have a major impact on our health.
Ever feel tired... View Details

Keywords: Architecture; Real Estate Development; Air Pollution; Air Quality; Public Health; Productivity Gains; Buildings and Facilities; Health; Pollutants; Performance Productivity; Construction Industry

Find at Harvard

2016
Working Paper

Workplace Design: The Good, the Bad, and the Productive

By: Michael Housman and Dylan Minor

We study the effects of performance spillover in the workplace-both positive and negative-on several dimensions, and find that it is pervasive and decreasing in the physical distance between workers. We also find that workers have different strengths, and that while... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Human Resource Management; Peer Effects; Productivity; Spillovers; Toxic Worker; Strategy; Working Conditions; Performance Productivity; Human Resources

SSRN

09 May 2014
News

American dynamism dimmed

November 2021
Article

Ratings, Reviews, and the Marketing of New Products

By: Itay P. Fainmesser, Dominique Olié Lauga and Elie Ofek

We study how user-generated content (UGC) about new products impacts a firm's advertising and pricing decisions and the effect on profits and market dynamics. We construct a two-period model where consumers value quality and are heterogeneous in their taste for the new... View Details

Keywords: Online Reviews; Product Ratings; Social Networks; Word Of Mouth; Pricing; User-generated Content; Advertising; Product Marketing; Price; Consumer Behavior; Product Positioning; Social Media

Find at Harvard

25 Jan 2021
Book

In a Nutshell, Why American Capitalism Succeeded

How did the United States become the world’s center of business growth following its founding in 1776? Surely a number of nations had powerful natural resources, stable financial and legal institutions, and dynamic entrepreneurs over that same span. Why was American... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Manufacturing

15 Jan 2013
News

Envy and the American Dream

July 2016 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Hamilton: An American Musical

By: Anita Elberse and Jennifer Schoppe

In July 2013, composer, writer, actor and rapper Lin-Manuel Miranda, director Tommy Kail, and producer Jeffrey Seller met to discuss how to launch Hamilton, a new musical based on the life of the first Treasury Secretary of the United States, Alexander Hamilton.... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment; Creative Industries; Performing Arts; (General) Management; Blockbusters; Non-profit; Theater Entertainment; Strategy; Risk Management; Nonprofit Organizations; Arts; Creativity; Product Launch; Product Development; Marketing; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States

September 2014 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Samuel Colt: An American Gun Maker

By: Tom Nicholas and Casey Verkamp

Samuel Colt not only perfected and patented the technology for a gun that could fire multiple times without reloading, but he also developed and applied early principles of mass production more completely than anyone had done before. Until the nineteenth century,... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Product Positioning; Machinery and Machining; Production; Independent Innovation and Invention; Manufacturing Industry; United States