Publications
Publications
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(2,156)
- Faculty Publications (363)
- Spring 2021
- Article
Corporate Resilience and Response During COVID-19
By: Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim and Hui (Stacie) Wang
The coronavirus pandemic caused a sharp market decline while raising heterogeneous responses across companies related to their employees, supply chain, and repurposing of operations to provide needed products and services. We study whether during the 2020 COVID-19... View Details
Keywords: ESG; COVID-19; Coronavirus; Crisis Response Plans; Crisis; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Ratings; Leadership & Corporate Accountability; Big Data; Machine Learning; Investor Behavior; Institutional Investors; Corporate Performance; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Human Capital; Supply Chain; Operations; Leadership; Corporate Accountability; Institutional Investing; Performance
- March 2021 (Revised February 2025)
- Teaching Note
Afterpay U.S.: The Omnichannel Dilemma
By: Antonio Moreno and Anibha Singh
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-086. 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... View Details
Keywords: Omnichannel Retail; Digital Marketing; 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 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; Financial Services Industry; United States; Australia
- March 2021 (Revised July 2021)
- Case
Resident
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Thomas O. Jones
Launched in 2016, Resident was a leading player in the direct-to-consumer bed-in-a-box mattress market, where it was one of at least 175 venture-backed companies competing in the space. By late 2020, it had realized over $500 million in revenue, profitability in the... View Details
- March 2021
- Article
The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance
This paper investigates the impact of customer compatibility – the degree of fit between the needs of customers and the capabilities of the operations serving them – on customer experiences and firm performance. We use a variance decomposition analysis to quantify the... View Details
- February 2021 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Barbarians at the Gate or Turnaround Gurus? Private Equity and the Rise of the LBO
By: Tom Nicholas and John Masko
During the 1980s, leveraged buyouts (LBOs) and the private equity (PE) firms responsible for carrying them out revolutionized both investment and management in the U.S. Between 1980 and 1989, buyout activity in the U.S. surged from $1 billion per year to $60 billion.... View Details
Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Restructuring; Borrowing and Debt; Private Equity; Bonds; Investment Return; Institutional Investing; Profit Sharing; Business History; Management Style; Private Ownership; Performance Effectiveness; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry; United States
- February 2021
- Case
A Cultural Transformation at Southeastern Grocers
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Jonah S. Goldberg and Joseph A. Paul
When Anthony Hucker, the CEO of Southeastern Grocers (SEG), took over in that role in July 2017, the company was in dire financial and operational condition and was headed towards bankruptcy. SEG, the fifth largest grocery chain in the U.S. in early 2021, operated... View Details
- January 2021 (Revised June 2021)
- Supplement
Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and The Cost of Capital (Abridged)
By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher
In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details
- January 2021 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and the Cost of Capital (Abridged)
By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher
In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details
- January 2021
- Case
mPharma (A)
By: Rembrand Koning, John D. Macomber, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal
mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Acquisition; Health; Business Model; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Ghana
- January 2021
- Supplement
mPharma (B)
By: Rembrand Koning, John D. Macomber, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal
mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Health; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Ghana
- January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
Jumia's Path to Profitability
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Gamze Yucaoglu
The case opens in September 2019 as Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, co-founders and co-CEOs of Jumia, the leading Pan-African e-commerce platform, are contemplating the company’s path to profitability in the aftermath of a fragile investor sentiment, as the company... View Details
Keywords: Retail; Business Models; Business Model; Business Startups; Emerging Markets; For-Profit Firms; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Value Creation; Globalization; Entrepreneurship; Competition; Expansion; Logistics; Profit; Resource Allocation; Diversification; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; Africa
- December 2020 (Revised May 2021)
- Case
Riverstone
By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred
In 2020, Luke Minion and the leadership team at Riverstone, a hog producer founded in 2013 in Shandong, China, were evaluating Riverstone’s strategy as it rebounded from outbreaks of African Swine Fever (ASF) in two of its three farm complexes. Riverstone was a joint... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Globalization; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Disruption; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Consulting Industry; United States; China
- 2020
- Working Paper
Vertical Integration of Healthcare Providers Increases Self-Referrals and Can Reduce Downstream Competition: The Case of Hospital-Owned Skilled Nursing Facilities
By: David Cutler, Leemore S. Dafny, David Grabowski, Steven S. Lee and Christopher Ody
The landscape of the U.S. healthcare industry is changing dramatically as healthcare providers expand both within and across markets. While federal antitrust agencies have mounted several challenges to same-market combinations, they have not challenged any... View Details
- November 2020 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
CommonSpirit Health: Integrating a Merger of Equals
By: Robert S. Huckman, Hise Gibson and Nicole Gilmore
Soon after closing the 2019 merger of Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) and Dignity Health to create CommonSpirit Health, Lloyd Dean and Kevin Lofton-–jointly appointed to the role of CEO—must make several operational and strategic decisions related to the integration... View Details
Keywords: Health Care Delivery; Hospital; Merger; Merger Integration; Hospital Mergers; Health Information Technology; CEOs; Health Care and Treatment; Mergers and Acquisitions; Integration; Leadership; Customer Value and Value Chain; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governance; Information Technology; Health Industry; United States
- October 2020
- Article
The Supply Chain Economy: A New Industry Categorization for Understanding Innovation in Services
By: Mercedes Delgado and Karen G. Mills
An active debate has centered on the importance of manufacturing for driving innovation in the U.S. economy. This paper offers an alternative framework that focuses on the role of suppliers of goods and services (the “supply chain economy”) in national performance. We... View Details
- September 2020
- Case
Disrupting Justice at RightNow: Persevere, Pivot or Perish
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Amir Reza Rezvani
The case examines the focus of an early stage company, and how an unexpected external incidence can threaten or void the business model. It encompasses issues such as defining and pivoting a business model, organizational requirements for a pivot, investor relations,... View Details
- September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
- Supplement
Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and The Cost of Capital
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher
In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details
- September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and The Cost of Capital
By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher
In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details
- August 2020 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
Migros Turkey: Scaling Online Operations (A)
By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu
The case opens in November 2019 as Ozgur Tort and Mustafa Bartin, CEO and chief large-format and online retail officer of Migros Ticaret A.S. (Migros), Turkey’s oldest and one of its largest supermarket chains, are contemplating what the best fulfillment format and... View Details
- August 2020 (Revised May 2021)
- Case
PayPal: The Next Chapter
By: Michael Porter, Mark Kramer and Annelena Lobb
Can a social purpose and stakeholder capitalism confer a powerful competitive advantage in the age of COVID-19? For PayPal, the answer is yes. After spinning off from eBay in a 2015 IPO, the company declared its purpose as "democratizing financial services" by ensuring... View Details