Publications

August 2016 (Revised November 2019)
Case

eSig: Growth Analysis

By: Mark Roberge and Tom Eisenmann

eSig, an early-stage startup, offers an electronic signature application as a "freemium" product, i.e., users can upgrade from a free basic version to a premium version by paying a subscription fee. Using 9 months of data from 50,000 user activations (available as a... View Details

Keywords: Esignature; Computer Software; Business or Company Management; Marketing Channels; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Computer Industry

Educators

June 2016
Teaching Note

The Cheese and the Oligarchs: The Politics, the Media, and Israel's Dream of a Start-Up Nation

By: Rafael Di Tella and Christine Snively

Israel enjoyed the highest concentration of technology start-ups in the world per capita. Despite regional instability, the country maintained strong economic growth and was considered a high-tech powerhouse. But not all Israelis benefited. Between the 1980s and 2010s,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Business Conglomerates; Business Startups; Israel

October 2014
Article

Putting Sales at the Center of Strategy

By: Frank Cespedes

Research indicates that relatively few firms execute their strategies effectively, and, on average, companies deliver just 50% to 60% of the financial performance that their strategies promise. One reason is a disconnect between strategic goals and field implementation... View Details

Find at Harvard

2007
Other Unpublished Work

Competitiveness at the Crossroads: Choosing the Future Direction of the Russian Economy

By: Michael E. Porter, Christian H.M. Ketels, Mercedes Delgado and Richard Bryden

In early 2006, the Center for Strategic Research (CSR) in Moscow commissioned Professor Michael Porter and his team to conduct a review of the existing evidence on Russian competitiveness. The objective of this report is to synthesize, interpret, and draw implications... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Growth and Development; Russia

2012
Article

Patent Policy, Patent Pools, and the Accumulation of Claims in Sequential Innovation

By: Gaston Llanes and Stefano Trento

We present a dynamic model where the accumulation of patents generates an increasing number of claims on sequential innovation. We compare innovation activity under three regimes—patents, no-patents, and patent pools—and find that none of them can reach the first best.... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Taxation; Innovation and Invention

2012
Working Paper

When Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint versus Separate Evaluation

By: Iris Bohnet, Alexandra van Geen and Max H. Bazerman

We examine a new intervention to overcome gender biases in hiring, promotion, and job assignments: an "evaluation nudge," in which people are evaluated jointly rather than separately regarding their future performance. Evaluators are more likely to focus on individual... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Selection and Staffing; Behavior; Groups and Teams; Decision Making; Performance Evaluation; Gender

July 2007 (Revised November 2009)
Case

World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell

Nearly all environmental organizations have a similar aim: to stop the degradation of the natural environment. However, the strategies which environmental organizations choose to employ are sometimes starkly different. Compares the models of two dissimilar... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Non-Governmental Organizations; Business Strategy

Educators

July 2007 (Revised November 2009)
Case

Greenpeace

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell

Nearly all environmental organizations have a similar aim: to stop the degradation of the natural environment. However, the strategies which environmental organizations choose to employ are sometimes starkly different. Compares the models of two dissimilar... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Non-Governmental Organizations; Business Strategy

Educators

May 1997
Teaching Note

Product Development Performance, Instructor's Note

By: Marco Iansiti

Focuses on what constitutes product development performance and how it is assessed. Performance, as explained in both the note and in the materials for this three-session module, refers to the performance of both the product and the organizational process producing it.... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Infrastructure; Product Development; Production; Performance Evaluation

Article

Informal Family Insurance and the Design of the Welfare State

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch

We study unemployment benefit provision when the family also provides social insurance. In the benchmark case, more generous State transfers crowd out family risk-sharing one-for-one. An extension gives the State an advantage in enforcing transfers through taxes... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Design; Welfare

Find at Harvard

24 Apr 2013
News

Looking to Make a Career Leap? Here’s How to Discover What You’re Meant to Do

08 Aug 2018
News

The Neglected Benefits of the Commute

Regina E. Herzlinger

Regina E. Herzlinger is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. She was the first woman to be tenured and chaired at Harvard Business School and serve on many established and start-up corporate health care/medical... View Details

Keywords: health care; insurance industry; medical devices; retailing; digital health

15 Aug 2023
Research & Ideas

Why Giving to Others Makes Us Happy

helped others,” Whillans says. “We tend to see the greatest mood benefits when people are more actively engaged.” The takeaway for business leaders that create charitable giving programs? People might be more willing to give if they are... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Program

Making Corporate Boards More Effective

corporate oversight activities Expand your personal and professional network Extend your network by living and working with accomplished executives from various backgrounds, industries, and countries across the globe Build relationships... View Details

30 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

Turning Employees Into Problem Solvers

to sharing a solution to the problem, the campaigns had a much larger effect, nearly tripling the frequency with which frontline workers suggested a solution to the problem. In addition, units in which managers "practiced what they preached" by View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Health

2009
Other Unpublished Work

The Pecora Hearings

By: David Moss, Cole Bolton and Eugene Kintgen

In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, the Senate Banking Committee began a much-publicized investigation of the nation's financial sector. The hearings, which came to be known as the Pecora hearings after the Banking Committee's lead counsel Ferdinand... View Details

Keywords: Financial History; Financial Crisis; Financial Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Legislation; Laws and Statutes; Business and Government Relations; Financial Services Industry