Kodak: A Parable of American Competitiveness
| Published: | February 6, 2012 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
| Forum: | open for comment; 15 Comments posted |
When American companies shift pieces of their operations overseas, they run the risk of moving the expertise, innovation, and new growth opportunities just out of their reach as well, explains HBS Professor Willy Shih, who served as president of Eastman Kodak's digital imaging business for several years.
Published in 2011
Immigrant Innovators: Job Stealers or Job Creators?
| Published: | August 1, 2011 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
| Forum: | open for comment; 32 Comments posted |
The H-1B visa program, which enables US employers to hire highly skilled foreign workers for three years, is "a lightning rod for a very heated debate," says Harvard Business School professor William Kerr. His latest research addresses the question of whether the program is good for innovation, and whether it impacts jobs for Americans.
While Waiting for Japan's Recovery, Let's Enhance Supplier Competitiveness at Home
| Published: | April 28, 2011 |
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| Feature: | Op-Ed |
| Forum: | open for comment; 3 Comments posted |
The Obama administration and US companies do not have to wait for Japanese suppliers to recover from earthquake damage, argues Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter. Action can be taken now to ensure that America invests in growing our domestic stock of world-class suppliers.
Published in 2010
Export Competitiveness: Reversing the Logic
| Published: | October 20, 2010 |
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| Feature: | Op-Ed |
While the economic crisis has caused countries to revisit growth strategies, it has also raised serious concerns about whether the traditional strategy of export-led growth is producing the right answer. Harvard Business School's Christian Ketels argues that the focus of debate now needs to be on the actual policies that can increase competitiveness rather than exports per se.
Published in 2009
Reputation and Competition: Evidence from the Credit Rating Industry
| Authors: | Bo Becker and Todd Milbourn |
|---|---|
| Published: | July 22, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | October 2008 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Credit ratings are a key aspect of the financial system. The quality of these ratings is certainly sustained in part by the reputational concerns of rating agencies, whose paying customers have no inherent interest in the quality of ratings. Competition in this industry has been increasing, and there have been calls for yet more competition. Whether competition will reduce quality or improve it is not yet clear. HBS professor Bo Becker and Washington University in St. Louis professor Todd Milbourn test these conflicting predictions in the ratings industry. Their evidence is more or less consistent with a reduction in credit rating quality as Fitch increased its market presence. Their empirical findings suggest that the system will work better when competition is not too severe. These results have potential policy implications.
Monopolistic Competition Between Differentiated Products With Demand For More Than One Variety
| Author: | Andrei Hagiu |
|---|---|
| Published: | May 28, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | April 2009 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
How and when is price competition most significant among firms? This paper develops a theoretical framework for studying price competition between multiple firms. Two examples of markets that fit the description for study are software applications and videogames: There are thousands of software applications as well as games, and different users are interested in different applications and/or games. A given software or game user's tastes may overlap with another's, yet they may have nothing in common with a third's. Thus, although there is a sense in which competition is localized (any given firm competes only with firms whose brands are similar to its own), it is not clear how the fact that consumers are generally interested in purchasing multiple products affects the type of competition waged among firms.
Quantity vs. Quality and Exclusion by Two-Sided Platforms
| Author: | Andrei Hagiu |
|---|---|
| Published: | May 14, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | April 2009 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
It is common for two-sided platforms to deny participation to some potential customers, who would otherwise be willing to pay the platforms' access and/or transaction fees. Videogame console manufacturers such as Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, for example, restrict access to a select set of game developers and exclude many others by including security chips in their consoles, even though the latter would also be willing to pay the per-game royalties levied by the manufacturers. Apple routinely excludes certain application developers from its highly popular iPhone store. Professor Andrei Hagiu builds a simple model formalizing profit-maximizing two-sided platforms' choice of exclusion policies, which is fundamentally determined by a tradeoff between quality and quantity.
