Publications

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June 2016 (Revised November 2021)
Case

chotuKool: 'Little Cool,' Big Opportunity

By: Rory McDonald, Derek van Bever and Efosa Ojomo

In 2013, a team led by Gopalan Sunderraman, vice president of corporate development at Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.—one of the companies owned by Godrej Group, a large Indian conglomerate—was preparing to launch an innovative low-cost refrigerator. Developed expressly... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; India

Dennis Yao is the Lawrence E. Fouraker Professor of Business Administration and Chair of the Doctoral Programs at Harvard Business School. He joined the faculty in 2004 after having been at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. From 1991-1994 he served as... View Details

Keywords: automotive; defense; federal government; high technology

Research Summary

The Impact of ABC on Managerial Decisions

In this type of research, Ratna Sarkar seeks to determine whether, in fact, new cost systems such as ABC (Activity Based Costing) have a measurable effect on managerial decisions regarding product and customer mix.

The theory of ABC is now academically established,... View Details

Michael E. Porter

Michael Porter is an economist, researcher, author, advisor, speaker and teacher. Throughout his career at Harvard Business School, he has brought economic theory and strategy concepts to bear on many of the most challenging problems facing corporations, economies... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; e-commerce industry; health care; information; information technology industry; internet; nonprofit industry; service industry; state government

25 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

How Disruptive Innovation is Remaking the University

Editor's note: It has been more than a decade since the publication of The Innovator's Dilemma, in which Clayton M. Christensen introduced the idea of disruptive technologies—those unexpected products and services that shake up the market... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen & Henry J. Eyring; Education

July 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Carl Zeiss and Free-Form Production: Can We See Clearly Yet?

By: Willy Shih

The prescription eyeglass lens industry was complicated and highly fragmented, and even though many of the tools and techniques employed have been relatively unchanged over the last century, there was still a surprising pace of innovation. An aging population around... View Details

Keywords: History; Demand and Consumers; Disruptive Innovation; Vertical Integration; Theory; Technology Adoption; Health Industry

2015
Discussion Paper

The Roles of Import Competition and Export Opportunities for Technical Change

By: Claudia Steinwender

A variety of empirical and theoretical trade papers have suggested and documented a positive impact of trade on the productivity of firms. However, there is less consensus about the underlying mechanism at work. While trade papers focus on access to export markets,... View Details

Keywords: Performance Productivity; Trade

March 1998 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Lehigh Steel

By: V.G. Narayanan and Laura Donohue

Lehigh Steel is a specialty steel manufacturer that plummeted from record profits to record losses in less than three years, driven by an inability to distinguish between profitable and unprofitable business. The scale and growth of service activities and overhead... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Product; Cost; Activity Based Costing and Management; Profit; Accounting; Corporate Finance; Steel Industry

May 2005 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Gallardo's Goes to Mexico

By: Clayton M. Christensen

The theories of market segmentation and brand building in Chapter 3, What Products Will Customers Want to Buy? in The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor suggest that when companies segment markets and build brands in ways that match how the... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Global Strategy; Brands and Branding; Segmentation; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Mexico

Article

Foreign Competition and Domestic Innovation: Evidence from U.S. Patents

By: David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon H. Hanson, Gary P. Pisano and Pian Shu

Manufacturing accounts for more than three-quarters of U.S. corporate patents. The competitive shock to this sector emanating from China's economic ascent could in theory either augment or stifle U.S. innovation. Using three decades of U.S. patents matched to corporate... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Production; Trade; Competition; Innovation and Invention; United States

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January 2015
Article

Marketplace or Reseller?

By: Andrei Hagiu and Julian Wright

Intermediaries can choose between functioning as a marketplace (on which suppliers sell their products directly to buyers) or as a reseller (purchasing products from suppliers and selling them to buyers). We model this as a decision between whether control rights over... View Details

Keywords: Intermediation; Multi-sided Platforms; Control Rights; Marketing

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01 Apr 2021
HBS Seminar

Luis Cabral, NYU Stern

01 Apr 2019
What Do You Think?

Does Our Bias Against Federal Deficits Need Rethinking?

scanrail SUMMING UP: Is Modern Monetary Theory a Fancy Term for Today’s Reality? Modern monetary theory (MMT) is “silly thinking” (Andy), “a totally unproven theory” (Alex), a “free lunch” (John), and... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

03 Oct 2016
News

Clayton Christensen On What He Got Wrong About Disruptive Innovation

09 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

Who Sways the USDA on GMO Approvals?

it's less clear how companies sway the regulatory agencies that enforce them, which are more isolated from the direct effects of money or persuasion. “If a company can get enough farmers to support the product and they write letters, then... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage; Biotechnology; Agriculture & Agribusiness

2001
Working Paper

Airbus vs. Boeing in Superjumbos: Credibility and Preemption

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Pankaj Ghemawat

In December 2000, Airbus formally committed to spend $12 billion to develop and launch a 555-seat superjumbo plane known as the A380. Prior to and after Airbus’ commitment, Boeing started and canceled several initiatives aimed at developing a “stretch jumbo” with... View Details

Keywords: Air Transportation; Product Development; Market Entry and Exit; Valuation; Game Theory

07 Oct 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Specific Knowledge and Divisional Performance Measurement

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen & William H. Meckling

Forthcoming
Article

Measurement and Effects of Bank Exit Policies

By: Daniel Green and Boris Vallée

We study whether exit policies by financial institutions have financial and real consequences on the firms they target, using bank coal exit policies as a laboratory. In contrast to theories assuming high capital substitutability, we find large effects of these... View Details

Keywords: Coal Power; Financing and Loans; Banks and Banking; Policy; Energy Industry

July 2016
Article

Do Prices Determine Vertical Integration?

By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Harald Fadinger and Andrew F. Newman

What is the relationship between product prices and vertical integration? While the literature has focused on how integration affects prices, this paper provides evidence that prices can affect integration. Many theories in organizational economics and industrial... View Details

Keywords: Price; Vertical Integration; Product