Publications
Publications
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(2,740)
- Faculty Publications (611)
- November 2019 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Bayer Crop Science
By: David E. Bell, Damien McLoughlin, Natalie Kindred and James Barnett
In mid-2019, a year after German conglomerate Bayer Group closed its acquisition of U.S.-based seeds giant Monsanto, the leadership of Bayer’s Crop Science division (which absorbed Monsanto) is reflecting on the opportunities ahead. Some observers have questioned... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 16 Capturing Value by Controlling Bottlenecks in Open Platform Systems
The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the means by which firms capture value in open platform systems. I begin by arguing that the surplus value created by complementarities within a technical system will be split among the owners of the unique and essential... View Details
- November 2019
- Teaching Note
Actera Group: Investing in Mars Cinema Group (A) and (B)
By: Victoria Ivashina and Jeffrey Boyar
In summer of 2010, Murat Çavuşoğlu (HBS MBA 1994) led private equity firm Actera Group’s investment in Mars Cinema Group (Mars), the leading movie exhibitor in Turkey. Immediately after acquiring Mars and merging it with the second larger player in the market, AFM,... View Details
- October 2019
- Case
Hony Capital and Jushi Group
By: Josh Lerner, Shai Bernstein and Ann Leamon
Hony Capital, a multi-billion dollar private equity firm based in China, is investing in a subsidiary of Jushi Group, a Chinese company that is one of the world's largest fiberglass producers. The specific project will build a plant in the United States. In this case,... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Why Does Business Invest in Education in Emerging Markets? Why Does It Matter?
By: Valeria Giacomin, G. Jones and Erica Salvaj
This working paper examines why a significant number of businesses have made non-profit investments in education in emerging markets between the 1960s and the present day. Using a sample of 110 interviews with business leaders from an oral history database at the... View Details
- September 2019
- Case
JTC: Stronger Together with Shared Ownership
By: Ethan Bernstein and Daniela Beyersdorfer
Nigel Le Quesne, CEO of Jersey-based financial services firm JTC, firmly believed that "shared ownership" was at the heart of his company’s successful track record. The firm had seen its revenues, profits, and number of clients and staff grow steadily throughout its... View Details
- August 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
New Hope Liuhe: Building an Integrated Agri-Food Business
By: Forest L. Reinhardt, Shu Lin, Natalie Kindred and Nancy Hua Dai
In October 2018, LIU Chang (Angela), chairman of Beijing-based New Hope Liuhe (NHL), was considering the strategy of the firm. With $9 billion in sales and a presence in nearly 20 countries, NHL was China’s largest animal feed producer and a major pork and poultry... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Food; Agribusiness; Expansion; Diversification; Growth Management; Consumer Behavior; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Government and Politics; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Transformation; Volatility; Business Cycles; Goods and Commodities; Supply Chain; Product; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; China; Asia
- 2020
- Working Paper
Digital Experimentation and Startup Performance: Evidence from A/B Testing
By: Rembrand Koning, Sharique Hasan and Aaron Chatterji
Recent work argues that experimentation is the appropriate framework for entrepreneurial strategy. We investigate this proposition by exploiting the time-varying adoption of A/B testing technology, which has drastically reduced the cost of experimentally testing... View Details
- Article
Extending the Role of Headquarters Beyond the Firm Boundary: Entrepreneurial Alliance Innovation
By: Jaeho Kim and Andy Wu
Prior research on corporate headquarters (CHQ) characteristics identifies the impact of CHQ location and composition on the innovation outcomes of internal subsidiaries. However, given that external strategic alliances with high-tech entrepreneurial firms represent a... View Details
- July 2019
- Article
Using Behavioral Science to Inform the Design of Sugary Drink Portion Limit Policies: Reply to Wilson and Stolarz-Fantino (2018)
By: Leslie John, Grant E. Donnelly and Christina A. Roberto
In their commentary, Wilson & Stolarz-Fantino argue that specific design features of our research mean that it cannot have policy implications and that researchers “need to consider profit maximization in menu design or studies are likely to suggest ill-informed... View Details
- June 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)
By: Tsedal Neeley, Paul Leonardi and Michael Norris
