Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,189)
- Faculty Publications (250)
- March 2014
- Course Overview Note
Creating and Sustaining Competitive Advantage
This note gives an overview (for instructors) of the MBA elective course "Creating and Sustaining Competitive Advantage" (CSCA). The course gives students a deep dive on competitive advantage, on its relation to overall strategic performance (defined as performance... View Details
- December 2013 (Revised April 2014)
- Case
Seeding Growth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
By: Ray Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Djordjija Petkoski
By 2013, the agricultural sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had long suffered from war, political instability, and dilapidated infrastructure. A country with 75 million inhabitants and the second lowest GDP per capita in the world in 2011, the DRC's... View Details
Keywords: National Agricultural Investment Plan (PNIA); Developing Agriculture; World Bank; Poverty Reduction; Special Economic Zones (SEZs); Small-scale Farmers; Agricultural Business Parks; Agriculture Reform; Agribusiness; Economic Growth; Infrastructure; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa; Congo, Democratic Republic of the
- October 2013
- Article
How Much to Make and How Much to Buy? An Analysis of Optimal Plural Sourcing Strategies
By: Phanish Puranam, Ranjay Gulati and Sourav Bhattacharya
While many theories of the firm seek to explain when firms make rather than buy, in practice, firms often make and buy the same input—they engage in plural sourcing. We argue that explaining the mix of external procurement and internal sourcing for the same input... View Details
- Summer 2013
- Article
IP Modularity: Profiting from Innovation by Aligning Product Architecture with Intellectual Property
By: Joachim Henkel, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Willy C. Shih
Firms seeking to take advantage of distributed innovation and outsourcing can bridge the tension between value creation and value capture by modifying the modular structure of their technical systems. Specifically, this article introduces the concept of "IP... View Details
- 2013
- Chapter
Market Imperfections and Sustainable Competitive Advantage
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Dennis Yao
This chapter reviews the main theories in strategic management that seek to explain persistent differences in profitability across companies. We argue that these differences are ultimately explained by market imperfections. Studying differences in financial performance... View Details
- Summer 2013
- Article
Strategic Management of Intellectual Property: An Integrated Approach
By: William W. Fisher III and Felix Oberholzer-Gee
In many organizations, the R&D, strategy, and legal functions are poorly integrated. As a consequence, firms miss opportunities to create and exploit the value of intellectual property. Functional silos are one reason for the lack of integration. More important,... View Details
- June 2013 (Revised March 2014)
- Technical Note
Strategic Complements and Substitutes
The framework of strategic complements and substitutes can help companies anticipate competitors' responses. It is particularly helpful in deciding on price- or capacity-commitments (or pre-emption), but it can provide more general guidance for analyzing the potential... View Details
- 2013
- Dissertation
Designing Freemium: A Model of Consumer Usage, Upgrade, and Referral Dynamics
By: Clarence Lee, Vineet Kumar and Sunil Gupta
Abstract. Over the past decade "freemium" (free + premium) has become the dominant business model among internet start-ups for its ability to acquire and monetize a large install-base with limited marketing resources. Freemium is a hybrid strategy where a firm offers... View Details
- Article
The Profits of Power: Commerce and Realpolitik in Eurasia
By: Rawi Abdelal
Although the energy trade is the single most important element of nearly all European countries' relations with Russia, Europe has been divided by both worldview and practice. Why, in the face of the common challenge of dependence on imported Russian gas, have national... View Details
Keywords: Performance; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Globalized Firms and Management; Profit; Framework; Corporate Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Policy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Crisis Management; Government and Politics; Energy Industry; Europe; Russia; France; Germany; Italy
- March 2013
- Other Article
Redesigning Primary Care: A Strategic Vision to Improve Value by Organizing Around Patients' Needs
By: Michael E. Porter, Erika A. Pabo and Thomas H. Lee
Primary care in the United States currently struggles to attract new physicians and to garner investments in infrastructure required to meet patients' needs. We believe that the absence of a robust overall strategy for the entire spectrum of primary care is a... View Details
Keywords: Health
- 2013
- Report
Competitiveness at a Crossroads: Finding of Harvard Business School's 2012 Survey on U.S. Competitiveness
Harvard Business School gleaned responses from nearly 7,000 alumni and more than 1,000 members of the general public. The survey not only provides an updated view of the U.S. business environment, but also illuminates specific actions that business leaders and... View Details
- 2013
- Book
Business Analysis and Valuation: Using Financial Statements, Text and Cases
By: Krishna G. Palepu and Paul M. Healy
This book provides a framework for business analysis and has been used by business schools throughout the world. It provides a foundation for analysis using four key steps: 1) Strategy analysis: Identifying a firm's strategy and understanding sources of its competitive... View Details
- 9 May 2013
- Conference Presentation
Weaving Sustainability into the Organization’s Fabric: A Framework for Organizational Renewal
By: Luciana Silvestri and Ranjay Gulati
- October 2012 (Revised February 2014)
- Teaching Note
Intel: Strategic Decisions in Locating a New Assembly and Test Plant (A) and (B)
By: Juan Alcácer
The case is used in Harvard Business School's (HBS) elective course "Competing Globally" as the first case in the third module (see "Competing Globally: Course Note for Instructors," HBS No. 713-422). As the first case in the module, it introduces the framework to... View Details
- 2012
- Book
Producing Prosperity: Why America Needs a Manufacturing Renaissance
By: Gary P. Pisano and Willy Shih
For years—even decades—in response to intensifying global competition, American companies decided to outsource their manufacturing operations in order to reduce costs. But we are now seeing the alarming long-term effect of those choices: in many cases, once... View Details
- 2012
- Working Paper
IP Modularity: Profiting from Innovation by Aligning Product Architecture with Intellectual Property
By: Joachim Henkel, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Willy C. Shih
In this paper we explain how firms seeking to take advantage of distributed innovation and outsourcing can bridge the tension between value creation and value capture by modifying the modular structure of their technical systems. Specifically, we introduce the concept... View Details
- 2012
- Working Paper
The Determinants of National Competitiveness
By: Mercedes Delgado, Christian Ketels, Michael E. Porter and Scott Stern
We define foundational competitiveness as the expected level of output per working-age individual that is supported by the overall quality of a country as a place to do business. The focus on output per potential worker, a broader measure of national productivity than... View Details
- June 2012 (Revised December 2017)
- Technical Note
Strategy and Strategic Decisions
This note introduces a framework for formulating strategy that helps a manager identify which decisions are strategic—and thus which decisions to focus on (both when developing strategy and when executing it)—and that provides a practical test for whether a particular... View Details
- 2012
- Book
Banks as Multinationals
By: G. Jones
This is a revised edition of a comparative, international study which looks at the history of multinational banks. Researchers from the United States, Japan, Europe, and Australia survey the evolution of multinational banks over time and suggest a conceptual framework... View Details
- June 2012
- Article
Managing Risks: A New Framework
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes
Risk management is too often treated as a compliance issue that can be solved by drawing up lots of rules and making sure that all employees follow them. Many such rules, of course, are sensible and do reduce some risks that could severely damage a company. But... View Details