Publications

John Macomber is a Senior Lecturer in the Finance unit at Harvard Business School. His professional background includes leadership of real estate, construction, and information technology businesses. At HBS, Mr. Macomber's work focuses on climate adaptation and the... View Details

Keywords: building materials; construction; energy; green technology; infrastructure industry; real estate; transportation; utilities; waste management; insurance industry

August 2010 (Revised March 2012)
Case

The UCLA Medical Center: Kidney Transplantation

By: Michael E. Porter, Jennifer F Baron, Jacob Mathew Chacko and Robin Jian Tang

In 2010, organ transplantation remained among the few sets of medical conditions in the U.S. for which bundled payments were a dominant reimbursement model, and for which patient health outcomes were universally measured and reported. In 1986, UCLA Medical Center was... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Measurement and Metrics; Outcome or Result; Competitive Strategy; Integration; Health Industry; California

October 24, 2018
Article

End the Corporate Health Care Tax

By: Mark R. Kramer and John Pontillo

Imagine if a single piece of legislation could effectively eliminate all U.S. corporate taxes, subsidize hundreds of millions of dollars in new corporate investment, increase the take-home pay of most U.S. employees, ease state and local budgets, and reduce the U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Taxation; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Taxation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States

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January 2002 (Revised January 2004)
Case

Cola Wars Continue: Coke and Pepsi in the Twenty-First Century

By: David B. Yoffie and Yusi Wang

Examines the industry structure and competitive strategy of Coca-cola and Pepsi over 100 years of rivalry. New challenges of the 21st century included boosting flagging domestic cola sales and finding new revenue streams. Both firms also began to modify their bottling,... View Details

Keywords: Price; Growth and Development; Brands and Branding; Emerging Markets; Industry Structures; Performance; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

02 Mar 2021
HBS Case

The Tulsa Massacre: Is Racial Justice Possible 100 Years Later?

The result is a new HBS case, “The Tulsa Massacre and the Call for Reparations,” which grapples with the question of how justice might be done for victims of the massacre a century after it occurred—as well as the larger question of what... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2024
Working Paper

Product Liability Litigation and Innovation: Evidence from Medical Devices

By: Alberto Galasso and Hong Luo

We examine the relationship between product liability litigation and innovation by systematically combining data on product liability lawsuits with data on new product introductions in a panel dataset of leading medical device firms. We first document a decline in... View Details

Keywords: Lawsuits and Litigation; Product Development; Technological Innovation; Safety; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

April 2004 (Revised June 2004)
Case

Entrepreneurship Goes Global: ResMed's Gamble

By: Christopher A. Bartlett, Andrew N. McLean and Meg Glinska

On the basis of its innovative medical device for treating sleep apnea, CEO Peter Farrell has made Australian-born ResMed a successful global company. But the company is struggling to implement a strategy to expand the device from its focused core market to a much... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Globalization; Innovation and Management; Management; Marketing Channels; Production; Expansion; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

2019
Book

VC: An American History

By: Tom Nicholas

An exploration of venture financing in America, from its origins in the whaling industry to the rise of Silicon Valley, that shows how venture capital (VC) created an epicenter for the development of high-tech innovation. The VC industry arose from the United States’... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; History; United States

November 2002 (Revised May 2003)
Case

ConAgra Foods

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Ingrid Vargas

In 2002, ConAgra Foods CEO Bruce Rohde was deliberating the next steps in the process of transforming the company from an agribusiness giant to a value-added food processor. ConAgra had become the second largest food company and number one food service supplier in the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Leading Change; Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Food; Agribusiness; Product; Business Processes; Management Teams; Expansion; Brands and Branding; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States

August 1993 (Revised April 1997)
Case

Southwest Airlines: 1993 (A)

By: James L. Heskett and Roger H. Hallowell

Southwest Airlines, the only major U.S. airline to be profitable in 1992, makes a decision as to which of two new cities to open, or to add a new long-haul route. Provides windows into Southwest's strategy, operations, marketing, and culture. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Cost Management; Profit; Marketing; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Air Transportation Industry; United States

December 2021
Case

Burning Glass Technologies: From Data to Product

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Klopfenstein

In May 2021, Matt Sigelman, CEO of Burning Glass Technologies, a company that provided labor market analytics for a variety of markets, navigates his company’s transition from data company to product company. Burning Glass originated as a service that used artificial... View Details

January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
Case

THE YES: Reimagining the Future of E-Commerce with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

By: Jill Avery, Ayelet Israeli and Emma von Maur

THE YES, a multi-brand shopping app launched in May 2020 offered a new type of buying experience for women’s fashion, driven by a sophisticated algorithm that used data science and machine learning to create and deliver a personalized store for every shopper, based on... View Details

Keywords: Data; Data Analytics; Artificial Intelligence; AI; AI Algorithms; AI Creativity; Fashion; Retail; Retail Analytics; E-Commerce Strategy; Platform; Platforms; Big Data; Preference Elicitation; Preference Prediction; Predictive Analytics; App Development; ＂Marketing Analytics＂; Advertising; Mobile App; Mobile Marketing; Apparel; Online Advertising; Referral Rewards; Referrals; Female Ceo; Female Entrepreneur; Female Protagonist; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Creativity; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing Channels; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; AI and Machine Learning; E-commerce; Digital Platforms; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

July 3, 2014
Comment

Comment on the Final Round of Iranian Nuclear Talks Before the Joint Plan of Action Expires (on July 20, 2014)

By: James K. Sebenius

As six months of talks soon end with wide gaps likely remaining on key issues, P5+1 and Iranian diplomats will undoubtedly cite some tangible progress, then argue for a six-month extension. This will likely become a pattern, with some version of the interim deal... View Details

Keywords: International Relations; Negotiation Tactics; Negotiation Deal; Iran; United States

A historical account of ideology in the Global South as the postwar laboratory of socialism, its legacy following the Cold War, and the continuing influence of socialist ideas worldwide.

In the first decades after World War II, many newly... View Details

January 2016 (Revised November 2019)
Case

Blackstone at Age 30

By: Josh Lerner, John D. Dionne and Amram Migdal

Since its IPO in 2007 and following the global financial crisis, Blackstone largely outpaced its alternative investment firm peers in assets under management, new business launches, profitability, and market capitalization. Under the leadership of Stephen A.... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Asset Management; Private Equity; Financial Services Industry; New York (city, NY)

2021
Working Paper

Hidden Software and Veiled Value Creation: Illustrations from Server Software Usage

By: Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Ran Zhuo and Shane Greenstein

How do you measure the value of a commodity that transacts at a price of zero from an economic standpoint? This study examines the potential for and extent of omission and misattribution in standard approaches to economic accounting with regards to open source... View Details

Keywords: Server Software; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Analytics and Data Science; Economics; Value Creation; Measurement and Metrics