Publications

May 2005 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Aristotle Onassis and the Greek Shipping Industry

By: Geoffrey Jones and Paul Gomopoulos

Examines the career of Aristotle Onassis and his creation of one of the world's largest shipping companies between 1945 and 1973. Explores the role of ethnic and family networks in Greek shipping and how Onassis was able to penetrate this system despite being an... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Ethnicity; Family Business; Innovation Strategy; Management Succession; Competitive Advantage; Personal Development and Career; Entrepreneurship; Shipping Industry; Greece

27 Jun 2019
Blog Post

My Week at Harvard Business School's Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP)

respective disciplines and environment through dynamic and ambitious leadership. As for me, I am excited to return to UnitedHealth Group's Optum for the remaining summer as a Business Systems Analyst. I am... View Details

August 2014 (Revised May 2015)
Case

Teaming at Disney Animation

By: Amy C. Edmondson, David L. Ager, Emily Harburg and Natalie Bartlett

Jonathan Geibel, Director of Systems at Walt Disney Animation Studios (hereafter referred to as Disney Animation), walked through the workspace occupied by the group he had been tasked to lead. Geibel knew he was part of a creative and magical environment. The Disney... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Creativity; Organizational Structure; Animation Entertainment; Organizational Culture; Groups and Teams; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States

22 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

“Too Big To Fail”: Reining In Large Financial Firms

restructure, sell, or liquidate a failing company. Bottom line, no firm should be too big to fail. At the same time, the majority of financial firms that pose no systemic risk should face relatively light regulation, ensuring their... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Banking; Financial Services

2024
Working Paper

The Efficiency of Patent Litigation

By: Samuel Antill, Murat Alp Celik, Xu Tian and Toni M. Whited

How efficient is the U.S. patent litigation system? We quantify the extent to which the litigation system shapes innovation using a novel dynamic model, in which heterogeneous firms innovate and face potential patent lawsuits. We show that the impact of a litigation... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Lawsuits and Litigation; Growth and Development; Welfare; Patents

SSRN

February 2018
Background Note

Patent Trolling

By: Lauren H. Cohen, Umit G. Gurun, Scott Duke Kominers and George Hou

The U.S. Intellectual Property (IP) Ecosystem is one of the most robust and dynamic in the world—and has been for centuries. The bedrock of this system is the "patent," a legal document that allows its holder exclusive commercialization rights of a part of the "idea... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; United States

10 Dec 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Vulnerable Banks

Keywords: by Robin Greenwood, Augustin Landier & David Thesmar; Banking; Financial Services

2021
Working Paper

The Origins of CE Marking: Standards, Business, and the European Market in the 1980s–1990s

By: Grace Ballor

Many products—from consumer electronics to machinery to children’s toys—bear the CE Mark, the symbol of conformity to the ‘essential requirements’ of European standards governed by the process of CE Marking. This working paper traces the development of the system of... View Details

Keywords: Business And Government; Market Liberalization; Standards; Markets; Trade; Integration; Business History; Globalization; Business and Government Relations; Europe; European Union

Zhongming Jiang is a first-year Ph.D. student in Marketing (Quantitative) at Harvard Business School. His research focuses on developing methodologies for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that enable personalized interventions, dynamic customer... View Details

2012
Book

Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy

By: Amy C. Edmondson

Continuous improvement, understanding complex systems, and promoting innovation are all part of the landscape of learning challenges today's companies face. I show that organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within those... View Details

Keywords: Change; Interpersonal Communication; Learning; Values and Beliefs; Innovation and Invention; Management; Performance Improvement; Groups and Teams; Research; Strategy; Complexity; Value

Find at Harvard

April 2003
Tutorial

ABC Pen Factory Tutorial

By: Robert S. Kaplan

To preview this online product, Authorized Faculty can call our customer service department at 1-800-545-7685 or 617-783-7600. Illustrates, via a guided audio tour accompanied by dynamically changing spreadsheets, the role for activity-based cost systems. The numerical... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants

2014
Working Paper

Islam, Inequality, and Pre-Industrial Comparative Development

By: Stelios Michalopoulos, Alireza Naghavi and Giovanni Prarolo

This study explores the interaction between trade and geography in shaping the Islamic economic doctrine and in turn the comparative development of the Muslim world. We build a model where an unequal distribution of land quality in presence of trade opportunities... View Details

Keywords: Islam; Inequality In Land Quality; Wealth Accumulation; Public Good Investment; Conflict; Wealth; Geography; Religion; Trade

25 Mar 2020
Blog Post

Black New Venture Competition and Black Tech Master Series Recap

interactive workshops, dynamic panel discussions, and networking opportunities. The event featured a lineup of leaders including Jewel Burks Solomon, the head of Google for Startups, HBS Senior Lecturer Jeff Bussgang and Damien... View Details

spring 1987
Article

Second-Sourcing and the Experience Curve: Price Competition in Defense Procurement

By: James J. Anton and Dennis A. Yao

We examine a dynamic model of price competition in defense procurement that incorporates the experience curve, asymmetric cost information, and the availability of a higher cost alternative system. We model acquisition as a two-stage process in which initial production... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Government and Politics; Price; Competition; Mathematical Methods

Find at Harvard

06 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?

Casadesus-Masanell decided to dive in. Most research to date into the OSS movement has focused on the organization and management issues surrounding OSS. Ghemawat and Casadesus-Masanell chose to explore the fundamental competitive View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

July 2015 (Revised October 2016)
Case

China Lodging Group (A)

By: Tatiana Sandino, Shelley Xin Li and Nancy Hua Dai

This case study explores the challenges of aligning middle management interests with company goals as a company navigates rapid growth in a dynamic industry. China Lodging Group, a Chinese hotel chain that opened about 2,000 hotels during its first decade in business,... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Business or Company Management; Growth Management; Balanced Scorecard; Accommodations Industry; China

December 2001 (Revised February 2008)
Case

Borealis

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Bjorn N. Jorgensen

When Borealis, a European producer of plastics, used a traditional, time-consuming budgeting process, the budget was quickly out of date in a competitive environment characterized by continually changing input and output prices and dynamic market conditions. This case... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Budgets and Budgeting; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment; Governance Controls; Balanced Scorecard; Management Systems; Manufacturing Industry; Europe

23 Sep 2015
HBS Seminar

Ohad Barzilay, Tel Aviv University

2018
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 7 The Value Structure of Technologies, Part 2: Technical and Strategic Bottlenecks as Guides for Action

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to present analytic tools based on functional maps that can be used to identify investment opportunities and to formulate strategy in large, evolving technical systems. I argue that the points of value creation and value capture in a... View Details

Keywords: Bottlenecks; Information Technology; System; Investment; Opportunities; Strategy

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