Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,526)
- Faculty Publications (258)
- March 2014 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
salaUno: Eliminating Needless Blindness in Mexico
By: Richard Hamermesh, Regina Garcia Cueller and Valeria Moy
In May 2013 the co-founders and co-CEOs of salaUno, Javier Okhuysen and Carlos Orellana, were encouraged by the results of their fledgling start-up. salaUno was founded as a for-profit enterprise in order to have the capital needed for rapid growth and to fulfill its... View Details
Keywords: Medical Services; Developing Countries; Developing Markets; Health Care Industry; Health Services; Healthcare Ventures; Healthcare Startups; Health Care and Treatment; Health; Business Startups; Developing Countries and Economies; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; Mexico; Mexico City
- Blog Post
Health Care Transparency: The Fox Is Guarding the Chicken Coop in Washington Again
Now that more people can shop directly for their own health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, they have been transformed from potential patients to consumers, and like any other consumers of goods or services, they want to know if what they're buying is any... View Details
- March 2014 (Revised December 2014)
- Case
Vision 2020: Takeda and the Vaccine Business
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
In 2014, Yasuchika Hasegawa was orchestrating the transformation of Takeda from a Japanese pharmaceutical company with a global footprint into a global company with a Japanese heritage. A 33-year veteran of Takeda, Hasegawa-san was appointed president of Takeda in 2003... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Bio-Piracy or Prospering Together? Fuzzy Set and Qualitative Analysis of Herbal Patenting by Firms
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna
Since the 1990s, several Western firms have filed patents based on medicinal herbs from emerging markets, evoking protests from local stakeholders against 'bio-piracy'. We explore conditions under which firms and local stakeholders share rents from such patents. Our... View Details
Keywords: Rents From New Technology; Local Stakeholders; Herbal Patents; QCA; Fuzzy Set Analysis; Qualitative Case Studies; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Patents; Emerging Markets; Health Care and Treatment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry
- February 2014 (Revised June 2014)
- Case
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.: Safety, Environment and Health
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
In January 2014, Gary Bald, senior vice president of Safety, Environment and Health at Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCL), prepared for a review meeting with the company's chief executive, Adam Goldstein, and chairman, Richard Fain. Prior to joining RCL in 2006, Bald... View Details
Keywords: Marketing; Market Segmentation; Operations; Shipbuilding; Cruising; Cruise Lines; Royal Caribbean; Carnival; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Environment; Security; Health; Public Health; Environmental Protection; Health Care; International; Safety; Environmental Sustainability; Health Industry; Health Industry; Europe; West Indies; Mexico; United States; United Kingdom
- 2014
- Working Paper
Management Practices, Relational Contracts and the Decline of General Motors
By: Susan Helper and Rebecca Henderson
General Motors was once regarded as one of the best managed and most successful firms in the world, but between 1980 and 2009 its share of the US market fell from 62.6 to 19.8 percent, and in 2009 the firm went bankrupt. In this paper we argue that the conventional... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised June 2014)
- Case
23andMe: Genetic Testing for Consumers (A)
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
On November 22, 2013, the direct-to-consumer genetic testing provider, 23andMe, received a letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordering the company to halt the sale and promotion of its genetic testing kit. The FDA stated that the product was... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised January 2014)
- Case
Henry Schein: Doing Well by Doing Good?
By: Rebecca Henderson, Raffaella Sadun, Aldo Sesia and Russell Eisenstat
Henry Schein Inc., a distributor of supplies to dentist, physician, and veterinary practices, had sales approaching $9 billion and employed nearly 16,000 people. The company had experienced impressive growth under the leadership of Stanley Bergman and his executive... View Details
Keywords: Leadership Development; Strategy Execution; Performance Management; Corporate Culture; Social Responsibility; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Joint Ventures; Partnerships; Health Care Industry; Healthcare Logistics Industry; Competitive Advantage; Strategy; Leadership; Global Strategy; Selection and Staffing; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Industry; Health Industry; China; Europe; United States
- January 2014 (Revised December 2014)
- Case
GenapSys: Business Models for the Genome
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Joseph B. Fuller and Matthew Preble
GenapSys, a California-based startup, was soon to release a new DNA sequencer that the company's founder, Hesaam Esfandyarpour, believed was truly revolutionary. The sequencer would be substantially less expensive—potentially costing just a few thousand dollars—and... View Details
- December 2013 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
The PGA Tour (A)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Cole Magrath
In 1994, the PGA Tour (the "Tour"), the dominant incumbent professional golf circuit, had created tremendous value for its players. In the 1974 season, players competed for $8 million in prize money; by the 1994 season, the total prize purse had increased to $56... View Details
- November 2013
- Case
GlaxoSmithKline in China (A)
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
Four GlaxoSmithKline employees were accused of bribing Chinese health care workers to prescribe the company's drugs. The accusations brought to light the questionable incentive structures of the Chinese health care system and the pressure on companies to adhere to... View Details
Keywords: Public Health; Pharmaceuticals; China; Bribery; CSR; Hong Bao; Health Care; Drug; GlaxoSmithKline; GSK; Witty; Government; Marketing; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Strategy; Corporate Governance; Business and Government Relations; Ethics; Pharmaceutical Industry; China; United Kingdom; United States
- October 2013
- Case
Pearle Vision: Clearly Different?
