Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,146)
- Faculty Publications (271)
- May 2018 (Revised February 2019)
- Teaching Note
Greg Mazur and the Purchase of Great Eastern Premium Pet Foods
By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld
Teaching Note for HBS No. 211-085. Greg Mazur (HBS 1997) identified a small firm, Great Eastern Premium Pet Food, in December of 1998 that fit his search criteria and decided to offer the seller a cash price of $1.2 million plus an earn-out equal to 1% of revenue over... View Details
- April 2018
- Case
Wilderness Safaris: Ecotourism Entrepreneurship
By: James E. Austin, Megan Epler Wood and Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard
Wilderness Safaris sees itself as a conservation company that is built on a business model of providing high-end, premium-priced wildlife safaris in various locations in Africa. Dependent on functioning, healthy ecosystems for its long-term survivability as a business,... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Conservation Planning; Corporate Social Responsibility; Ecotourism; Strategy; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Tourism Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Travel Industry; Africa; Botswana
- February 2018 (Revised August 2018)
- Case
OpenInvest
By: Shawn Cole, Boris Vallée and Nicole Tempest Keller
Founded by a team of hedge fund and NGO alumni, OpenInvest launched its platform in 2015 to enable retail investors to tailor their portfolios to their personal values in an automated way, for instance by screening out weapons manufacturers stocks or overweighting... View Details
- January 2018
- Case
Scaling Swagbucks (A)
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble
In early 2014, Chuck Davis (HBS '86) has joined Swagbucks as its first professional CEO to scale a successful and profitable brand promotion and consumer research business. Davis came into the job while serving as a venture partner at TCV, a growth stage VC firm,... View Details
Keywords: Loyalty Management; Scaling; Scale; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Leading Change; Growth Management; Religion; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Transition; Leadership; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry
- January–February 2018
- Article
Inclusive Growth: Profitable Strategies for Tackling Poverty and Inequality
By: Robert S. Kaplan, George Serafeim and Eduardo Tugendhat
More than a billion people in the developing world remain in extreme poverty and outside the formal economy. Traditional CSR programs have done little to alleviate the situation and rarely produce transformative change.
Instead of trying to fix local problems,... View Details
Instead of trying to fix local problems,... View Details
Keywords: Inclusive Growth; Sustainability; Social Impact; Business Strategy; Shared Value; Impact Investing; Inequality; Corporate Governance; Balanced Scorecard; Strategy Execution; Economic Growth; Developing Countries and Economies; Poverty; Equality and Inequality; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Strategy; Investment
- January–February 2018
- Article
More than a Paycheck: How to Create Good Blue-Collar Jobs in the Knowledge Economy
By: Dennis Campbell, John Case and Bill Fotsch
Fifty years ago a good blue-collar job was with a large manufacturer such as General Motors or Goodyear. Often unionized, it paid well, offered benefits, and was secure. But manufacturing employment has steadily declined, from about 25% of the U.S. labor force in 1970... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
The Real Exchange Rate, Innovation and Productivity
By: Laura Alfaro, Alejandro Cuñat, Harald Fadinger and Yanping Liu
We evaluate manufacturing firms' responses to changes in the real exchange rate (RER) using detailed firm-level data for a large set of countries for the period 2001–2010. We uncover the following stylized facts about regional variation of manufacturing firms'... View Details
- August 2017 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Berkshire Partners: Party City
By: Victoria Ivashina and Jeffrey Boyar
In 2005, Berkshire Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm specializing in growth equity, was one year into their ownership of Amscan, the market leader of designed, manufactured, and distributed decorated party goods and accessories. However, Amscan's primary... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
The Role of Taxes in the Disconnect Between Corporate Performance and Economic Growth
By: Urooj Khan, Suresh Nallareddy and Ethan Rouen
We investigate the relation between the growth in corporate profits and the overall U.S. economy, focusing on the impact of the U.S. corporate tax regime on this relation. We document that the growth of corporate profits, on average, has outpaced the growth of the... View Details
- 2017
- Book
Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship
By: Geoffrey Jones
This book explores whether profits and environmental sustainability are compatible through the lens of a global history of green entrepreneurship between the nineteenth century and today. It tells the story of the extraordinary and often eccentric men and women who... View Details
Keywords: Environmental Entrepreneurship; Green Business; Sustainability; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Business History; Religion; Environmental Sustainability; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Banking Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Alternative Energy Industry; Financial Services Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Green Technology Industry; Tourism Industry; Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America; Oceania
- June 2017 (Revised December 2017)
- Case
CJ E&M: KCON Goes Global
By: Elie Ofek and Michael Norris