Eric Hawkins, director of engineering at AppFolio—a digital technology firm that offered cloud-based business software to small and medium sized companies—was shocked by an unusual request from his senior leadership team. Could Hawkins and one of his agile teams build... View Details
- June 2019 (Revised November 2019)
- Technical Note
Sustaining Corporate Culture in a Growing Organization
By: Dennis Campbell and Tatiana Sandino
An organization’s culture can be a significant source of sustainable competitive advantage. For the organization, it can attract job candidates who fit and align employees working in different teams around common goals. For employees, a strong culture can generate... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Rehabilitating Corporate Purpose
In this paper, I address how the ascendance of the theory of shareholder value maximization into the central consciousness of public corporations and its canonization as the only legitimate expression of corporate purpose has contributed to both a widening breach... View Details
- April 2019
- Case
Afterpay U.S.: The Omnichannel Dilemma
By: Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and George Gonzalez
In 2018, Nick Molnar, the founder of the Australia-based online payment service Afterpay began its expansion to the U.S. market. The service had gained a loyal following in Australia by enabling customers to pay for online purchases through four interest-free... View Details
Keywords: Omnichannel Retail; Multi-sided Platforms; Value Creation; Business Model Innovation; Fintech; Digital Marketing; Disruptive Innovation; Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Change Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Financing and Loans; Microfinance; Global Strategy; Marketing Channels; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Product Development; Supply Chain Management; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Networks; Network Effects; Internet and the Web; Financial Services Industry; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Australia
- April 2019
- Article
Internalizing Global Value Chains: A Firm-Level Analysis
By: Laura Alfaro, Pol Antràs, Davin Chor and Paola Conconi
In recent decades, advances in information and communication technology and falling trade barriers have led firms to retain within their boundaries and in their domestic economies only a subset of their production stages. A key decision facing firms worldwide is the... View Details
- February 2019 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
KangaTech
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Patrick J. Ferguson, Sarah Fleischer, Jin Hyun Paik and Steven Randazzo
On a warm January afternoon in 2019, Steve Saunders, Dave Scerri, Carl Dilena, and Nick Haslam (see Exhibit 1 for biographies), co-founders of KangaTech, wrapped up the latest round of discussions about the future direction of their sports-technology start-up. Focused... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Overcoming the Cold Start Problem of CRM Using a Probabilistic Machine Learning Approach
By: Eva Ascarza
The success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs ultimately depends on the firm's ability to understand consumers' preferences and precisely capture how these preferences may differ across customers. Only by understanding customer heterogeneity, firms can... View Details
- 2019
- Article
When Gender Diversity Makes Firms More Productive
By: Stephen Turban, Dan Wu and Letian Zhang
Does diversity make a company more productive? Many say yes—some researchers argue that gender diversity leads to more innovative thinking and signals to investors that a company is competently run. Others say no—conflicting research indicates that gender diversity can... View Details
- January 2019 (Revised December 2019)
- Case
CrossBoundary Energy
By: John Macomber
Almost 500 million people are without electricity in sub-Saharan Africa. Governments and public utilities are challenged to bring generation and distribution to most of them. Considerable promise exists in “off-grid” or “mini-grid” technologies, notably using renewable... View Details
Keywords: Energy Investing; Economic Development; Renewable Energy; Business Growth and Maturation; Developing Countries and Economies; Project Finance; Emerging Markets; Industry Structures; Infrastructure; Segmentation; Private Equity; Decision Choices and Conditions; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; Africa; Tanzania; Ghana
- 2019
- Working Paper
Immigrant Networking and Collaboration: Survey Evidence from CIC
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
Networking and the giving and receiving of advice outside of one’s own firm are important features of entrepreneurship and innovation. We study how immigrants and natives utilize the potential networking opportunities provided by CIC, formerly known as the Cambridge... View Details