Published in 2008
Bank Structure and the Terms of Lending to Small Businesses
| Authors: | Rodrigo Canales and Ramana Nanda |
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| Published: | June 24, 2008 |
| Paper Release Date: | June 2008 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Access to "soft information" and the greater sensitivity of decentralized banks to the local institutional environment can have both positive and negative consequences for small firms. Hence there may be a dark side to decentralized bank lending in certain instances. This paper argues that the same ability of decentralized banks to act on soft information also makes them more responsive to the local environment when setting terms of their loans. While this can be beneficial for small businesses in competitive markets, it also implies that the organizational structure of decentralized banks might allow them to better exploit their market power in concentrated banking markets by restricting credit or charging higher interest rates from small businesses.
What is the Future of State Capitalism?
| Published: | May 2, 2008 |
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| Feature: | What Do YOU Think? |
| Forum: | closed | 43 Comments posted |
In state capitalism, is the operative word "capitalism"? State capitalism is neither to be applauded nor feared, judging from the tone of responses to May's column. Jim Heskett sums up. Online forum now closed.
Published in 2007
Handicapping the Best Countries for Business
| Q&A with: | Richard H.K. Vietor |
|---|---|
| Published: | March 19, 2007 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
India? South Africa? Russia? Which are the best countries for a firm to invest in? In a new book, Professor Richard Vietor looks at the economic, political, and structural strengths and weaknesses of ten countries and tells readers how to analyze the development of these areas in the future. Read our Q&A and book excerpt.
Tata-Corus: India's New Steel Giant
| Published: | February 14, 2007 |
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| Feature: | Op-Ed |
By acquiring Anglo-Dutch steel firm Corus, India's Tata Steel is now one of the world's top five steel makers. Professor Tarun Khanna says the fact that the deal is the largest out of India and generated by the private sector makes this a notable event. But now comes the hard part—making the merger work. Can Tata avoid mistakes made by Chinese companies? From The Economic Times/India Times.
Published in 2006
American Auto's Troubled Road
| Published: | April 10, 2006 |
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| Feature: | Views on News |
Harvard Business School faculty dissect where U.S. auto makers went wrong, and how they might again get on the road to growth. From HBS Alumni Bulletin.
Published in 2005
The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping
| Published: | October 3, 2005 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Malcolm P. McLean (1914-2001) hit on an idea to dramatically reduce labor and dock servicing time. An excerpt from In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century by Harvard Business School's Anthony J. Mayo and Nitin Nohria.
The Rise of Innovation in Asia
| Published: | March 7, 2005 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Asian countries are no longer just a place to get cheap labor or programming skills. Innovation is on the rise. A report from the Harvard Business School Asia Business Conference.
Published in 2004
How Important are Big Ideas?
| Published: | June 7, 2004 |
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| Feature: | What Do YOU Think? |
| Forum: | closed | 21 Comments posted |
A couple new books, including most controversially Does IT Matter? focus on sources of competitive advantage. Are management concepts on their own the best way to compete? And, does it matter that new concepts—and their guru practitioners—seem to come from the U.S.?
Mission to Mars: It Really Is Rocket Science
| Q&A with: | Alan D. MacCormack |
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| Published: | March 1, 2004 |
| Feature: | Lessons from the Classroom |
Do the successful Mars missions mean NASA again has the right stuff? Professor Alan MacCormack dissects the space agency’s "Faster, Better, Cheaper" program.
Where Does Apple Go from Here?
| Q&A with: | David B. Yoffie |
|---|---|
| Published: | February 2, 2004 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Macintosh market share continues to decline, but the iPod and iTunes are hit products. Where does Apple Computer’s future lie? An interview with HBS professor David Yoffie.
Published in 2003
Sometimes Success Begins at Failure
| Published: | December 1, 2003 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Projects that appear to be duds may have unintended upsides—Viagra started life and failed as a drug for hypertension. Here are tips for turning negative test results into gold.
The Lessons of New-Market Disruption
| Published: | September 15, 2003 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Teradyne was successful. Hewlett-Packard was not. Professor Clark Gilbert writes about how two companies had such different results with disruptive innovation.
Why IT Does Matter
| Published: | August 25, 2003 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
HBS professors F. Warren McFarlan and Richard L. Nolan respond to the much-discussed assertion by Nicholas Carr that company investments in IT are less and less likely to produce competitive advantage.