In January of 2017, CJ Entertainment & Media (E&M) proudly announced that it will be holding its first ever KCON in Mexico City just two months later. CJ Group Chairman Jay Lee and Vice Chairwoman Miky Lee are pleased at the progress that KCON, a Korean-oriented music... View Details
- 2019
- Chapter
Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)
Return on invested capital (ROIC) is a financial measure of the profitability of a firm or business unit. If it is greater than the business's cost of capital, then reinvestment of earnings increases shareholder VALUE. The ROIC also determines a maximum self-sustaining... View Details
- May 2017 (Revised June 2017)
- Case
ATH Technologies (A): Making the Numbers
By: Robert Simons and Jennifer Packard
An exercise that takes students through five stages of growth in an entrepreneurial start-up in the medical devices industry: 1) founding, 2) growth, 3) push to profitability, 4) refocusing process, and 5) takeover by new management. At each stage, students must... View Details
Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Balancing Innovation And Control; Performance Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Profit; Geographic Location; Governance Controls; Innovation and Invention; Management Succession; Performance Evaluation; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry
- May 2017
- Case
ATH Technologies: Making the Numbers
By: Robert Simons and Jennifer Packard
An exercise that takes students through five stages of growth in an entrepreneurial start-up in the medical devices industry: 1) founding, 2) growth, 3) push to profitability, 4) relocation process, and 5) takeover by new management. At each stage, students must... View Details
Keywords: Balancing Innovation And Control; Performance Evaluation; Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Risk Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Profit; Geographic Location; Governance Controls; Innovation and Invention; Management Succession; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry
- May 2017 (Revised November 2017)
- Case
Cotopaxi: Managing Growth for Good
By: Andy Wu and Laura Huang
Cotopaxi, an innovative outdoor gear business targeting millennials, focuses on profit and social impact. This registered benefit corporation was formed by Davis Smith who coalesced his experiences as a Wharton MBA student along with professional knowledge from an... View Details
- May 2017
- Teaching Note
Hilti Fleet Management (A) and (B)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer
These notes are meant to accompany Hilti Fleet Management (A): Turning a Successful Business Model on Its Head (717-427) and Hilti Fleet Management (B): Towards a New Business Model (717-465).
This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the... View Details
This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the... View Details
Keywords: Hilti; Business Model Innovation; BMI; Fleet Management; Decision-making; Implementation; Power Tools Industry; Europe; Switzerland; Liechtenstein; Business Model; Restructuring; Transformation; Transition; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Focus and Relationships; Construction; Innovation and Invention; Leasing; Strategy; Decision Making; Growth Management; Construction Industry; Switzerland; Liechtenstein; Germany; Austria; Europe; United States; Asia; Brazil; China; Latin America; Africa; Japan; Hong Kong; France; Italy; Spain
- March 2017 (Revised May 2017)
- Teaching Note
The Strategy Execution Series
By: Robert Simons and Jennifer Packard
This is the teaching note for the 15-module Strategy Execution series. New management tools and techniques are needed to implement strategy in the 21st century. Rapid innovation, entrepreneurial competitors, and increasingly demanding customers have radically altered... View Details
Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Strategy Execution; Performance Measurement; Profit Planning; Organization Design; Profitable Growth; Management Attention; Organizational Conflict; Job Design; Business Strategy; Management Systems; Entrepreneurship; Competition; Organizational Design; Performance Evaluation; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques
- February 2017 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
Kameda Seika: Cracking the U.S. Market
By: Elie Ofek, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno
In spring 2016, Kameda’s CEO, Michiyasu Tanaka, is facing difficult questions from board members over the lackluster performance of the company’s U.S. subsidiary. Kameda was the leading player in the Japanese rice cracker market and was looking to expand overseas to... View Details
- November 2016 (Revised March 2018)
- Module Note
Strategy Execution Module 9: Building a Balanced Scorecard
By: Robert Simons
This module reading explains how to construct a strategy map and build a balanced scorecard. Using an internal value chain model, the module illustrates how a balanced scorecard can support and enable customer management, innovation, operations, and post-sale service... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
ASICS: Chasing a 2020 Vision
By: Elie Ofek, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno
In early 2016, Motoi Oyama, president and CEO of ASICS, a major sports apparel and footwear manufacturer based in Japan, lays out his company’s growth plan for the upcoming 5 years. The new plan set ambitious goals in terms of revenue and profit increases. At the heart... View Details
Keywords: Brand Management; Sports Apparel; Competitive Positioning; Direct To Consumer Marketing; Retail Formats; Lifestyle Brands; Information Technology; Competition; Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Product Positioning; Marketing Channels; Sports; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry