Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,743)
- Faculty Publications (183)
- March–April 2013
- Article
Vaporware, Suddenware and Trueware: New Product Preannouncements under Market Uncertainty
By: Elie Ofek and Ozge Turut
A firm may want to preannounce its plans to develop a new product in order to stimulate future demand. But given that such communications can affect rivals' incentives to develop the same new product, a firm may decide to preannounce untruthfully in order to deter... View Details
- November 2012 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
Learning Resources: A Hands-On Toy Company Deals with New Challenges and Opportunities
By: Boris Groysberg and Anahita Hashemi
Learning Resources is a family-owned educational toy company that, by late 2011, was facing a myriad of challenges, including increased competition, entry into new markets, new distribution methods, rising costs of production in China, and changing customer behavior.... View Details
Keywords: Leading Teams; Strategy Formulation; Strategy And Execution; Innovation; Corporate Culture; Industry Analysis; Organizational Alignment; Entrepreneurs; Sales Channels; Leadership; Strategy; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Family Business; Entrepreneurship; Product Design; Sales; Retail Industry; United States
- November 2012 (Revised April 2013)
- Case
Colbún and the Future of Chile's Power
By: Forest Reinhardt and Shon R. Hiatt
This case is about Colbún, Chile's second largest electricity generator, which is facing significant uncertainty regarding the cost and availability of alternative energy sources. Problems with the contracted supply of natural gas and the volatility of oil prices,... View Details
Keywords: Energy; Chile; Environmental Protection; Energy Generation; Energy Industry; South America; Chile
- October 2012
- Case
Hill Country Snack Foods Co.
By: W. Carl Kester and Craig Stephenson
Hill Country Snack Foods, located in Austin, Texas, manufactures, markets, and distributes snack foods and frozen treats. The CEO is passionate about maximizing shareholder value and believes in keeping tight control over costs and operating the business as efficiently... View Details
- September 2012 (Revised September 2015)
- Case
Doing Business in Ghana
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Elena Corsi
An entrepreneur considered investing in tomato paste manufacturing in Ghana, an emerging economy, and pondered the opportunities and challenges of investing here. Ghana's economy had been growing over the last decade, reaching a peak of 14.4% growth rate in 2011. Now a... View Details
- 2012
- Article
Signing at the Beginning Makes Ethics Salient and Decreases Dishonest Self-reports in Comparison to Signing at the End
By: L. Shu, N. Mazar, F. Gino, D. Ariely and M. Bazerman
Many written forms required by businesses and governments rely on honest reporting. Proof of honest intent is typically provided through signature at the end of the document, e.g., tax returns or insurance policy forms. Still, people sometimes cheat to advance their... View Details
Keywords: Nudge; Morality; Honesty; Self-report; Policy-making; Ethics; Corporate Disclosure; Reports; Policy
- 2012
- Working Paper
Rainmakers: Why Bad Weather Means Good Productivity
By: Jooa Julia Lee, Francesca Gino and Bradley R. Staats
People believe that weather conditions influence their everyday work life, but to date, little is known about how weather affects individual productivity. Most people believe that bad weather conditions reduce productivity. In this research, we predict and find just... View Details
- June 2012 (Revised August 2013)
- Case
Driving Towards a Disruption?
By: Willy Shih and William Noble
As Clayton Christensen drove to the studio to deliver an online executive education class, he pondered the future of management education. How big a threat did online degree programs, corporate universities, and other innovations in the delivery of management training... View Details
- 2012
- Chapter
Schumpeterian Competition and Diseconomies of Scope: Illustrations from the Histories of Microsoft and IBM
By: Timothy F. Bresnahan, Shane Greenstein and Rebecca M. Henderson
We address a longstanding question about the causes of creative destruction. Dominant incumbent firms, long successful in an existing technology, are often much less successful in new technological eras. This is puzzling, since a cursory analysis would suggest that... View Details
- November 2011
- Case
Pacific Grove Spice Company
By: William E. Fruhan and Craig Stephenson
Pacific Grove Spice Company is a profitable, rapidly growing manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of quality spices and seasonings. The company's business model requires significant investment in accounts receivable, inventory, and fixed assets to support sales.... View Details
- November 2011 (Revised November 2012)
- Case
L'Occitane en Provence
By: Bo Becker, Daniela Beyersdorfer, Scott Mayfield and Mayuka Yamazaki
Cosmetics company L'Occitane en Provence must decide if it is the right time to go public, and, if so, where to list. The firm could list on Euronext in Paris, close to the firm's headquarters in southern France, on one of the large exchanges in the U.S., or perhaps in... View Details
- October 2011 (Revised July 2012)
- Supplement
Mike Mayo Takes on Citigroup (B)
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Kaser
Mike Mayo takes on Citigroup (B) is a supplementary exercise to go along with Mike Mayo takes on Citigroup (A) case and is designed to give students an opportunity to understand the creation of deferred tax liabilities (DTLs) and the life cycle of a DTL using an... View Details
- September 2011
- Article
How to Solve the Cost Crisis in Health Care
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Michael E. Porter
Existing health care costing systems have serious flaws that make it impossible to measure costs accurately at the individual patient and medical condition level. This gap has severely limited meaningful cost reduction throughout the system. The paper describes a new... View Details
- Article
Temporal View of the Costs and Benefits of Self-Deception
By: Zoe Chance, Michael I. Norton, Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely
Researchers have documented many cases in which individuals rationalize their regrettable actions. Four experiments examine situations in which people go beyond merely explaining away their misconduct to actively deceiving themselves. We find that those who exploit... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised November 2010)
- Case
The Export-Import Bank of the United States
By: C. Fritz Foley and Matthew Johnson
In the fall of 2009, Fred Hochberg, chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im), and his team struggled to find a way to help finance the sale of Boeing aircraft to Emirates. Ex-Im responds to the challenges in the credit market with an innovative... View Details
Keywords: Trade; Credit; Financing and Loans; International Finance; Banking Industry; United States
- October 2010
- Supplement
The Export-Import Bank of the United States (CW)
By: C. Fritz Foley and Matthew Johnson
In the fall of 2009, Fred Hochberg, Chairman of The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im), and his team struggled to find a way to help finance the sale of Boeing aircraft to Emirates. Ex-Im responds to the challenges in credit market with an innovative... View Details
- September 2010
- Article
How Firms Respond to Being Rated
By: Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel
While many rating systems seek to help buyers overcome information asymmetries when making purchasing decisions, we investigate how these ratings also influence the companies being rated. We hypothesize that ratings are particularly likely to spur responses from firms... View Details
- August 2010
- Case
Flash Memory, Inc.
By: William E. Fruhan and Craig Stephenson
The CFO of Flash Memory, Inc. prepares the company's investing and financing plans for the next three years. Flash Memory is a small firm that specializes in the design and manufacture of solid state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for the computer and electronics... View Details
- March 2010 (Revised April 2014)
- Case
American Well: The Doctor Will E-See You Now
By: Elie Ofek and Ron Laufer
What is next for healthcare IT provider American Well, whose innovative Online Care technology allows physicians to deliver care to patients online in real time? Using American Well's platform, patients with non-emergency health concerns can communicate with physicians... View Details
- Article
Management Accounting and Control: Lessons for and from the World's Tiniest Businesses
By: Srikant M. Datar, Marc J. Epstein and Kristi Yuthas
The article discusses skills microentrepreneurs need to manage and expand their businesses. After interviewing hundreds of microfinance clients around the globe, the authors were able to identify five tools drawn from management accounting where improved knowledge... View Details