Publications

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Motivation and the Cross-Sector Alliance

consumers and in the communities where we operated. Contrary to competitive motives that seek to improve companies' market share, the risk management motivation mainly attempted to preserve a favorable... View Details

Keywords: by James Austin, Ezequiel Reficco & SEKN research team

February 2019
Article

Physician Beliefs and Patient Preferences: A New Look at Regional Variation in Health Care Spending

By: David Cutler, Jonathan Skinner, Ariel Dora Stern and David Wennberg

There is considerable controversy about the causes of regional variations in health care expenditures. Using vignettes from patient and physician surveys linked to fee-for-service Medicare expenditures, this study asks whether patient demand-side factors or physician... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Spending; Geographic Location; Values and Beliefs

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September 2019 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Keroche (A): Fighting for Share in the Kenyan Alcoholic Drinks Market

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pippa Tubman Armerding

This case discusses the challenges faced by Kenyan alcoholic drinks producer Keroche Industries Limited in 2003, when the Kenyan government accused the company of manufacturing and selling substandard alcoholic drinks, revoked its liquor licenses, and shut down its... View Details

Keywords: Keroche; Alcohol; Wine; Manufacturing; Informal Market; Regulation; Illicit; Illegal; Shutdown; Factory; Low-income Consumers; Multinational; Local; Government; Allegations; Accusations; Negative Press; EABL; Tusker; Beer; SAB; Chang'aa; Naivasha; Rift Valley; East Africa; Lawsuit; Legal Battle; Business Ventures; Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Production; Safety; Quality; Distribution; Small Business; Family Business; Crime and Corruption; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Income; Demographics; Geographic Scope; Geographic Location; Goods and Commodities; Government Legislation; Growth and Development; Business History; Lawsuits and Litigation; Laws and Statutes; Lawfulness; Goals and Objectives; Consumer Behavior; Market Entry and Exit; Problems and Challenges; Social Issues; Poverty; Strategy; Competition; Entrepreneurship; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Kenya; Nairobi; Africa

21 Nov 2013
News

Case Study: BlackBerry and Thorsten Heins

multiple generations of technology. Microsoft and IBM perhaps? Yet no one is pointing to them as bastions of novel and breakthrough ideas! It's easy to point to specific design decisions as the cause of... View Details

Keywords: Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises

2007
Article

Pharmacovigilance and the Missing Denominator: The Changing Context of Pharmaceutical Risk Mitigation

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich

In the wake of Vioxx, Avandia, and other recent prominent cases of drugs found to cause side effects after marketing, the safety of pharmaceuticals has come to the forefront of American public policy. Press attention, congressional investigations, and legislative... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Policy; Risk Management; Government Legislation; Risk and Uncertainty; Goals and Objectives; Customers; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry; United States

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Read Now

January 2015 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Trouble at Tessei

By: Ethan Bernstein and Ryan W. Buell

In 2005, Teruo Yabe is asked to revive Tessei, the 669-person JR-East subsidiary responsible for cleaning its Shinkansen ("bullet") trains. Operational mistakes, customer complaints, safety issues, and employee turnover are at or near all-time highs, even as the... View Details

Keywords: Service Management; Employee Engagement; Employee Motivation; Leadership And Managing People; Quality Improvement; Efficiency; Japan; Operational Transparency; Employee Coordination; Transparency; Leadership; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Employees; Quality; Transportation Industry; Japan

19 Feb 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, February 19, 2019

health-economics literature has done a better job documenting consumer-choice mistakes in insurance and treatment choices than explaining why those mistakes occur, it is clear that we should not ignore these mistakes in our analyses. We... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Predictions, Prophets, and Restarting Your Business

awareness of cybersecurity issues. Combined with the ability to block ads, the growing costs of acquiring customers online, the experience of “Zoombombing,” and controls on consumer data by EU regulators... View Details

Keywords: by Frank V. Cespedes

2009
Other Unpublished Work

When Weak Ties and Social Alternatives Benefit Organizational Commitment: Evidence from Wikipedia

This study examines the social mechanisms reinforcing participant commitment to collaborative work. Previous literature largely fails to acknowledge the wider context of individual workplace commitments, or suggests that multiple concurrent work and life commitments... View Details

Keywords: Social and Collaborative Networks

November 2020
Teaching Note

DayTwo: Going to Market with Gut Microbiome

By: Ayelet Israeli

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-010. DayTwo is a young Israeli startup that applies research on the gut microbiome and machine learning algorithms to deliver personalized nutritional recommendations to its users in order to minimize blood sugar spikes after meals.... View Details

28 Sep 2023
News

What Ray Dalio Can Teach Us About Global Venture and Startups

ten years from now.’ The balance is shifting against the dollar due to factors like declining demand for dollar debt, increasing transactions denominated in other currencies, and rising geopolitical risks.”... View Details

09 Jul 2007
Research & Ideas

Five Steps to Better Family Negotiations

their incompatible demands on each issue. Negotiators who negotiate multiple issues simultaneously are more easily able to recognize value-creating tradeoffs. Because of the complex negotiation space in which business families operate,... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Davis and Deepak Malhotra

April 2018
Article

Elite Strategies and Incremental Policy Change: The Expansion of Primary Education in India

By: Akshay Mangla

This article analyzes India’s recent enactment of universal primary education. This programmatic policy change is puzzling given the clientelistic features of Indian democracy. Drawing on interviews and official documents, I demonstrate the catalytic role of committed... View Details

Keywords: Education; Policy Change; Policy Elites; Institutions; India; Early Childhood Education; Policy; Education Industry; India

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02 Oct 2017
What Do You Think?

Do Bitcoin and Digital Currency Have a Future?

Credit: pixelfit SUMMING UP How Will Digital Currencies Be Regulated? Blockchain technology has a brighter future than most digital currencies in general and Bitcoin in particular, judging from responses to this month’s column. It’s also... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett; Financial Services

07 Nov 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Causes and Consequences of Linguistic Complexity in Non-US Firm Conference Calls

Keywords: by Francois Brochet, Patricia Naranjo & Gwen Yu; Accounting

28 Feb 2019
News

Physician Beliefs and Patient Preferences: A New Look at Regional Variation in Health Care Spending

22 Mar 2010
Research & Ideas

One Strategy: Aligning Planning and Execution

Every firm has two strategies, we learn early on in the pages of One Strategy: Organization, Planning, and Decision Making. "Explicit" strategy is the one you read about in your company's planning memos View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Video Game; Web Services

May 2011
Background Note

Scale Effects, Network Effects, and Investment Strategy

By: Willy Shih

This technical note discusses scale economies, and direct and indirect network effects in the context of building better business models. Some of the great business disasters of the dot.com bubble were companies that scaled their infrastructure without working through... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Investment; Price; Crisis Management; Network Effects; Multi-Sided Platforms; Strategy

March 2015
Case

Unilever: Combatting Global Food Waste

By: David F. Drake, Janice H. Hammond and Matthew G. Preble

The global consumer goods company Unilever was on pace to hit a number of aggressive targets by 2020 as part of the Unilever Sustainable Living Project, including a goal to halve the waste associated with the disposal of its products. Unilever's chief supply chain... View Details