Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,570)
- Faculty Publications (204)
- February 2011 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
Sarvajal: Water for All
By: John D. Macomber and Mona Sinha
Entrepreneur wrestles with business model using SMS and RFID technology, franchising, and leasing to rapidly grow off-the-grid water purification business without subsidies. The company seeks to provide potable water services to rural and urban India where the public... View Details
- January 2011
- Case
Masdar and Tianjin: Eco-Cities
By: John D. Macomber
Compares Masdar City and Tianjin Eco-City, two high profile "sustainable cities." Each showcases technological and financial innovation. Is it real? Is it replicable and defensible? The case is intended to introduce main concepts and tradeoffs with respect to rapid... View Details
- November 2010 (Revised June 2011)
- Case
La Fageda
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Joan Enric Ricart and Jordan Mitchell
La Fageda is a manufacturer of high-quality, naturally-made yogurts in northern Catalonia, Spain. La Fageda is substantially different from its main competitors such as multinational Danone in that it is a 270-person workers' cooperative with 60 percent of its... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised November 2010)
- Background Note
Plavix: Drugs in the Age of Personalized Medicine
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Mara G. Aspinall and Rachel Gordon
PIavix, one of the world's best selling drugs in 2010, appears to have a limited future. Its patent was due to expire soon, and recently new data had been discovered that indicated that a small subset of the population would be at risk for stroke, heart attack, or even... View Details
- October 2010
- Article
The Emerging Capital Market for Nonprofits
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Allen S. Grossman
Many of our largest and most successful companies today did not exist 50 years ago. During this same time interval, companies that ranked among top in the 1960s have disappeared, been merged out of existence, or become much smaller presences in the U.S. industrial... View Details
- Article
The Job Market for New Economists: A Market Design Perspective
By: Peter A. Coles, John Cawley, Phillip B. Levine, Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth and John J. Siegfried
This paper, written by the members of the American Economic Association (AEA) Ad Hoc Committee on the Job Market, provides an overview of the market for new Ph.D. economists. It describes the role of the AEA in the market and focuses in particular on two mechanisms... View Details
- August 2010 (Revised December 2010)
- Supplement
Urban Water Partners (A) (CW)
By: Karthik Ramanna and George Serafeim
The case explores a new venture to bring clean water to Tanzanians who otherwise cannot access or afford it. Management has enough money to get their company through August 2010, but needs more capital. An HBS alum is interested in investing in the company;... View Details
- August 2010 (Revised January 2013)
- Case
Urban Water Partners (A)
By: Karthik Ramanna, George Serafeim and Aldo Sesia
The case explores a new business venture to bring clean water to residents of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who otherwise cannot afford it. Management has enough money to get the company through August 2010 but needs more capital thereafter. An HBS alumnus is interested in... View Details
- August 2010 (Revised January 2013)
- Supplement
Urban Water Partners (B)
By: Karthik Ramanna, George Serafeim and Aldo Sesia
The case explores a new business venture to bring clean water to residents of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who otherwise cannot afford it. Management has enough money to get their company through August 2010, but needs more capital thereafter. An HBS alumnus is interested... View Details
- May 2010 (Revised June 2012)
- Case
From Imitation to Innovation: Zongshen Industrial Group
By: Willy Shih and Nancy Hua Dai
As Zuo Zongshen drove the transformation of the Zongshen Industrial Group from an early imitator in the motorcycle business to a company that increasingly focused on innovation as a way to get out of the hyper-competitive commodity business, he continually faced new... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
The Job Market for New Economists: A Market Design Perspective
By: Peter A. Coles, John Cawley, Phillip B. Levine, Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth and John J. Siegfried
This paper provides an overview of the market for new Ph.D. economists. It describes the role of the American Economic Association (AEA) in the market and focuses in particular on two mechanisms adopted in recent years at the suggestion of our committee. First, job... View Details
- March 2010 (Revised June 2010)
- Case
The Greening of DUMBO
By: Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson and Abhijit Prabhu
The Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass (DUMBO) has seen a revitalization since the late 1970s. The neighborhood's business improvement district (BID) is charged with supplementing New York City's efforts in several areas, including... View Details
- March 2010
- Article
The Role of Independent Invention in U.S. Technological Development, 1880-1930
By: Tom Nicholas
Why did independent inventors account for over half of US patents by 1930 and more than three times the number granted to R&D firms? Using new data on patents and historical patent citations, I show that independents supplied high quality innovations to a... View Details
- February 2010 (Revised May 2010)
- Supplement
Bardhaman (B): Bengal Shrachi and the Township Design Decision
By: John D. Macomber and Viraal Balsari
A real estate developer in West Bengal chooses between two master plans for a 260 acre new township considering design, financing, and phasing. Two detailed master plans are considered, one with a radial design and an internal town square and one with a grid design and... View Details
- February 2010 (Revised November 2013)
- Case
Living PlanIT
By: Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson, Susan Thyne and Tiona Zuzul
Living PlanIT is a start-up company that has developed a new, innovative business model for sustainable urbanization. This model reflects the software and technology backgrounds of its founders, Steve Lewis and Malcolm Hutchinson, and is in vivid contrast to other... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised August 2011)
- Case
United Breaks Guitars
By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
When social media propagate a complaint about poor customer service, an international media event ensues. How do viral videos spread and what can firms do about them? This case dissects an incident in which a disgruntled customer used YouTube and Twitter to spread a... View Details
- 2010
- Chapter
Deferred Acceptance Algorithms: History, Theory, Practice
By: Alvin E. Roth
The deferred acceptance algorithm proposed by Gale and Shapley (1962) has had a profound influence on market design, both directly, by being adapted into practical matching mechanisms, and indirectly, by raising new theoretical questions. Deferred acceptance algorithms... View Details
- December 2009
- Article
Closing the Customer Feedback Loop
By: Rob Markey, Fred Reichheld and Andreas Dullweber
Realizing that customer retention is more critical than ever, companies have ramped up their efforts to listen to customers. But many struggle to convert their findings into practical prescriptions for customer-facing employees. Some companies are addressing that... View Details
- September 2009 (Revised May 2011)
- Case
Acumen Fund: Measurement in Impact Investing (A)
By: Alnoor Ebrahim and V. Kasturi Rangan
Acumen Fund is a global venture capital firm with a dual purpose: it looks for a return on its investments, and it also seeks entrepreneurial solutions to global poverty. This case examines Acumen's new projects in Kenya. The organization's investment committee and its... View Details
- 2009
- Working Paper
Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation
By: William R. Kerr
We investigate the speed at which clusters of invention for a technology migrate spatially following breakthrough inventions. We identify breakthrough inventions as the top one percent of US inventions for a technology during 1975-1984 in terms of subsequent citations.... View Details