Publications

Joseph Fuller is a Professor of Management Practice in General Management and Entrepreneurship. He founded and co-leads the school’s project, Managing the Future of Work, as well as the Harvard Project on the Workforce. He currently leads the FIELD Global Capstone... View Details

December 2019
Case

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Shaping the Vaccine Manufacturing Ecosystem (Abridged)

By: Willy Shih

This case describes the efforts of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to lower the cost of producing vaccines to prevent polio infections. It is an abridged version of HBS Case No. 620-021 with less emphasis on comparison between traditional and the new compact... View Details

Keywords: Vaccine; Manufacturing; Barriers To Entry; Production; Cost; Technological Innovation; Market Entry and Exit; Pharmaceutical Industry

November 2022
Article

Opportunity Neglect: An Aversion to Low-probability Gains

By: Emily Prinsloo, Kate Barasz, Leslie K. John and Michael I. Norton

Seven preregistered studies (N = 2,890) conducted in the field, lab, and online document opportunity neglect: a tendency to reject opportunities with low probability of success, even when they come with little or no objective cost (e.g., time, money,... View Details

Keywords: Opportunities; Behavior; Risk and Uncertainty; Success; Perception

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26 Jan 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Marketplace Scalability and Strategic Use of Platform Investment

Keywords: by Jin Li, Gary P. Pisano, and Feng Zhu

February 1992 (Revised July 1992)
Background Note

Note on Cross-Border Valuation

By: W. Carl Kester and Julia Morley

Provides a fundamental technical review of valuation techniques used to assess cross-border investments. Discusses the discounting of free cash flows with a weighted average cost of capital, the use of adjusted present value, and the importance of considering real... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues

February 2010
Case

Saginaw Parts Co. and the General Motors Corp. Credit Default Swap

By: William E. Fruhan

This two-page case demonstrates how to unbundle the cost of credit extensions from product prices by observing the price of a credit default swap. It also explores how credit default swaps work, and how trade creditors are treated under U.S. bankruptcy law. Finally it... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Credit; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Laws and Statutes; Risk Management; Auto Industry; United States

02 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

10 Trends to Watch in 2024

The lightning-fast ascent of generative AI isn’t the only sea change on the horizon for businesses in the new year. The global economy is in flux as war, climate change, trade issues, and infrastructure problems demand attention. Many companies continue to struggle to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

March 1994 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Eli Lilly and Co.: The Flexible Facility Decision--1993

By: Gary P. Pisano

In 1993, Eli Lilly is preparing to build manufacturing capacity for three new pharmaceutical products that it expects to launch in 1996. Management wrestles with a decision of whether to add specialized manufacturing capacity or flexible capacity. This question touches... View Details

Keywords: Debates; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Investment; Goals and Objectives; Product Launch; Production; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

May 2012
Case

Westlake Lanes: How Can This Business Be Saved?

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Alisa Zalosh

Shelby Givens, a new MBA, is the general manager of Westlake Lanes, a near-bankrupt bowling alley that her grandfather founded decades earlier. Givens has been given one year to turn a profit; if the goal is not met Westlake will close. During the first few days on the... View Details

Keywords: United States; Operations Management; Small And Medium-sized Enterprises; Turnarounds; Strategy; Leading Change; Marketing Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Operations; Transformation; Growth and Development Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States

15 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

March 2014
Technical Note

Drivers of Value Creation

By: Eric Van den Steen

This note introduces a concise but comprehensive framework for analyzing value creation and value creation advantage, i.e., a firm's superior ability to increase the spread (or gap) between its offering's customer value (or WTP) and supplier cost (or WTS). (While the... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation

09 Aug 2013
News

What is it about healthcare costs?

Location Choices under Strategic Interactions

The literature on location choices has mostly emphasized the impact of location and firm characteristics. However, most industries with a significant presence of multi-location firms are oligopolistic in nature, which suggests that strategic interaction among firms... View Details

Article

Accounting for Climate Change

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna

Corporations are facing growing pressure—from investors, advocacy groups, politicians, and even business leaders themselves—to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their operations and their supply and distribution chains. About 90% of the companies in the S&P... View Details

Keywords: Greenhouse Gas Mitigation; Social Accounting; E-liabilities; Business And The Environment; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability

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March 1990 (Revised October 1999)
Case

Mary Kay Cosmetics: Sales Force Incentives (A)

By: Robert L. Simons and Hilary Weston

Describes the incentive system by which Mary Kay Cosmetics motivates the sales force of 200,000 independent agents who comprise the firm's only distribution channel. Illustrates the powerful effect on sales-force behavior that results when creative types of employee... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Cost Management; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States

September 2014 (Revised February 2015)
Case

Pfizer and AstraZeneca: Marketing an Acquisition (A)

By: John A. Quelch and James Weber

In 2014, Pfizer proposed a friendly acquisition of AstraZeneca, but the AstraZeneca board resisted over price and strategy concerns. Was this good for pharmaceutical consumers? Pfizer, like pharmaceutical companies in general, faced difficulties in growing sales due to... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Policy; Mergers And Acquisitions; Marketing; Government Relations; Crisis Management; Decision Making; Growth and Development; Management; Markets; Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; United Kingdom; United States

Article

Third-party Punishment as a Costly Signal of Trustworthiness

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Paul Bloom and David G. Rand

Third-party punishment (TPP), in which unaffected observers punish selfishness, promotes cooperation by deterring defection. But why should individuals choose to bear the costs of punishing? We present a game theoretic model of TPP as a costly signal of... View Details

Keywords: Third-party Punishment; Trustworthiness; Behavior; Trust; Game Theory

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2012
Chapter

Inflection Point: New Vision, New Strategy, New Organization

By: Nancy O. Andrews and Nicolas P. Retsinas

What does it cost to build a great society? More pointedly, what does it cost to lose a great society? Since the War on Poverty began almost 50 years ago, investments in America’s communities have spurred those questions. Today we face a society more unequal than... View Details

Keywords: Income Inequality; Equality and Inequality; Income; Residency; Poverty