By: Rajiv Lal and Natalie Kindred
Ohio-based optical retailer Pearle Vision, part of the vertically integrated Italian eyewear group Luxottica, sold glasses and offered in-store eye exams. Once the largest U.S. optical retailer, Pearle Vision, with 266 corporate stores and 356 franchised stores in... View Details
- October 2013 (Revised April 2015)
- Case
Myomo: Getting Sales in Motion
By: Frank V. Cespedes, Shikhar Ghosh and Matthew Preble
In late 2012, the management team of Myomo, a startup which had designed a unique myoelectric arm brace for patients with dysfunctional arms, was deciding which of the three sales models the company had tested to pursue as its sales strategy going forward. Each model... View Details
- October 2013 (Revised January 2014)
- Supplement
Fred Khosravi and AccessClosure (B)
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Lauren Barley
It was January 2013, and Fred Khosravi, chairman of the board of AccessClosure Inc., wondered what the new year had in store for him and AccessClosure, the company he founded in late 2002. Khosravi was cautiously optimistic—the Mountain View, California-based medical... View Details
- October 2013 (Revised January 2015)
- Case
The Slingshot: Improving Water Access
By: John A. Quelch, Margaret L. Rodriguez and Carin-Isabel Knoop
In 2012, over 750 million people around the globe lacked access to safe drinking water. Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, sought to bring fresh water to poor and rural areas with the Slingshot, a water purification device. Kamen's challenge was to identify ways to... View Details
- October 2013
- Article
The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care
By: Michael E. Porter and Thomas H. Lee
In health care, the days of business as usual are over. Around the world, every health care system is struggling with rising costs and uneven quality, despite the hard work of well-intentioned, well-trained clinicians. Health care leaders and policy makers have tried... View Details
- September 2013
- Case
Boston Children's Hospital: Measuring Patient Costs (Abridged)
By: Robert S. Kaplan
The case describes a pilot project on applying activity-based costing to measure the cost of treating patients. After an overview of Boston Children's Hospital and its local health care market environment, the case presents process maps and financial data relating to... View Details
- September 2013
- Case
Advanced Leadership Pathways: Laurent Adamowicz and Bon'App
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Juliane Calingo Schwetz and Patricia Bissett Higgins
After a successful career as Chairman and CEO of Paris-based luxury food company Fauchon, Laurent Adamowicz sought to reduce obesity and improve health outcomes. Adamowicz created a mobile application to provide consumers with more accessible and interpretable... View Details
Keywords: Management; Startup; Leadership; Leadership Style; Leadership Skills; Nutrition Database; Nutritionist In Your Pocket; Nutritional Educational Platform; Shazam Of Food; Weight Loss; Iphone; Android; Applications; App Development; Nutrition Labeling; Nutritional Information; Obesity; Epidemic; Applications and Software; Nutrition; Business Startups; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Health Industry; Boston; Massachusetts
- Article
Consumers' Misunderstanding of Health Insurance
By: George Loewenstein, Joelle Y. Friedman, Barbara McGill, Sarah Ahmad, Suzanne Linck, Stacey Sinkula, John Beshears, James J. Choi, Jonathan Kolstad, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, John A. List and Kevin G. Volpp
We report results from two surveys of representative samples of Americans with private health insurance. The first examines how well Americans understand, and believe they understand, traditional health insurance coverage. The second examines whether those insured... View Details
- September 2013
- Article
Testimonials Do Not Convert Patients from Brand to Generic Medication
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and Gwendolyn Reynolds
Objectives: To assess whether the addition of a peer testimonial to an informational mailing increases conversion rates from brand name prescription medications to lower-cost therapeutic equivalents, and whether the testimonial's efficacy increases when... View Details