Publications

2014
Report

Bridge the Gap: Rebuilding America's Middle Skills

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Jennifer Burrowes, Manjari Raman, Dan Restuccia and Alexis Young

The market for middle-skills jobs—those that require more education and training than a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree—is consistently failing to clear. That failure is inflicting a grievous cost on the competitiveness of American firms... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Human Capital; Education; Competency and Skills; Macroeconomics; United States

15 Nov 2013
Video

POP Cuisine: Bringing a Michelin-star Menu to the Masses

December 2021 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Troverie (A)

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Lindsay N. Hyde and Olivia Graham

Six months after the August 2018 launch of Troverie, a U.S.-based online retailer of luxury watches, the average cost of acquiring a customer is much higher than originally projected, and the startup is incurring a substantial loss on each sales transaction. Could... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Luxury Goods; Customer Acquisition; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Luxury; Failure; Internet and the Web; Revenue; Fashion Industry; United States

April 2012 (Revised October 2013)
Case

eBay, Inc. and Amazon.com (A)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Anant Thaker

This case has been designed to explore strategic interactions among organizations with different business models. The case considers how a competitor successfully challenged the incumbent in a platform market defined by strong network effects and high switching costs.... View Details

11 Nov 2014
First Look

First Look: November 11

2014 and again in 2015. Publisher's link: http://hbr.org/2014/11/digital-ubiquity-how-connections-sensors-and-data-are-revolutionizing-business/ar/1 November 2014 Harvard Business Review How Not to Cut Health Care Costs By: Kaplan, Robert... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2014
Article

Observation Bias: The Impact of Demand Censoring on Newsvendor Level and Adjustment Behavior

By: Nils Rudi and David Drake

In an experimental newsvendor setting we investigate three phenomena: level behavior—the decision-maker's average ordering tendency; adjustment behavior—the tendency to adjust period-to-period order quantities; and observation bias—the tendency to... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Behavior; Logistics; Decision Making

Find at Harvard

12 Sep 2023
Book

Successful, But Still Feel Empty? A Happiness Scholar and Oprah Have Advice for You

Schedule your downtime and leisure just as you would work. Set goals that focus on service to others and earned success. Take your vacations. Invest more in family, friendships, and faith Many work-addicted strivers toil for external rewards at the View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

10 Dec 2021
Research & Ideas

Truth Be Told: Unpacking the Risks of Whistleblowing

costs. It’s more like an insurance payment. Whistleblowers incur a lot of costs and get some money as compensation. That changes how we think about whistleblower incentives; it isn’t a reward. White: Is there abuse of these statutes?... View Details

Keywords: by April White

23 Dec 2010
News

What Is Value in Health Care?

31 Jan 2023
Op-Ed

Can Insurance Technology Solve the Uninsured Driver Problem?

insurance at a time and only pay for coverage on the days they actually drive. The high cost of the uninsured While 13 percent of drivers nationwide are uninsured, the problem is even worse in some states... View Details

Keywords: by Ray Kluender; Insurance

September 1991 (Revised February 1993)
Case

Burroughs Wellcome and AZT (A)

By: Willis M. Emmons III

Burroughs Wellcome Co., developer of AZT, the first drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), finds itself under siege in September 1989 by AIDS activists and various segments of the U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Ethics; Business and Government Relations; Communication Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Monopoly; Intellectual Property; Research and Development; Price; Pharmaceutical Industry; London

May 2007
Article

Location Strategies and Knowledge Spillovers

By: Juan Alcacer and Wilbur Chung

Given the importance of proximity for knowledge spillovers, we examine firms' location choices expecting differences in firms' strategies. Firms will locate to maximize their net spillovers as a function of locations' knowledge activity, their own capabilities, and... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; For-Profit Firms; Knowledge Management; Research and Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Disruptive Innovation; Five Forces Framework; Cost Management; Technology; Competition; United States

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25 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

A Few Firms Have Outsized Influence in D.C.

researchers determined that all of the findings can be explained in part by high fixed costs to enter the lobbying club—both in the costs of hiring well-paid lobbyists and in... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

January 2013 (Revised March 2016)
Case

The Private Company Council

By: Karthik Ramanna and Luis M. Viceira

Financial Accounting Foundation chairman Jack Brennan is under pressure from private-company interests to set up a new body—the Private Company Council—to determine separate GAAP for private companies. PCC advocates—including the US Chamber of Commerce—argue that... View Details

Keywords: FASB; Lobbying; Political Economy; Accounting; Government and Politics; Leadership; Financial Markets; Accounting Industry; Financial Services Industry; Public Administration Industry

1985
Working Paper

Sequential Innovation and Market Structure

By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont

This paper concerns the introduction of a sequence of new, higher-quality durable products in a market in which there already exists a lower-quality substitute. The product has the further attribute that a real resource cost is incurred at the time a higher-quality... View Details

March 2022 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Hometown Foods: Changing Price amid Inflation

By: Julian De Freitas, Jeremy Yang and Das Narayandas

During the early part of the 2021 Covid-19 pandemic, Hometown Foods, a large seller of flour-based products, thrived as consumers hoarded baked goods and took up baking to pass the time and find comfort. Then, amid growing shortages in commodities, a vaccine arrived,... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Consumer Behavior; Supply Chain; Inflation and Deflation; Spending; Price Bubble; Price; Volatility; Food and Beverage Industry

October 2006 (Revised March 2008)
Case

2006 Hurricane Risk

By: Andre F. Perold and Erik Stafford

In May 2006, a resident of Key West, Florida had to decide whether to renew his policy to insure against hurricane damage. The policy would cost $13,000 for one year, $5,000 more than what he paid in 2005. At the same time, a wealthy California resident was... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Cost; Insurance; Price; Risk Management; California; Key West

May 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

Cotopaxi: Managing Growth for Good

By: Andy Wu and Laura Huang

Cotopaxi, an innovative outdoor gear business targeting millennials, focuses on profit and social impact. This registered benefit corporation was formed by Davis Smith who coalesced his experiences as a Wharton MBA student along with professional knowledge from an... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Social Venture; Benefit Corporation; B-Corp; Retail; Consumer Products; Apparel; Social Impact; Social Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Product Positioning; Social Enterprise; Mission and Purpose; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry

2009
Working Paper

Why Do Countries Adopt International Financial Reporting Standards?

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ewa Sletten

In a sample of 102 non-European Union countries, we study variations in the decision to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). There is evidence that more powerful countries are less likely to adopt IFRS, consistent with more powerful countries being... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Globalized Economies and Regions; Network Effects; Standards; Adoption

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