Strategy
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- March–April 2024
- Article
Case Study: Navigating Labor Unrest
By: Jorge TamayoPaulo Ferreira, the president of Luna Brazil, has an ambitious plan to turn around the dismal performance of the plant he oversees in Campinas. The wrinkle is, he needs the buy-in of the powerful local union, which is still smarting from a 10-year-old labor conflict and lately has begun to step up its demands and picket outside the factory. Headquarters, running out of patience with the dispute, wants Paulo to consider converting the plant to a distribution center. But that would mean hundreds of layoffs, which would decimate the local community that Paolo loves.
- March–April 2024
- Article
Case Study: Navigating Labor Unrest
By: Jorge TamayoPaulo Ferreira, the president of Luna Brazil, has an ambitious plan to turn around the dismal performance of the plant he oversees in Campinas. The wrinkle is, he needs the buy-in of the powerful local union, which is still smarting from a 10-year-old labor conflict and lately has begun to step up its demands and picket outside the factory....
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- 2024
- Working Paper
Product Liability Litigation and Innovation: Evidence from Medical Devices
By: Alberto Galasso and Hong LuoWe examine the relationship between product liability litigation and innovation by systematically combining data on product liability lawsuits with data on new product introductions in a panel dataset of leading medical device firms. We first document a decline in the propensity to introduce new products for both defendant firms and other firms operating in litigated device categories. This decline, however, does not spill over to other device categories, and we also do not find any slowing down in firms’ patenting activities. We then show that changes in two features of the regulatory environment—(1) the availability of public information regarding adverse events and (2) federal law taking precedence over state law— substantially affect the likelihood of litigation. These changes also provide quasi-exogenous variations in litigation that confirm our baseline findings. Finally, we show that litigation appears to induce firms to develop safer devices. Overall, our findings suggest that product liability litigation affects the rate and direction of technological progress, and that safety regulation and liability regimes interact with one another in significant ways.
- 2024
- Working Paper
Product Liability Litigation and Innovation: Evidence from Medical Devices
By: Alberto Galasso and Hong LuoWe examine the relationship between product liability litigation and innovation by systematically combining data on product liability lawsuits with data on new product introductions in a panel dataset of leading medical device firms. We first document a decline in the propensity to introduce new products for both defendant firms and other firms...
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- February 2024
- Case
Does “Matter” Matter? Amazon and Open Standards in the Smart Home Industry
By: Frank NagleIn early 2023, the smart home industry stood at a pivotal juncture. The recent launch of “Matter” version 1.0, an ambitious interoperability standard developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), promised to unify a fragmented market plagued by incompatible devices and platforms. This new standard aimed to ensure that smart home products from different manufacturers could seamlessly communicate with each other, offering consumers a more integrated and user-friendly experience. Amidst this backdrop, Amazon, a major force in the smart home arena with its Alexa ecosystem and ownership of Ring, a leading smart home security brand, faced a strategic decision that could shape the future of smart homes. The crux of Amazon's dilemma revolved around the next iteration of the Matter standard—version 2.0. The potential inclusion of security camera compatibility in Matter version 2.0 presented both a significant opportunity and a substantial challenge. Amazon needed to decide whether to commit considerable internal resources to ensure that the next version of Matter supported security cameras, or to avoid committing these resources and keep the Ring security camera incompatible with the Matter standard.
- February 2024
- Case
Does “Matter” Matter? Amazon and Open Standards in the Smart Home Industry
By: Frank NagleIn early 2023, the smart home industry stood at a pivotal juncture. The recent launch of “Matter” version 1.0, an ambitious interoperability standard developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), promised to unify a fragmented market plagued by incompatible devices and platforms. This new standard aimed to ensure that smart home products...
About the Unit
The Strategy unit studies firms as competitors in an economic landscape. Key issues include: the development and effectiveness of firm strategy at both a business and corporate level; the analysis of the competitive environment; and the sustainability of strategy over time.
Our research, course development, and teaching draws on multiple disciplines, including economics, sociology, and political science, and focuses on both domestic and global competition. The objective of the work is to generate findings and develop concepts that will help managers improve their strategic decisions while advancing the state of knowledge in the academic study of strategy and related disciplines.
Recent Publications
Case Study: Navigating Labor Unrest
- March–April 2024 |
- Article |
- Harvard Business Review
Tesla in 2024: Holding on to the EV Lead?
- March 2024 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Maestro Pizza (A-H)
- March 2024 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
Maestro Pizza (A-H)
- March 2024 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Tesla in 2023: 'Electrified' Competition
- March 2024 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Bosch (A-B): Entering the Electric Bike Market?
- March 2024 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Product Liability Litigation and Innovation: Evidence from Medical Devices
- 2024 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
SolarWinds Confronts SUNBURST
- March 2024 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Harvard Business Publishing
Seminars & Conferences
There are no upcoming events.