Publications

March 2021 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Wirecard: The Downfall of a German Fintech Star

By: Jonas Heese, Charles C.Y. Wang and Tonia Labruyere

Wirecard was a German fintech company, member of the DAX30, that provided payment processing and related services. Wirecard had enjoyed large growth rates over the years and most investors and analysts were enthusiastic about the company's prospects. Wirecard's... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Fraud; Scandal; Accounting Audits; Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Institutions; Financial Markets; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Corporate Accountability; Governance Controls; Financial Services Industry; Germany; Singapore; Dubai

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Begenau’s research agenda is directed at better understanding how financial markets work and how they affect the real economy. She uses quantitative analysis to build both prescriptive and descriptive models concerning financial risk in banking, and she also... View Details

July 2023 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Vytal: Packaging-as-a-Service

By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel, Lena Duchene and Daniela Beyersdorfer

The Germany-based startup Vytal operated the largest digital-native reusable packaging-as-a-service network globally, having raised nearly €15 million, established a large network of restaurant partners, and prevented the use of millions of single-use take-out food... View Details

April 2018
Teaching Note

InsideSales.com (A) and (B)

By: Frank Cespedes

Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 817-018 and 817-042. InsideSales.com (ISC) has been successful selling its software to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB). But for various reasons, the founders see “the next stage of growth” as building a scalable sales and service... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Customer Relationship Management; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Salesforce Management; Talent and Talent Management; Technology Industry

Article

Soul and Machine (Learning)

By: Davide Proserpio, John R. Hauser, Xiao Liu, Tomomichi Amano, Burnap Alex, Tong Guo, Dokyun (DK) Lee, Randall Lewis, Kanishka Misra, Eric Schwarz, Artem Timoshenko, Lilei Xu and Hema Yoganarasimhan

Machine learning is bringing us self-driving cars, medical diagnoses, and language translation, but how can machine learning help marketers improve marketing decisions? Machine learning models predict extremely well, are scalable to “big data,” and are a natural fit to... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Marketing Applications; Knowledge; Technological Innovation; Core Relationships; Marketing; Applications and Software

13 Oct 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Pricing Liquidity: The Quantity Structure of Immediacy Prices

Keywords: by George C. Chacko, Jakub W. Jurek & Erik Stafford

13 Apr 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Incorporating Price and Inventory Endogeneity in Firm-Level Sales Forecasting

Keywords: by Saravanan Kesavan, Vishal Gaur & Ananth Raman; Retail

12 PM – 1 PM EDT, 28 Sep 2016
Webinars: Career

5 Happiness Hacks That Drive Productivity, Sales, and Creativity

According to Harvard Business Review, happy people are 37% more productive, have 31% higher sales, and are three times more creative than their peers. In this webinar, Neil Pasricha (MBA 2007) provides models to create lasting happiness including building diverse... View Details

20 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Getting the Marketing Mix Right

whereas gains from detailing would come at the expense of competing drugs (84 percent). By contrast, the random coefficient logit model predicted that gains from DTCA, M&E, and detailing would come View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

October 2013 (Revised December 2013)
Case

Intuit QuickBooks: From Product to Platform

By: Andrei Hagiu and Elizabeth J. Altman

This case focuses on the challenges and opportunities faced by a successful incumbent organization attempting to transform a large portion of its business from a traditionally product-centric operating mode to a platform-based one that leverages network effects to... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Competitive Advantage; Network Effects; Consumer Products Industry

2011
Working Paper

The Flexible Substitution Logit: Uncovering Category Expansion and Share Impacts of Marketing Instruments

By: Qiang Liu, Thomas J. Steenburgh and Sachin Gupta

Different instruments are relevant for different marketing objectives (category demand expansion or market share stealing). To help brand managers make informed marketing mix decisions, it is essential that marketing mix models appropriately measure the different... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Mathematical Methods

Research Summary

Overcoming Large-N, Small-T Issues in Asset Pricing Tests

The large-N, small-T (i.e. large cross-section, short time series) nature of our asset data presents serious estimation problems for empirical asset pricing. In response, the literature tests asset pricing models against 10-25 test assets or portfolios. A... View Details

February 2008 (Revised November 2008)
Case

Radical Collaboration: IBM Microelectronics Joint Development Alliances

By: Willy Shih, Gary Pisano and Andrew A. King

IBM's "Radical Collaboration" model has been an innovative approach to meeting the challenges of the huge R&D and capital investments that are needed to stay competitive in the global semiconductor industry. This model has required a rethinking of what is proprietary,... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Investment; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Alliances; Networks; Partners and Partnerships; Research and Development; Competitive Advantage; Semiconductor Industry

January 2009 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation: 'Reverse BOT'

By: Willy Shih

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is executing a strategy that leverages the desires of municipalities in China to build clusters of high technology companies. By partnering with those cities to build new semiconductor fabs that SMIC would... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Industry Clusters; Infrastructure; State Ownership; Business and Community Relations; Semiconductor Industry; China

September 2010
Article

Do Inventory and Gross Margin Data Improve Sales Forecasts for U.S. Public Retailers?

By: Saravanan Kesavan, Vishal Gaur and Ananth Raman

Firm-level sales forecasts for retailers can be improved if we incorporate cost of goods sold, inventory, and gross margin (defined here as the ratio of sales to cost of goods sold) as three endogenous variables. We construct a simultaneous equations model, estimated... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Forecasting and Prediction; Distribution; Goods and Commodities; Cost; Public Sector; Profit; Mathematical Methods; Analytics and Data Science; Retail Industry; United States

01 Apr 2025
HBS Seminar

Eric Bradlow, University of Pennsylvania

June 2019
Article

Social Risk, Fiscal Risk, and the Portfolio of Government Programs

By: Samuel G. Hanson, David S. Scharfstein and Adi Sunderam

We develop a model of government portfolio choice in which a benevolent government chooses the scale of risky projects in the presence of market failures and tax distortions. These two frictions generate motives to manage social risk and fiscal risk. Social risk... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Government and Politics; Programs

02 Oct 2020
News

Computer Simulations Are Better — and More Affordable — than Ever

September 2018
Article

Asset Price Dynamics in Partially Segmented Markets

By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson and Gordon Y. Liao

We develop a model in which capital moves quickly within an asset class but slowly between asset classes. While most investors specialize in a single asset class, a handful of generalists can gradually reallocate capital across markets. Upon the arrival... View Details

Keywords: System Shocks; Asset Pricing