Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,168)
- Faculty Publications (593)
- 2024
- Working Paper
You've Got Mail! The Late 19th-Century U.S. Postal Service Expansion, Firm Creation, and Firm Performance
By: Astrid Marinoni and Maria P. Roche
This paper examines the impact of the expansion of the US Postal Service in the late 19th century
on firm creation and performance. Utilizing newly digitized archival data on historic business establishments,
post office locations, and road networks in California,... View Details
- October 2022 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
Masdar City: Aiming for Sustainable and Profitable Real Estate
By: Boris Vallee and Fares Khrais
Masdar City broke ground in 2008 and was conceived by the Abu Dhabi government to be an international beacon of innovation in sustainable energy and real estate. It was also to be a profitable investment for the government. At first glance, the two goals pulled in... View Details
Keywords: Analysis; Business Growth And Maturation; Decisions; Public Sector; Financial Crisis; Construction; Climate Change; Green Technology; Borrowing And Debt; Corporate Finance; Capital; Capital Budgeting; Capital Structure; Cost Of Capital; Equity; REIT; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Innovation; Growth And Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Urban Development; Middle East; United Arab Emirates; Sustainable Cities; Green Building; Business and Government Relations; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financing and Loans; Real Estate Industry; Construction Industry; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; Abu Dhabi
- September 2022
- Case
The Pokémon Company: Evolving into an Everlasting Brand
By: Tomomichi Amano and Masaki Nomura
Super Bowl 50, the fiftieth annual championship game of the American National Football League played in February 2016, featured 52 commercials, and brands spent more than six million dollars each for a 30-second commercial slot. Surprisingly, the commercial that... View Details
- September 6, 2022
- Article
Creating a Platform for Costless Personalization in Clothing
By: Shane Greenstein
This study analyzes the role of co-invention in the creation of a platform for print-on-demand-clothing, or PODC. Co-invention is the invention of a new business process to complement new technology, and turn it into a valuable commercial service. PODC copies a design... View Details
- September–October 2022
- Article
Seeking Purity, Avoiding Pollution: Strategies for Moral Career Building
By: Erin Reid and Lakshmi Ramarajan
This study builds theory on how people construct moral careers. Analyzing interviews with 102 journalists, we show how people build moral careers by seeking jobs that allow them to fulfill both the institution’s moral obligations and their own material aims. We... View Details
- August 2022
- Case
Air Wars: Deregulating the U.S. Airline Industry
By: Tom Nicholas and James Weber
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the U.S. government assisted in the development of an airline industry by subsidizing the delivery of mail and allowing mail carriers to also fly passengers. Because the government awarded mail routes to the lowest... View Details
Keywords: Government Regulation; Deregulation; Change Management; Economics; Entrepreneurship; Financial Management; Business History; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Labor; Labor Unions; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Crisis Management; Industry Structures; Operations; Strategy; Adaptation; Competition; Air Transportation; Air Transportation Industry; United States
- July 2022
- Case
David Crane’s Clean(er) Energy Strategy at NRG
By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel and Tom Quinn
In 2015, David Crane was the CEO of NRG, the second-largest energy producer in the United States. NRG got most of its power from fossil fuels, but Crane – hired as CEO in 2003 as NRG emerged from bankruptcy – had invested heavily in alternative energy, loudly... View Details
- June 2022
- Case
Business Implications from Regulating Carbon Emissions in the EU
By: George Serafeim and Benjamin Maletta
In the beginning of the 21st century, the European Union (the EU) had led the global fight against climate change with a wide array of policy measures. The EU’s primary approach to climate policy had been taxation via the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU... View Details
- May 2022
- Supplement
Maestro Pizza (B): The Competition Awakens
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais
Maestro pizza opened its first store in 2013 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of... View Details
Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Emerging Markets; Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Product Positioning; Disruption; Disruptive Innovation; Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Social Media; Forecasting and Prediction; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Production; Service Delivery; Business Growth and Maturation; Financial Statements; Cost Management; Analysis; Quality; Performance Consistency; Customer Satisfaction; Profit; Family Ownership; Food and Beverage Industry; Saudi Arabia; Middle East
- May 2022
- Supplement
Maestro Pizza (C): Taking the Fight Outside
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais
Maestro pizza opened its first store in 2013 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of... View Details
Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Emerging Markets; Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Product Positioning; Disruption; Disruptive Innovation; Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Social Media; Forecasting and Prediction; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Production; Service Delivery; Business Growth and Maturation; Financial Statements; Cost Management; Analysis; Quality; Performance Consistency; Customer Satisfaction; Profit; Family Ownership; Food and Beverage Industry; Middle East; Saudi Arabia
- May 2022
- Case
Maestro Pizza: Coming in Hot!
