Publications

Research Summary

Railroads and the Making of Modern China

My current book project is entitled Railroads and the Making of the Modern China and explores China’s economic and socio-political transformation from the last decades of the empire to the present using railroad infrastructure as a focus. Based on a large... View Details

Teaching Interest

Venture Capital and Private Equity (MBA)

By: Archie L. Jones

The growth of private equity internationally has been dramatic, to the point that the asset class has been both lauded as the savior and vilified as the cause of our current economic malaise. Over the past two decades, private equity- ranging from venture... View Details

09 Sep 2013
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching Climate Change to Skeptics

Harvard Business School's Business and Environment Initiative (BEI) aim to shift the debate to a practical... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

24 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Value Maximization and Stakeholder Theory

as do those who narrowly focus on short-term financial gain. In the excerpt below, Jensen describes a new scorecard to help business leaders and managers keep pace. A firm cannot maximize value, Jensen... View Details

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen

2010
Casebook

Global Capital and National Institutions: Crisis and Choice in the International Financial Architecture

By: Laura Alfaro

All managers face a business environment in which international and macroeconomic phenomena matter. International capital flows can significantly affect countries' development efforts and provide clear investment opportunities for businesses. During the 1990s and early... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital; International Finance; Globalized Economies and Regions; Policy; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations

Find at Harvard

Read Now

17 Oct 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Quantile Forecasts of Product Life Cycles Using Exponential Smoothing

Keywords: by Xiaojia Guo, Kenneth C. Lichtendahl Jr., and Yael Grushka-Cockayne

June 2018
Article

Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital

By: Michael Ewens, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We study how technological shocks to the cost of starting new businesses have led the venture capital model to adapt in fundamental ways over the prior decade. We both document and provide a framework to understand the changes in the investment strategy of VCs in... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Investing; Abandonment Option; Technological Innovation; Venture Capital; Investment

2017
Working Paper

Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital

By: Michael Ewens, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We study how technological shocks to the cost of starting new businesses have led the venture capital model to adapt in fundamental ways over the prior decade. We both document and provide a framework to understand the changes in the investment strategy of VCs in... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Investing; Abandonment Option; Technological Innovation; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Investment

SSRN

Read Now

Teaching Interest

Digital Innovation and Transformation – MBA Elective Curriculum

By: Feng Zhu

Digital Innovation and Transformation is designed to equip students to confidently help conceive, lead and execute digital innovation initiatives and develop new business models for existing and insurgent organizations. The basic premise of the course... View Details

2019
Working Paper

Understanding and Overcoming Roadblocks to Environmental Sustainability. Past Roads and Future Prospects

By: Ann-Kristin Bergquist, Shawn A. Cole, John Ehrenfeld, Andrew A. King and Auden Schendler

This working paper examines key barriers to business sustainability discussed at a multidisciplinary conference held at the Harvard Business School in 2018. Drawing on perspectives from both the historical and business literatures, speakers debated the historical... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Problems and Challenges; History; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Opportunities

Read Now

April 2007 (Revised August 2014)
Case

Foreign Direct Investment and South Africa (A)

By: Eric Werker

Incoming and outgoing foreign direct investment in an environment of politics, geography, globalization, and history. Since the end of apartheid, South Africa had undertaken substantial economic reforms in order to attract more foreign direct investment, but it was... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Macroeconomics; Foreign Direct Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Government Relations; Africa; South Africa

August 2010 (Revised December 2016)
Case

Kaweyan: Female Entrepreneurship and the Past and Future of Afghanistan

By: Geoffrey Jones and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Explores the challenges of female entrepreneurship in Afghanistan through the case of Kemeli Sediqi, who built a business under the Taliban, and founded a consultancy in 2004. The case positions Sediqi's experiences against the background of Afghanistan's turbulent... View Details

Keywords: Opportunities; Social Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Welfare; Gender; Afghanistan

January 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Background Note

Advanced Leadership Note: An Institutional Perspective and Framework for Managing and Leading

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Rakesh Khurana

Large-scale societal issues increasingly appear on the agenda of business leaders, including poverty, health, education, business-government relations, and the degradation of the environment. These problems are not entirely new, but the forces of globalization and the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Framework; Global Range; Leadership; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Social Enterprise; Social Issues; Complexity

June 2012
Case

Innovating at AT&T: Partnering to Lead the Broadband Revolution

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Phillip Andrews and Kerry Herman

In 2010, the U.S. retail market value for next-generation non-handset wirelessly-enabled devices was just over $1 billion. By 2011 it had grown 1,141% to $13.2 billion and was forecast to reach $24.7 billion in 2015. At the same time, user demand for data was surging... View Details

Keywords: Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Team Leadership; Emerging Technologies; Business Models; Business To Business; Corporate Vision; Growth Strategy; Corporate Culture; Innovation and Invention; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Partners and Partnerships; Leadership; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Business Model; Technology Industry; United States

June 1995
Case

Northern Telecom and Tong Guang Electronics (B): Building Success

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Pamela A. Yatsko

This case continues the story of the joint venture in China between Northern Telecom (Nortel) of Canada and Tong Guang Electronics of China. It shows how North Americans learned to operate in a very different cultural environment in China and provides an opportunity to... View Details

Keywords: Mobile and Wireless Technology; Joint Ventures; Change Management; Organizational Culture; Leadership; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Culture; Telecommunications Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Canada; China

08 Aug 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Managing Governments: Unilever in India and Turkey, 1950–1980

Keywords: by Geoffrey G. Jones

August 2018
Teaching Note

Magpie: Developing and Using Buyer Personas

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-013. Magpie is a startup with a platform that allows publishers to natively tag the products discussed in their content and thus allows consumers to purchase those products without needing to leave that publisher’s web page. A key aspect... View Details

Keywords: Buying Process; Marketing; Sales; Distribution Channels; Segmentation; Entrepreneurship; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; United States

January 2002
Article

Organizational Endowments and the Performance of University Start-ups

By: Scott Shane and Toby E. Stuart

The question of how initial resource endowments—the stocks of resources that entrepreneurs contribute to their new ventures at the time of founding—affect organizational life chances is one of significant interest in organizational ecology, evolutionary... View Details

Keywords: Resource Allocation; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Research; Company History; Initial Public Offering; Venture Capital; Financing and Loans