Publications

January 2013
Case

Brannigan Foods: Strategic Marketing Planning

By: John A. Quelch and James T. Kindley

The soup division at Brannigan Foods contributes over 40% of the firm's revenue. The general manager is concerned that the soup industry is declining and that the soup division shows declining profits and market share, especially among the important baby boomer... View Details

Keywords: United States; Consumer Marketing; Acquisitions; Forecasting; Quantitative Analysis; Risk Management; Decision Making; Budgeting; Supermarkets; Strategic Planning; Demand and Consumers; Marketing Strategy; Food; Resource Allocation; Acquisition; Product Development; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

October 2023
Technical Note

Governance for the Family Enterprise

By: Christina R. Wing and Vicki Morton

Governance stands as the backbone of any successful organization, providing the structure, transparency, and accountability necessary to guide decisions, ensure efficiency and foster sustainable growth. Its significance takes on a heightened dimension within family... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Corporate Governance; Family Ownership; Business Growth and Maturation

September 2013 (Revised January 2015)
Case

Wal-Mart Lobbying in India?

By: Karthik Ramanna and Vidhya Muthuram

In 2012, as part of a routine disclosure under U.S. law, Wal-Mart revealed it had spent $25 million since 2008 on lobbying to "enhance market access for investment in India." This disclosure, which came weeks after the Indian government made a controversial decision to... View Details

Keywords: Lobbying; India; Multinational Corporations; Business and Government Relations; Crime and Corruption; Retail Industry; India

13 Feb 2012
Research & Ideas

The Case Against Racial Colorblindness

"It's so appealing on the surface to think that the best way to approach race is to pretend that it doesn't exist," says behavioral psychologist Michael I. Norton, an associate professor at Harvard Business School. "But research shows... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

13 Jun 2014
Op-Ed

World Cup Soccer: 770 Billion Minutes of Attention

overload. Using a standard cost of $25 per thousand viewers, which is generally charged by broadcast companies for a 30 second ad on primetime television in the United States (a value cheaper than Japan and more expensive than Brazil)... View Details

Keywords: by Thales Teixeira; Sports

29 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Are You Paying a Tip--or a Bribe?

according to Magnus Thor Torfason, an assistant professor in Harvard Business School's Entrepreneurial Management Unit. His article for Social Psychological & Personality Science, "Here's a Tip: Prosocial Gratuities Are Linked to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

December 2006 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs

By: Anthony Mayo and Mark Benson

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, founders of Microsoft and Apple respectively, have revolutionized the relationship between the individual and computer technology. Once the exclusive domain of academia and research facilities, computers can now be found in every area of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business History; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Risk and Uncertainty; Technology Industry

12 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

New Research Explores Multi-Sided Markets

simply buy and resell products; they generally do not have to solve a chicken-and-egg problem at any moment. With that caveat in mind, I think that understanding the fundamental functions multi-sided platforms can perform dictates... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

12 May 2009
First Look

First Look: May 12, 2009

work together to achieve better results and include the recipients in the process? Purchase this note: http://hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=909406 Generation Investment Management Harvard View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

20 Aug 2008
Op-Ed

The Time is Right for Creative Capitalism

capitalism is "an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities." Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Nancy Koehn

18 May 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Organization Design for Distributed Innovation

Keywords: by Carliss Y. Baldwin

11 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The High Risks of Short-Term Management

short-termism appears to increase investor risk? Serafeim: Many times corporate leaders complain that the market is short-term-oriented. Again, this is a general statement that fails to recognize that investors differ in their time... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

April 2021
Article

Today's Surgeon Compensation Models Fall Short: Aligning Incentives to Create More Equitable and Value-based Compensation Models

By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Witkowski, Lauren Haskins, Haley Jeffcoat, Vinita Mujumdar and Frank Opelka

Modern medicine is undergoing a transformation that involves innovative surgical approaches, increased medical treatment options, clinical care pathways that require collaboration beyond hospital walls, and health data captured by electronic health records and other... View Details

Keywords: Physician Compensation; Surgeons; Health Care and Treatment; Business Model; Compensation and Benefits

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Article

Competition for Scarce Resources

By: Peter Eso, Volker Nocke and Lucy White

We model a downstream industry where firms compete to buy capacity in an upstream market that allocates capacity efficiently. Although downstream firms have symmetric production technologies, we show that industry structure is symmetric only if capacity is sufficiently... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Natural Environment; Technology; Production; Business Cycles; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost; Demand and Consumers; Industry Structures; Performance Capacity

Find at Harvard

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Dorothy Leonard*, the William J. Abernathy Professor of Business Administration Emerita, joined the Harvard faculty in 1983 after teaching for three years at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has taught MBA courses in... View Details

Keywords: computer; consulting; education industry; electronics; federal government; high technology; information technology industry; software; venture capital industry

April 2021
Teaching Note

GreenFire Energy, 2020: Geothermal Innovation

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In June 2020, after ten years of effort, GreenFire Energy Inc. (GreenFire) demonstrated its new geothermal electricity generation technology, ECO2G™. While conventional geothermal electricity only supplied 0.5% of US demand, the new technology promised to increase this... View Details

Keywords: Green Energy; Geothermal; Entrepreneur; Renewables; Geothermal Electricity; Green Technology; Renewable Energy; Energy Generation; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Commercialization

10 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Retailing Revolution: Category Killers on the Brink

generally is at a tipping point, with category killers being the first significant casualties of the (r)evolution that is occurring. Retail store asset productivity has been in decline since the start of the recession in 2007, and we... View Details

Keywords: by Rajiv Lal & Jose B. Alvarez; Retail

November 2023 (Revised July 2024)
Case

'Care in Every Drop': Ayala Corporation and Manila Water (A)

By: Debora L. Spar, Paul Healy, Tricia Peralta and Julia M. Comeau

Since 1834, eight generations of the Ayala family have used their conglomerate to fund nation-building projects in the Philippines, including investments in tramcars, telecommunications, hospitals, and schools. In 1997, Ayala’s subsidiary, Manila Water, took control of... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Economic Growth; Social Entrepreneurship; Climate Change; Natural Resources; Crisis Management; Failure; Privatization; Social Issues; Urban Development; Adaptation; Public Opinion; Mission and Purpose; Utilities Industry; Asia; Philippines