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais
Maestro Pizza opened its first store in 2013 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of... View Details
Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Emerging Markets; Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Product Positioning; Disruption; Disruptive Innovation; Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Social Media; Forecasting and Prediction; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Production; Service Delivery; Business Growth and Maturation; Financial Statements; Cost Management; Analysis; Quality; Performance Consistency; Customer Satisfaction; Profit; Family Ownership; Food and Beverage Industry; Middle East; Saudi Arabia
- May 2022
- Case
Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?
By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger
Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash... View Details
Keywords: Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Rural; Urban; Emerging Market; Mobile Technology; Finance; Money; Inflation and Deflation; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Demographics; Developing Countries and Economies; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Behavioral Finance; Currency; Banks and Banking; Commercial Banking; Financial Strategy; Rural Scope; Urban Scope; Innovation Strategy; Emerging Markets; Network Effects; Consumer Behavior; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Congo, Democratic Republic of the
- March 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Swvl: Smart Mobility for the Masses
By: Krishna Palepu, Esel Çekin and Menna Hassan
The case focuses on strategy and governance issues at Swvl, a tech-enabled mass mobility marketplace. It describes the journey of CEO and Chairman Mostafa Kandil on his journey from founding the company to its listing on Nasdaq. Since its founding in Egypt in 2017,... View Details
- March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
- Case
MTN: Unlocking Value While Driving Socioeconomic Progress
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Dilyana Karadzhova Botha
On March 10, 2021, Ralph Mupita the new CEO of MTN Group, Africa's largest telecommunications company, presented the group’s 2020 annual results and unveiled a new strategy to “drive growth and unlock value.” Despite MTN’s leadership in most of its markets, the... View Details
- March 2022
- Case
Talent@Tencent
By: Tarun Khanna, Shu Lin and Nancy Hua Dai
On November 11, 2016, Xi Dan, Senior Vice President of Tencent, and Ma Yongwu, Dean of Tencent Academy, were discussing how Tencent could develop new capabilities to sustain its growth miracle and entry into new technologies, expansion into B2B businesses, and... View Details
- March 2022
- Case
In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent
By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Pierre Marchesseault
To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020.... View Details
Keywords: Finance; Fintech; Emerging Market; Fundraising; Financial Inclusion; Strategy; Expansion; Management; Entrepreneurship; Personal Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Africa; Togo; Nigeria; Ghana
- March 2022 (Revised February 2023)
- Case
Pakistan Rising: Bazaar's Growth Story (A)
By: Paul A. Gompers and Gamze Yucaoglu
The case opens in September 2021 as Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda, co-founders of Bazaar technologies (Bazaar), the Pakistani high growth B2B e-commerce marketplace, are contemplating whether the year-and-a half old startup should also venture into offering financing to... View Details
- March 2022
- Supplement
Pakistan Rising: Bazaar's Growth Story (B)
By: Paul A. Gompers and Gamze Yucaoglu
The case opens in January 2022 as Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda, co-founders of Bazaar technologies (Bazaar), the Pakistani high growth B2B e-commerce marketplace, are looking over the performance of the newly launched “buy now, play later” feature. The traction looks... View Details
- March 2022
- Case
The Future of Start-Up Chile
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Ruth Costas and Pedro Levindo
In 2021, public accelerator program Start-Up Chile, which ten years earlier had created a global buzz, might be losing its competitive edge to similar programs or one-year visas for digital nomads offered by other countries. The case follows SUP’s CEO, Angeles Romo, as... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Leadership; Disruption; Knowledge Dissemination; Knowledge Sharing; Business Education; Emerging Markets; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Global Strategy; Globalized Economies and Regions; Globalized Markets and Industries; Government Administration; Recruitment; Job Design and Levels; Human Capital; Leading Change; Business and Government Relations; Groups and Teams; Networks; Social and Collaborative Networks; Public Administration Industry; Latin America; Chile
- March 2022
- Article
From Proprietary to Collective Governance: How Do Platform Participation Strategies Evolve?
By: Siobhan O'Mahony and Rebecca Karp
When platform leaders change the rules guiding who can access and control a platform, the strategies of those who create value from the platform can be upended. Little research examines how platform participants adapt their strategies when a platform leader changes the... View Details