Publications

September 2008 (Revised October 2008)
Case

Marc Abrahams: Annals of an Improbable Entrepreneur

By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

Marc Abrahams was a media entrepreneur who specialized in science humor. In 2008, he sought to boost the scale and monetization potential of his business. That business, called Improbable Research, encompassed a magazine (Annals of Improbable Research), a high-profile... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Selection and Staffing; Human Capital; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Personal Development and Career

05 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Lessons in Decision-Making: Confident People Aren't Always Correct (Except When They Are)

vote for the accuracy of their own solution to each task. These decisions served to find out whether the aggregate outcomes that emerge from people self-selecting into participating more or less aggressively in an auction, market, or... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

Research Summary

Governance and Accountability in Social Sector Organizations

This research examines governance in two types of organizations: international NGOs and socioeconomic hybrids.

First, over the past decade, many of the world's most prominent international nongovernmental organizations and networks (INGOs) ... View Details

25 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

How SHEIN and Temu Conquered Fast Fashion—and Forged a New Business Model

late 1970s, when China ramped up its manufacturing production and began to open its economy to the world, its small and mid-sized factories struggled to gain access to the large consumer markets of the United States and Europe. American... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton; Fashion; Retail; Consumer Products

10 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 10

entry) as a means of reconciling non-monotonic incentive responses to competition, effectively manipulating the number and skills distribution of contestants facing one another. February 2015 GfK Marketing Intelligence Review Beyond... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2022
Case

Air Wars: Deregulating the U.S. Airline Industry

By: Tom Nicholas and James Weber

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the U.S. government assisted in the development of an airline industry by subsidizing the delivery of mail and allowing mail carriers to also fly passengers. Because the government awarded mail routes to the lowest... View Details

14 Nov 2006
First Look

First Look: November 14, 2006

Business School Case 707-012 Clearwater was trying to market value-added products in a traditionally commodities based industry while facing supply uncertainties and regulatory, environmental, and foreign exchange challenges. Clearwater... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2004 (Revised July 2006)
Case

Patrimonio Hoy

By: Arthur I Segel, Michael Chu and Gustavo Herrero

Patrimonio Hoy is a program targeting the housing needs of the low-income population by CEMEX, a major Mexican company and a leading global cement producer. Originally conceived as a project to understand the customers in the self-construction segment better, a major... View Details

Keywords: Housing; Construction; Product Design; Globalized Firms and Management; Microfinance; Income; Market Entry and Exit; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Construction Industry; Mexico

2018
Book

The Academy of Fisticuffs: Political Economy and Commercial Society in Enlightenment Italy

By: Sophus A. Reinert

The terms “capitalism” and “socialism” continue to haunt our political and economic imaginations, but we rarely consider their interconnected early history. Even the 18th century had its “socialists,” but unlike those of the 19th, they paradoxically sought to make the... View Details

Keywords: Enlightenment; Political Economy; Italy; Commercial Society; Economic Systems; Trade; History; Markets; Society; Italy

September 2010 (Revised April 2012)
Case

Better World Books

By: Michael I. Norton, Fiona Wilson, Jill Avery and Thomas J. Steenburgh

Better World Books, a young start-up, provides a socially conscious alternative to Amazon, collecting and selling used books to keep them out of the waste stream, while donating a portion of their profits to support global literacy efforts. The case presents an... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Online Technology; Retail Industry

01 Jun 2020
What Do You Think?

Will Challenged Amazon Tweak Its Retail Model Post-Pandemic?

ablokhin SUMMING UP Is the Amazon Organization Losing Its Ability to Learn? There was little sympathy for Amazon’s loss of online retail market share at the outset of the current global pandemic among respondents to this month’s column.... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

November – December 2011
Article

Competitive Strategy for Open Source Software

By: Vineet Kumar, Brett Gordon and Kannan Srinivasan

Commercial open source software (COSS) products-privately developed software based on publicly available source code-represent a rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar market. A unique aspect of competition in the COSS market is that many open source licenses require... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Product Development; Growth and Development; Markets; Motivation and Incentives; Quality; Policy; Perspective; Profit; Open Source Distribution; Emerging Markets

Read Now

May 2017 (Revised July 2017)
Supplement

Aadhaar: From Voluntary to Mandatory

By: Tarun Khanna, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla

Approximately 1.1 billion residents of India (99% of the population) had a unique biometric identity—Aadhaar—by 2017. In six years, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had achieved an unprecedented milestone in emerging and developed markets. The... View Details

27 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, June 27

evidence consistent with market participants perceiving staggered boards to be value reducing. Amihud and Stoyanov (2016) (AS2016) contests these findings, reporting some specifications under which the results are not statistically... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2013 (Revised January 2014)
Supplement

Man Jit Singh at Sony Entertainment Television (B)

By: Linda A. Hill, Dana M. Teppert and Allison J. Wigen

Supplement to (A) case: Explores the role of CEO Man Jit Singh and his senior management committee in leading Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd. (formerly SET Pvt. Ltd.), a leading television broadcaster in India. Describes Singh's decision to evaluate employees based on... View Details

Keywords: Performance Appraisals; Performance Management; Performance Evaluation; Leadership Style; Managerial Roles; Organizational Culture; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Change Management; Decision Making; Emerging Markets; Media and Broadcasting Industry; India

December 2007
Journal Article

Industrial Policy in the United States

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

Does US government policy purposefully benefit particular industries or is industrial policy absent in the USA? Based on a review of recent US policies this paper argues that the USA applies many policies with an industry-specific impact. But these policies do not... View Details

Keywords: Microeconomics; Entrepreneurship; Policy; Innovation and Invention; Supply and Industry; Business and Government Relations; United States