Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(6,846)
- Faculty Publications (1,552)
- March 2003 (Revised April 2006)
- Background Note
Scale and Scope in Professional Service Firms
By: Ashish Nanda
This case discusses why economies (and diseconomies) of scale and scope exist in professional service firms (PSFs) and how they influence the amount and range of services that PSFs offer. It is distributed with a case that focuses on determining the optimal scale/scope... View Details
- February 2003 (Revised March 2003)
- Case
Large Scale Change at The WSSC
By: Amy C. Edmondson and Corey B. Hajim
Describes the organizational transformation occurring at the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC), a public utility. Faced with the possibility of privatization after decades of providing service in the absence of competition or performance pressures, the... View Details
- February 2003 (Revised May 2008)
- Case
AFP Provida
By: Michael E. Porter, Arturo L. Condo and Andrea Prado
Describes the evolution of AFP Provida, one of the early entrants into the Chilean pension fund system established in 1981. By 1999, AFP Provida was not only the largest pension fund administrator in Chile, but also the largest in Latin America in terms of number of... View Details
- February 2003 (Revised March 2006)
- Case
Asociacion Colombiana de Industrias Plasticas (Acoplasticos)
Acoplasticos was established in 1961 as a lobbying group for Colombia's major plastics manufacturing companies. In the early 1980s, the organization shifted its focus toward improving the productivity of the Colombian plastics and rubber cluster, which also included... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised June 2003)
- Case
Adams Capital Management: March 2002
By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
In March 2002, the five partners of Adams Capital Management (ACM), a venture capital firm investing in information technology telecommunications with $700 million under management, gathered to discuss whether they should change their strategy in view of the prolonged... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised June 2005)
- Case
Multinationals as Engines of Growth?
Reviews the issues surrounding estimating the impact over time of multinationals on host economies. Uses a series of short historical case studies, including the role of United Fruit in the "banana" republics of Central America, oil and banking in Iran before the... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
The State of Connecticut: Strategy for Economic Development
By: Michael E. Porter and Kaia Miller
Describes the history of Connecticut's economy, its competitive challenges in the 1990s, and the steps taken to develop an economic plan for the state. A prominent issue is the competitive position of Connecticut's industry clusters and the efforts to create a formal... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised September 2007)
- Background Note
A Note on Racing to Acquire Customers
Examines factors that motivate a firm's race to acquire customers in newly emerging markets and explores conditions under which racing strategies are likely to yield attractive returns. Provides a definition of racing behavior, introduces the notion of an optimal level... View Details
- 2003
- Chapter
The Evolution of Advanced Large Scale Information Infrastructure in the United States
By: Shane Greenstein, Mercedes Lizardo and Pablo Spiller
- December 2002
- Case
National Economic Accounting: Past, Present, and Future
By: David A. Moss and Sarah A. Brennan
Presents the fundamentals of GDP accounting (including definitions, etc.), examines the history of national accounting, and surveys the international debate over "Green GDP." The first section explains the basic rules and definitions of national economic accounting and... View Details
- December 2002 (Revised May 2003)
- Case
Fonterra: Taking on the Dairy World
By: Ray A. Goldberg and Jose M. M. Porraz
Fonterra was a cooperatively owned dairy company--New Zealand's largest company and the world's largest exporter of dairy products. To maintain its leadership, Fonterra had to respond to increased competition, new consumer tastes, consolidation of its customers, and... View Details
- December 2002
- Article
Business Enterprises and Global Worlds
By: G. Jones
The role of business enterprise in integrating economies is one of the central historical themes of the last two centuries. Although globalization—both in its current iteration and in its nineteenth-century form—has been widely studied, the role of the firm, as opposed... View Details
- November 2002 (Revised March 2006)
- Case
ApproTEC Kenya: Technologies to Fight Poverty and Create Wealth
ApproTEC markets a range of technologies to improve the income of subsistence farmers and other small-scale entrepreneurs in East Africa. Having achieved considerable success in its first eight years, the two founders/entrepreneurs are seeking ways to scale the impact... View Details
- 2002
- Book
Corporate Information Strategy and Management: The Challenge of Doing Business in a Network Economy
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Robert D. Austin and F. Warren McFarlan
- 2002
- Book
The Support Economy: Why Corporations are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism
By: Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin
- August 2002 (Revised December 2003)
- Case
Italy: A New Commitment to Growth
By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Rebecca Evans
Examines Italy's efforts to comply with the Maastricht Treaty and become integrated with Europe in the European Union. By 2002, Italy has achieved macroeconomic stability, but slow growth threatens the country's future competitiveness. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi... View Details
- July 2002 (Revised September 2002)
- Case
Competition in Japanese Financial Markets, 2002 (Abridged)
By: Tarun Khanna
In early 2002, Japan, the world's largest economy, had been mired in a decade-long recession. A range of stimulus packages had failed to work their magic. The "Big Bang" financial deregulation reforms announced in 1998 had not quite produced the economic boom that the... View Details
- Article
On the Political Economy of Temporary Stabilization Programs
By: Laura Alfaro
This paper provides a political economy explanation for temporary exchange-rate-based stabilization programs by focusing on the distributional effects of real exchange-rate appreciation. I propose an economy in which agents are endowed with either tradable or... View Details
- Other Article
What Do We Know About Variance in Accounting Profitability?
By: Anita M. McGahan and Michael E. Porter
In this paper, we analyze the variance of accounting profitability among a broad cross-section of firms in the American economy from 1981 to 1994. The purpose of the analysis is to identify the importance of year, industry, corporate-parent, and business-specific... View Details
- June 2002 (Revised August 2002)
- Case
WorldSpace: Digital Radio for the Developing World
By: Debora L. Spar
Describes the evolution of WorldSpace, the world's first major provider of digital radio service to the developing world. The brainchild of Noah Samara, an African-born, American-trained lawyer, WorldSpace has a dual commercial and social mission. Samara wants to... View Details