Publications

12 PM – 1:15 PM EDT, 14 Apr 2021
Virtual Programming

Unlocking Opportunity for America's Workforce

Professor?Bill Sahlman?will discuss his new case, Guild Education: Unlocking Opportunity for Americas Workforce, with CEO and cofounder?Rachel Carlson. Guild connects employers and universities to provide employees with education as a benefit, transforming traditional... View Details

August 2018
Teaching Note

IguanaFix

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Thomas Eisenmann

Teaching Note for HBS No. 817-056. IguanaFix, based in Argentina, is a platform business that connects consumers with home improvement contractors. The founders are evaluating growth options and an investment offer. The case focuses on scaling issues for a venture... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Marketing; Home Improvement Services; Marketing Management; Scaling; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Sales; Digital Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy

March 2008 (Revised June 2009)
Case

Actis: January 2008

By: Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Paul Feltcher, the CEO of Actis, a leading private equity investor in emerging markets, is preparing for an executive retreat at which the management team will consider how best to position the firm for the future. Actis could move in a number of different directions... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Private Equity; Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Emerging Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation

2014
Working Paper

Product to Platform Transitions: Organizational Identity Implications

By: Elizabeth J. Altman and Mary Tripsas

Organizations are increasingly recognizing that value they once derived from offering standalone products can be significantly enhanced if they transition to platform-based businesses that harness the innovative capabilities of complementors. While the competitive... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change; Organizational Identity; Ecosystems; Complementors; Managing Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Multi-Sided Platforms; Innovation and Management; Organizational Culture

SSRN

2017
Working Paper

Innovation, Reallocation and Growth

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, Harun Alp, Nicholas Bloom and William R. Kerr

We build a model of firm-level innovation, productivity growth, and reallocation featuring endogenous entry and exit. A new and central economic force is the selection between high- and low-type firms, which differ in terms of their innovative capacity. We estimate the... View Details

Keywords: Entry; Growth; Industrial Policy; Innovation; R＆D; Reallocation; Selection; Business Ventures; Resource Allocation; Performance Productivity; Policy; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development; United States

2020
Working Paper

Social Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship

By: William R. Kerr and Martin Mandorff

We study the relationship between ethnicity, occupational choice, and entrepreneurship. Immigrant groups in the United States cluster in specific business sectors. For example, Koreans are 34 times more concentrated in self-employment for dry cleaning than other... View Details

Keywords: Self-employed; Occupation; Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Industry Clusters; Ethnicity; Immigration; Networks; United States

Research Summary

Overview

Professor McDonald studies how firms successfully navigate new markets. He examines how widely accepted strategic prescriptions can actually undermine managers’ attempts to develop a viable business model or stake out a defining new market position, and considers the... View Details

24 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Activity-Based Costing

from making unnecessary new investments in capacity. For example, the vice president of operations at Lewis-Goetz, a hose and belt fabricator based in Pittsburgh, saw from his time-driven ABC model that one of his plants was operating at... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & Steven R. Anderson

Web

PhD Programs - Doctoral

PhD Programs The start of your PhD program launches your journey to a career in business academia. Students in our PhD programs are encouraged from day one to think of this experience as their first job in View Details

16 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

Are You a Strategist?

the beginning of a strategy. "It gives you the right to play, and puts you in the game," the book states. But at the root it's only an idea. Strategists also must lead the charge in creating organizations that can deliver on their intentions. That means building View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

January 2008 (Revised May 2011)
Case

Cognizant Technology Solutions

By: Robert G. Eccles, David Lane and Prabakar 'PK' Kothandaraman

In the highly competitive information technology outsourcing industry, Cognizant Technology Solutions has developed a strategy to differentiate itself by emphasizing building very close client relationships through its "Two-in-a-box" (TIB) model. This model is based on... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Knowledge Sharing; Resource Allocation; Competitive Advantage; Information Technology; Information Technology Industry

Program

Leading in the Digital Era

leadership responsibilities, including but not limited to division heads, functional heads, or executives with P&L responsibility Executives in medium to large organizations in any country or industry, including organizations with digitally driven View Details

15 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Remembering Alfred Chandler

a wider sense, Al's legacy was to provide an extraordinary role model for subsequent generations of researchers in business history and far wider. He was so influential because he asked questions that were... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

September 2018
Case

Haier in the U.S.: Transforming GE Appliances

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

Chinese appliance company Haier's 2016 acquisition of iconic GE Appliances (GEA) ushered in strategic and structural changes to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship at the U.S. company and to help it grow. Haier, which had a model designed to bring the company... View Details

Keywords: Iconic Brands; Appliances; Digital; Innovation; Entrepreneur; Microenterprise; Management; Entrepreneurship; Transformation; Innovation and Management; Acquisition; Consumer Products Industry; United States; China

January 2023
Article

Social Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship

By: William R. Kerr and Martin Mandorff

We study the relationship between ethnicity, occupational choice, and entrepreneurship. Immigrant groups in the United States cluster in specific business sectors. For example, Koreans are 34 times more concentrated in self-employment for dry cleaning than other... View Details

Keywords: Self-employed; Occupation; Entrepreneurship; Ethnicity; Immigration; Networks

April 2016
Teaching Note

IBM and the Reinvention of High School (C): Toward P-TECH's Rapid National Expansion

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Kelsi Stine-Rowe

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 316-130. This Teaching Note accompanies the third case in a 3-case series on P-TECH and the Reinvention of High School. The case focuses on the development and early diffusion of organizational innovation—how to create pilot projects for... View Details

Keywords: IBM; P-TECH; Stanley Litow; Robin Wilner; Cuomo; Scaling; Innovation; New York State; New York City; Business Model; Innovation Strategy; Innovation Leadership; Education; Business and Community Relations; Change; Technology Industry; New York (state, US); New York (city, NY)

December 1999 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Avon Products China (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jennifer Gui

In April 1998, when the Chinese central government bans all forms of direct selling in China in April 1998, executives at Avon China must decide how to respond. The first direct sales company to enter China after its opening to outsiders, Avon sparked widespread... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Sales; Trade; Business and Government Relations; Government and Politics; Market Participation; China