Publications

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May 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Case

Airbnb During the Pandemic: Stakeholder Capitalism Faces a Critical Test

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Allison Ciechanover

As the COVID pandemic spread in early 2020, global travel ground to a halt. For Airbnb, the San Francisco-based platform for renting accommodations, the impact was both swift and severe as revenues plummeted more than 70% over the prior year. Responding to the sudden... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Leadership; Digital Platforms; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Travel Industry; Tourism Industry; Service Industry; United States

October 1990
Case

Manufacturers Hanover Corp.: Customer Profitability Report

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Banking company noting declining profitability from its traditional lending activities has started to measure the total profitability of its lending relationships. A loan pricing model estimates the profit and return-on-equity from commercial loans. Additional work was... View Details

Keywords: Investment Return; Revenue; Commercial Banking; Banks and Banking; Customer Value and Value Chain; Banking Industry

15 Jul 2013
Research & Ideas

Five Imperatives for Improving Health Care

Innovation in health care treatment seems to far outpace innovation in health care business management. Just ask President Obama—two weeks ago he delayed enactment of a key provision of the new health care law for fear its requirements... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

April 2020
Teaching Note

Tailor Brands: Artificial Intelligence-Driven Branding

By: Jill Avery

Using proprietary artificial intelligence technology, startup Tailor Brands set out to democratize branding by allowing small businesses to create their brand identities by automatically generating logos in just minutes at minimal cost with no branding or design skills... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Advertising Industry; Technology Industry; United States; North America

December 2007 (Revised April 2008)
Case

Alltech...naturally

By: David E. Bell and Mary L. Shelman

Entrepreneur Pearse Lyons had built Alltech into the fastest growing company in the global animal health industry through innovative technology, creative marketing, and strong branding. Sel-Plex, a proprietary Alltech product, had shown important health benefits for... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Leadership Development; Customer Focus and Relationships; Expansion; Technological Innovation; Intellectual Property; Sales; Value Creation; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry

March 2002 (Revised November 2003)
Case

Satellite Radio

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alastair Brown

In early 2002, XM and Sirius were fighting for control of the emerging U.S. market for satellite radio. Each company targeted consumers in automobiles, providing 100 channels of CD-quality audio for a monthly subscription fee of $10-$13. Wall Street analysts predicted... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Price; Risk and Uncertainty; Problems and Challenges; Network Effects; Partners and Partnerships; Information Technology; Business Model; Investment Return; Auto Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

04 Feb 2008
Research & Ideas

Putting Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector

health care. But the truth is that many of these efforts, despite best intentions, have not solved the issues they target, says Harvard Business School professor Jane Wei-Skillern. "Traditional approaches are still falling short,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2016
Chapter

The Organization of Non-market Strategy

By: Dylan B. Minor

The purpose of this paper is to explore how firms organize to engage in non-market strategy. To achieve this end, we explore the organization of non-market strategy via a formal model of the firm. The model is motivated by a qualitative study of the organization of... View Details

Keywords: Non-market Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility; Strategy; Organizational Design; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

2013
Working Paper

Competing by Restricting Choice: The Case of Search Platforms

By: Hanna Halaburda and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Seminal papers recommend that platforms in two-sided markets increase the number of complements available. We show that a two-sided platform can successfully compete by limiting the choice of potential matches it offers to its customers while charging higher prices... View Details

Keywords: Matching Platform; Indirect Network Effects; Limits To Network Effects; Decision Choices and Conditions; Network Effects; Two-Sided Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Competitive Strategy

SSRN

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May 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Supplement

Novartis (C): Reimagining Medicine

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Claudio Feser, Karolin Frankenberger and David Redaschi

This case unfolds around the first-ever approved personalized cancer treatment, how Novartis wrapped it into a new business model design, and how Novartis scaled it. Novartis — one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world — is, among other ventures,... View Details

Keywords: Health Testing and Trials; Health Care and Treatment; Business Model; Problems and Challenges; Pharmaceutical Industry; Switzerland

28 Sep 2021
News

Los Nuevos Mandamientos del Trabajo

October 2022
Case

Star Magnolia Capital: Becoming Experts at Finding Experts

By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, River Ewing and Grace Headinger

Shinya Deguchi, Founder and Managing Partner of Star Magnolia Capital, a Shanghai-based multi-family office (MFO), considered how to convince a new prospective family that the MFO’s endowment model approach would best suit their needs. In recent decades, there has been... View Details

Keywords: China; Asia; Family Office; Shanghai; Financial Industry; Asset Management; Financial Instruments; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Investment; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Human Capital; Family Business; Financial Services Industry; China; Shanghai

27 Aug 2007
Op-Ed

Mattel: Getting a Toy Recall Right

Harvard Business School professor John Quelch is debuting a blog on marketing issues at Harvard Business Online. HBS Working Knowledge is reprinting his first entry, which looks at the Mattel toy... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products

13 Apr 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Implied Materiality and Material Disclosures of Credit Ratings

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles & Tim Youmans; Financial Services; Accounting

Article

Thinking About Technology: Applying a Cognitive Lens to Technical Change

We apply a cognitive lens to understanding technology trajectories across the life cycle by developing a co-evolutionary model of technological frames and technology. Applying that model to each stage of the technology life cycle, we identify conditions under which a... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Transformation; Outcome or Result; Economics; Cognition and Thinking; Business Model; Forecasting and Prediction