Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,354)
- Faculty Publications (383)
- February 2020
- Case
Rotoplas: Bringing More and Better Water
By: John D. Macomber and Carla Larangeira
Private companies were being turned to for potable water in the world’s megacities due to impacts of climate change including droughts and flooding. Mexico City had endured several water-related crises, with its population suffering from floods, droughts, water... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
A Framework for Product Impact-Weighted Accounts
By: George Serafeim and Katie Trinh
While there has been significant progress in the measurement of an organization’s environmental and social impacts from its operations, metrics to evaluate the impact of products once they come to market lag far behind. In this paper, we provide a framework for... View Details
- January 2020 (Revised July 2020)
- Supplement
MoviePass: The 'Get Big Fast' Strategy
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
In August 2017, MoviePass dramatically lowered its subscription price from $50 per month to just $10 for up to one movie per day. The idea was to rapidly scale the business to the point where they could generate incremental revenue streams form related businesses... View Details
Keywords: Market Entry; Growth Strategy; Profit Vs. Growth; Subscription Business; Cash Burn; Data Analytics; Get-big-fast; Buyer Power; Strategy Implementation; Movie Industry; Racing; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Consolidation; Cash Flow; Growth Management; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Mobile Technology; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Advertising Industry; Information Industry; United States
- November 2019
- Supplement
Gillette: Cutting Prices to Regain Share
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
After losing market share to low-priced competitors such as Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club for several years, Gillette decided to fight back by cutting prices on its razors and blades in April 2017. Bonnie Herzog, an equity analyst at Wells Fargo, must assess how the... View Details
- November 2019
- Case
Gillette: Cutting Prices to Regain Share
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
After losing market share to low-priced competitors such as Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club for several years, Gillette decided to fight back by launching new products and increasing advertising. When these efforts failed to stem the losses, Gillette decided to cut the... View Details
- October 2019 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
Epic Games
By: Andy Wu and Christopher Zhang
Epic Games entered a stagnant market with its PC-games digital storefront in 2018, in the context of incumbent competitors such as Steam, its meteoric rise via Fortnite, and imminent industry shifts in gaming distribution. On the surface, Epic Games Store’s competitive... View Details
- October 10, 2019
- Article
The Case for the Public Option Over Medicare for All
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Richard Boxer
How can the United States better control its health care costs and quality and still achieve universal coverage? The strongest choice is not Medicare for All, which would eliminate private insurance; it’s the public option, which would allow people to choose from... View Details
- September 2019 (Revised May 2020)
- Supplement
Keroche (C): The Excise Tax Increase
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pippa Tubman Armerding
This case discusses the Kenyan government’s decision to increase excise taxes on wines in 2007. The tax increase would cause an average increase in price of 367% on Keroche’s fortified wines. Meanwhile, Keroche’s competitor EABL had effectively lobbied the government... View Details
Keywords: Keroche; Alcohol; Alcoholic Drinks; Alcoholic Beverages; Beverages; Drinks; Wine Industry; Wine; Fortified Wine; Business Ventures; Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Small Business; Family Business; Crime and Corruption; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Income; Demographics; Geographic Scope; Geographic Location; Goods and Commodities; Government Legislation; Growth and Development; Business History; Lawsuits and Litigation; Laws and Statutes; Lawfulness; Goals and Objectives; Consumer Behavior; Market Entry and Exit; Problems and Challenges; Safety; Social Issues; Poverty; Strategy; Competition; Entrepreneurship; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Kenya; Nairobi; Africa
- September 2019 (Revised May 2020)
- Supplement
Keroche (D): Transforming the Core Business
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pippa Tubman Armerding
This case describes Keroche co-founder Tabitha Karanja’s decision to exit the wine business following the Kenyan government’s 2007 increase in excise taxes on wine. In August 2007, Keroche introduced the vodka drink Viena Ice as a replacement for its fortified wines,... View Details
Keywords: Keroche; Alcohol; Alcoholic Beverages; Alcoholic Drinks; Beverages; Drinks; Wine Industry; Wine; Fortified Wine; Viena; Viena Ice; Beer; Beer Market; Premium Beer; Manufacturing; Summit Lager; Business Ventures; Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Small Business; Family Business; Crime and Corruption; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Income; Demographics; Geographic Scope; Geographic Location; Goods and Commodities; Government Legislation; Growth and Development; Business History; Lawsuits and Litigation; Laws and Statutes; Lawfulness; Goals and Objectives; Consumer Behavior; Market Entry and Exit; Problems and Challenges; Safety; Social Issues; Poverty; Strategy; Competition; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Kenya; Nairobi; Africa
