Harvard Business School

C. C. Mann and M. L. Plummer, TheMspirin Wars, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass., p. 50. 

R. S. Schlaefer and S. D. Heron, Development of Aircraft Engines and Fuels, Harvard Business School, Boston, Mass., 1950. 

Clark, K. B. and Fujimoto, T. 1991 Product Development Performance Strategy, Organisation and Management in the World Auto Industry. Boston Harvard Business School Press. 

Thomas, D. A. and Ely, R. J. (1995). Managing diversity for Organizational Effectiveness. Working Paper. Boston Harvard Business School. 

Christensen CM. The innovator s dilemma when new technologies cause great firms to fail. Harvard Business School Press, 1997. 

Mills, D. Q. Kurz, J. 2003. Siemens Medical Solutions strategic turnaround. Harvard Business School Case. 

But shareholders have not been the only beneficiaries of The Home Depot s snccess. While the business itself was growing, its impact on consumers and the home improvement indnstry in general has been dramatic. The Home Depot has made home improvement more affordable for millions of consumers. Professor David Bell of the Harvard Business School compared The Home Depot s prices today on a basket of everyday home improvement items to a comparable basket from 1978, adjusted for inflation, and found that the company has reduced prices by an average of 54%. For example, the cost of redoing a kitchen floor with 45 square feet of vinyl tile was 35 in 1978. Today, cnstomers can buy it at 26. Back then a refrigerator s average price per cnbic foot was approximately 77. Today it is only 48. Overall, the stndy fonnd that The Home Depot shoppers have saved more than 500 billion over the past twenty-five years. 

In August 2002, Merrill Lynch, the only Wall Street investment banking firm to enter the discussion, issued its Quality of Earnings Report, which used four financial discriminating screens created with Professor David Harkin of the Harvard Business School to evaluate the quality of earnings. 

Christensen, C. 1997. The Innovator s Dilemma. Cambridge, MA Harvard Business School Press. 

McGrath, R. G. MacMillan, I. C. 2000. The Entrepreneurial Mindset Strategies for Continuously Creating Opportunity in an Age of Uncertainty. Boston Harvard Business School Press. 

Block, Z. MacMillan, 1. C. 1993. Corporate Venturing Creating New Businesses Within the Firm. Boston Harvard Business School Press. 

Hope, J. Fraser, R. 2003. Beyond Budgeting How Managers Can Break Free from the Annual Ferformance Trap. Boston Harvard Business School Press. 

Mason, H. Rohner, T. 2002. The Venture Imperative A New Model for Corporate Innovation. Boston Harvard Business School Press. 

Zook, C. 2001. Profit from the Core Growth Strategy in an Era of Turbulence. Boston Harvard Business School Press. 

Hargadon, A. 2003. How Breakthroughs Happen The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate. Boston Harvard Business School Press. 

Das Narayandas is Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Harvard University. 

Emmons, Willis A., and Ashok Nimgade. 1991. Burroughs Wellcome and AZT. Harvard Business School Case No. 9-792-004, Cambridge, MA. 

Wosinska, Marta. 2002. Just What the Patient Ordered Direct-to-Consumer Advertising and the Demand for Pharmaceutical Products. Harvard Business School, Marketing Research Paper Series, No. 02-04. 

J. P. Deschamps and P. R. Nayak, Product Juggernauts How Companies Mobilise to Generate a Stream of Market Winners, Harvard Business School Press,... 

Pisano GP. The Development Factory Unlocking the Potential of Process Innovation. Harvard Business School Press (November 1, 1996). 

Business Enterprise Trust, The. 1991. Merck Co., Inc. (A). Harvard Business School Publishing. 

Weber, James, J. Austin, and A. Bartlett. 2001. Merck Global Health Initiatives (B) Botswana. Harvard Business School Case 9-301-089. 

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