Working Papers
None this week
Publications
Financial Development, Bank Ownership, and Growth. Or, Does Quantity Imply Quality?
| Author: | Shawn Cole |
|---|---|
| Periodical: | Review of Economics and Statistics (forthcoming) |
Abstract
In 1980, India nationalized its large private banks. This induced different bank ownership patterns across different towns, allowing credible identification of the effects of bank ownership on financial development, lending rates, and the quality of intermediation, as well as employment and investment. Credit markets with nationalized banks experienced faster credit growth during a period of financial repression. Nationalization led to lower interest rates and lower quality intermediation and may have slowed employment gains in trade and services. Development lending goals were met, but these had no real impact. Finally, competition with private banks provided some discipline to nationalized banks.
Pharmaceutical Regulation in the United States and Europe
| Author: | Arthur Daemmrich |
|---|---|
| Periodical: | Focus on Law Studies 23, no 1 (fall 2007): 8-11 |
Read the full paper:
http://www.abanet.org/publiced/focus/fall07.pdf
Design, Meanings, and Radical Innovation: A Meta-model and a Research Agenda
| Author: | Roberto Verganti |
|---|---|
| Periodical: | Journal of Product Innovation Management (forthcoming) |
Abstract
Recent studies on design management have helped us to better comprehend how companies can apply design to get closer to users and better understand their needs; an approach usually referred to as "user-centered design." Yet, analysis of design-intensive manufacturers such as Alessi, Artemide and other leading Italian firms, show that their innovation process hardly starts from a close observation of user needs and requirements. Rather, they follow a different strategy that we call "design-driven innovation." This strategy aims at radically changing the emotional and symbolic content of products, i.e., their meanings and languages, through a deep understanding of broader changes in society, culture and technology. Rather than being pulled by user requirements, design-driven innovation is pushed by a firm's vision about possible new product meanings and languages that could diffuse in society.
Design-driven innovation, that plays such a crucial role in the innovation strategy of design-intensive firms, has still remained largely unexplored. This article aims at providing a possible direction to fill this empty spot in innovation management literature.
In particular, first we propose a meta-model for investigation of design-driven innovation. In this meta-model a manufacturer's ability to understand, anticipate and influence emergence of new product meanings is built by leveraging on external interpreters (designers, firms in other industries, suppliers, schools, artists, the media, etc…) who share its same problem: to understand the evolution of socio-cultural models, and propose new visions and meanings. Managing design-driven innovation therefore implies to manage the interaction with these interpreters, in order to access, share and internalize knowledge on product languages and influence shifts in socio-cultural models.
Second, we propose a possible direction to scientifically investigate the management of this networked and collective research process. In particular we show that the process of creating breakthrough innovations of meanings partially mirrors the process of creating breakthrough technological innovations. Studies of design-driven innovation may therefore benefit significantly from the existing body of theories in the field of technology management. The analysis of the analogies between these two types of radical innovations (of meanings and technologies) allow to set a research agenda for exploration of design-driven innovation, a relevant as well as underinvestigated phenomenon.
Cases & Course Materials
Colgate Max Fresh: Global Brand Roll-Out
Harvard Business School Case 508-009
In February 2005, Nigel Burton, in his third year as president of global oral care at Colgate-Palmolive Company (CP), had every reason to feel optimistic. Worldwide market shares were strong and Colgate Max Fresh (CMF), a new toothpaste that had helped drive Colgate to a record value share in the important U.S. market, was in the global pipeline for 2005. Burton had on his desk the proposed marketing launch plans for CMF in China and Mexico. Each plan sought to maximize the business potential in the local market. Burton had to assess the plans from a global perspective.
Purchase this case:
http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=508009
The Hertz Corporation (A)
Harvard Business School Case 208-030
Examines the leveraged buyout of Hertz in 2005, a complex, high-profile deal and a good example of cutting-edge practice in private equity. The first of a two-part series on the Hertz LBO, adopts the perspective of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, the leader of a private equity consortium bidding to buy Hertz from Ford in an auction. Set at the final round of the auction, the immediate problem for the consortium is how much to raise its previous bid. A reasonable bid must be based upon how much value the private equity consortium can create through improvements in Hertz's global operations on the one hand, and a more efficient capital structure on the other. Presents detailed descriptive information on both topics, but does not include detailed financial projections, which must be formulated by students or supplied, for discussion purposes, by the instructor.
Purchase this case:
http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=208030
The Hertz Corporation (B)
Harvard Business School Supplement 208-031
Supplement to the (A) case.
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http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=208031
Marketing the "$100 PC" (A)
Harvard Business School Case 508-024
In 2002, Professor Nicholas Negroponte, a successful venture capitalist, author, and co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, announced his intention to build a PC so cheap as to make it possible to provide Internet- and multimedia-capable machines to millions of children in developing countries. The concept—subsequently often referred to as the "$100 PC"—was launched at the Media Lab in 2003 before being spun into a separate nonprofit association, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), founded by Negroponte in January 2005. At the time skeptics, including technology industry leaders, argued that it simply could not be done. Through innovative design and technology, Negroponte and his team proved them wrong but struggled to sell the concept and the machines to the world's education ministries, who would be purchasing the laptops for their school-age children. Furthermore, by 2007, many other low-cost PC options had emerged and OLPC had not started shipping yet, leading some observers to wonder if the non-profit should reconsider its strategy and options.
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http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=508024
Marketing the "$100 PC" (B)
Harvard Business School Supplement 508-032
Supplements the (A) case.
Purchase this supplement:
http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=508032
TiVo 2007: DVRs and Beyond
Harvard Business School Case 708-401
Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo, had placed multiple strategic bets on his company. In September 2007, that strategy was due for a major test. TiVo was a maker of digital video recorder (DVR) products and a distributor of DVR technology. Rogers believed that macro-trends in the home entertainment industry—the convergence of standard television with the delivery of video content via broadband Internet, and the related crisis faced by companies whose business models relied on TV advertising—played to TiVo's unique strengths. Leadership in DVR technology and a TV-centric user interface arguably positioned TiVo to become something more than a consumer electronics company. That was Roger's big bet. Implementing it required making six other bets: continuing to sell stand-alone DVRs in the retail market, despite rapidly eroding market share; distributing TiVo service in partnership with cable and satellite TV providers (which also functioned as TiVo's chief competitors in the DVR market); developing a platform for DVR-based advertising; entering the audience research business; leveraging TiVo's intellectual property both through litigation and in the marketplace; and expanding into non-U.S. markets. In late 2007, a pivotal new product, a major distribution deal with cable operator Comcast, and a key intellectual property lawsuit were all reaching points of critical impact.
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http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=708401