- 2018
- Working Paper
The Limitations of Dynamic Capabilities
By: David J. Collis and Bharat Anand
The concept of dynamic capabilities draws its theoretical basis from two classic traditions within the strategy field—the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) (Wernerfelt, 1984) and market positioning (Porter, 1996). A dynamic capability qualifies as a source of... View Details
- June 2019
- Case
ClearLife: From Prospect to Platform
By: Alexander Braun, Lauren Cohen, Mauro Elvedi and Jiahua Xu
ClearLife’s first product was a trading and analytics platform for participants in the U.S. life settlement market, the secondary market for life insurance. ClearLife played a key role in facilitating transactions and devising a common language for expressing value and... View Details
- May 2019
- Article
Who Consumes Firm Disclosures? Evidence from Earnings Conference Calls
By: Anne Heinrichs, Jihwon Park and Eugene F. Soltes
Using a set of proprietary records, we examine who consumes quarterly earnings conference calls and under which circumstances the calls are consumed. While there is significant interest in calls by institutional investors and sell-side analysts, we find that investors... View Details
- April 2019 (Revised December 2019)
- Case
Turnaround at Mattel, 2017
By: Ted Berk
Just nine months into her new role as chief executive of Mattel, the world's leading toy maker, Margo Georgiadis faces a set of unexpected, inter-related decisions in the fall of 2017. Mattel's performance had been lagging for a number of years, and Georgiadis had been... View Details
- April 2019
- Case
Afterpay U.S.: The Omnichannel Dilemma
By: Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and George Gonzalez
In 2018, Nick Molnar, the founder of the Australia-based online payment service Afterpay began its expansion to the U.S. market. The service had gained a loyal following in Australia by enabling customers to pay for online purchases through four interest-free... View Details
Keywords: Omnichannel Retail; Multi-sided Platforms; Value Creation; Business Model Innovation; Fintech; Digital Marketing; Disruptive Innovation; Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Change Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Financing and Loans; Microfinance; Global Strategy; Marketing Channels; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Product Development; Supply Chain Management; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Networks; Network Effects; Internet and the Web; Financial Services Industry; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Australia
- March 2019
- Case
HOPI: Turkey's Shopping Companion
By: Sunil Gupta, Donald Ngwe and Gamze Yucaoglu
The case opens in 2017 as Onur Erbay, CEO of HOPI, a multi-vendor loyalty platform, is contemplating a critical decision. The case chronicles the origins of Boyner Group, the parent company of HOPI and a major retailer in Turkey, and development of retail and customer... View Details
Keywords: Loyalty Programs; Multi-vendor Platform; Retail; Big Data; Customer Relationship Management; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Business Model; Analytics and Data Science; Competitive Strategy; Decision Making; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Technology Industry; Retail Industry; Turkey
- March 2019 (Revised July 2020)
- Case
MoviePass: The 'Get Big Fast' Strategy
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher
In August 2017, MoviePass dramatically lowered its subscription price from $50 per month to just $10 for up to one movie per day. The idea was to rapidly scale the business to the point where they could generate incremental revenue streams from related businesses... View Details
Keywords: Market Entry; Growth Strategy; Profit Vs. Growth; Subscription Business; Cash Burn; Data Analytics; Get-big-fast; Buyer Power; Strategy Implementation; Movie Industry; Racing; Entrepreneurship; Market Entry and Exit; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Disruption; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; United States
- 2019
- Chapter
International Business and Emerging Markets in Historical Perspective
By: Geoffrey Jones
This chapter examines international business in emerging markets over the long run. It shows how the strategies of Western multinationals evolved over time. In the first era of globalization in the 19th century, Western firms sought access to resources, and they faced... View Details
- February 2019 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Rent-a-Center/Vintage Capital
By: Guhan Subramanian and Caeden Brynie
Christopher Korst, General Counsel for Rent-A-Center (RAC), looked at the time. It was late in the evening on December 17, 2018, yet no notice of extension had come from Vintage Capital. In June, Vintage had agreed to buy RAC for $15 per share in cash, amounting to... View Details
- February 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Koita Foods
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Elie Ofek and Michael Norris
In 2018, Mustafa Koita, Founder and CEO of Dubai-based organic milk company Koita has to decide whether or not to pursue an investment from a potential competitor who is coming into his local market. View Details
- January 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Jay Gould, 'The Most Hated Man in America'
By: Tom Nicholas, John Masko and Matthew G. Preble
Railroad magnate Jay Gould, a controversial figure in the history of U.S. capitalism, was a disruptive influence on an industry that had previously relied on formal and informal agreements to move traffic long distances across lines operated by different companies.... View Details