Publications

15 May 2022
News

Hitting the Books: Why We Need to Treat the Robots of Tomorrow Like Tools

August 2020 (Revised May 2021)
Case

PayPal: The Next Chapter

By: Michael Porter, Mark Kramer and Annelena Lobb

Can a social purpose and stakeholder capitalism confer a powerful competitive advantage in the age of COVID-19? For PayPal, the answer is yes. After spinning off from eBay in a 2015 IPO, the company declared its purpose as "democratizing financial services" by ensuring... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Finance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Social Entrepreneurship; Competitive Advantage; Financial Services Industry

February 2020 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Wellthy: The Economics of Caring

By: Brian L. Trelstad and Joseph B. Fuller

In 2014, Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (MBA ’09) founded Wellthy, a B2C business that coordinates care for working professionals seeking help to support loved ones with chronic diseases or aging parents. With personal experience as a young professional providing care for her... View Details

Keywords: B2B Vs. B2C; Future Of Work; Health; Social Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; United States

September 2012 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Digital Microscopy at Carl Zeiss: Managing Disruption

By: Willy Shih

Ulrich Simon, the head of the Microscopy business group at Carl Zeiss AG knew that his unit was facing a disruptive threat, so he chartered a special team to tackle the industrial segment. Given a high degree of autonomy, the project team developed an understanding of... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; High Technology Products; Emergent Strategy; Product Lines; Corporate Strategy; Digital Platforms; Disruptive Innovation; Technology Industry; Germany

May 2001 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Calpine Corporation: The Evolution from Project to Corporate Finance

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

In early 1999, Calpine Corp.'s CEO Pete Cartwright adopted an aggressive growth strategy with the goal of increasing the company's aggregate generating capacity from approximately 3,000 to 15,000 megawatts (MW) by 2004. He believed there was a fleeting opportunity to... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Cost of Capital; Project Finance; Adaptation; Profit; Financial Strategy; Corporate Finance; Energy Industry; United States

November 2006 (Revised May 2014)
Case

Li Ka-Shing and the Growth of Cheung Kong

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony J. Mayo and Mark Benson

Events in the history of Cheung Kong's growth reveal how Li Ka-Shing applied his skills as a "first-class noticer" to complex political and socioeconomic environments. While Li's determination to succeed is legendary, so are his skills in reading and responding to the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Competency and Skills; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment Portfolio; Business History; Leadership; Personal Development and Career; Hong Kong

August 2016 (Revised November 2016)
Case

C.W. Dixey & Son

By: Anat Keinan and Michael B. Beverland

C.W. Dixey & Son is about to be relaunched as a luxury eyewear brand after a fifty-year absence from the marketplace. This case focuses on reviving a dormant brand with a 200-year plus heritage of innovation, craft excellence, and luxury. Drawing on extensive... View Details

Keywords: Luxury Branding; Authenticity; Inconspicuous Consumption; Brand Positioning; Brand Revitalization; Eyeyewear; Market Entry and Exit; Luxury; Market Participation; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry

Article

Overturning the ACA's Medicaid Expansion Would Likely Decrease Low-Income, Reproductive-Age Women's Healthcare Spending and Utilization

By: Lucy Chen, Richard G. Frank and Haiden A. Huskamp

In late 2020, the Supreme Court began hearing a case challenging the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which led to coverage gains for many low-income, reproductive-age women. To explore potential implications of a full ACA repeal for this population, we examined gains... View Details

Keywords: Medicaid; Women's Health; Health Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Gender; Insurance; Poverty; Health Industry; United States

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November 2015
Case

Wynton Marsalis & Jazz at Lincoln Center

By: Rohit Deshpandé

Under the leadership of artistic director Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) hosts performances and education events year-round for audiences in New York and across the United States. Despite the popularity of JALC's events, however, the U.S. audience for... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Management; Music Entertainment; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Music Industry

October 2015 (Revised July 2017)
Case

OMV Petrom: Investment as Partnership—When It Takes Three to Tango

By: Dante Roscini, Emer Maloney and Daniela Beyersdorfer

Petrom was privatized by the Romanian state in 2004 and acquired by Austrian oil company OMV, with the state retaining a 20.6% stake in the company. The situation was particularly challenging for the foreign investor since the sector in which the company operated was... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Privatization; Acquisition; Foreign Direct Investment; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; Austria; Romania

April 2024
Article

A Machine Learning Algorithm Predicting Risk of Dilating VUR among Infants with Hydronephrosis Using UTD Classification

By: Hsin-Hsiao Scott Wang, Michael Lingzhi Li, Dylan Cahill, John Panagides, Tanya Logvinenko, Jeanne Chow and Caleb Nelson

Backgrounds: Urinary Tract Dilation (UTD) classification has been designed to be a more objective grading system to evaluate antenatal and post-natal UTD. Due to unclear association between UTD classifications to specific anomalies such as vesico-ureteral reflux (VUR),... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Health Testing and Trials; AI and Machine Learning; Health Industry

Read Now

21 Aug 2023
Book

You’re More Than Your Job: 3 Tips for a Healthier Work-Life Balance

what I can to be happy now.” Wallace was inspired to write the book—a mix of case study, research, and memoir—by witnessing the mindset shift among her millennial peers, who came of age during a recession, pandemic-related instability,... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

Web

Capstone - MBA

of de-prioritization. For example, regulations barred women of reproductive age from clinical trials until the 1990s. Organoid systems, which recreate human physiology, make it possible to conduct scientific investigation far more... View Details

September 1991 (Revised August 1994)
Background Note

Note on Pharmaceutical Industry Regulation

By: Willis M. Emmons III

Traces the evolution of U.S. regulatory policy towards the pharmaceutical industry over the course of the twentieth century. A major theme is the steady shift away from a policy of 'let the buyer beware' to the creation of a complex and time-consuming review process,... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Industry Growth; Marketing; Research and Development; Health Testing and Trials; Economics; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

Find at Harvard

January 2021
Case

Saham Group: It's In the Genes

By: Christina R. Wing and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in August 2020 as Moulay Mhamed Elalamy (Mhamed), CEO of the Saham Group (the Group), a pan-African investment company that operates a variety of businesses out of Morocco, contemplates the Group’s identity, its investment strategy, and how to navigate... View Details

Keywords: Family and Family Relationships; Family Business; For-Profit Firms; Transformation; Transition; Emerging Markets; Change Management; Private Equity; Investment; Strategy; Insurance Industry; Real Estate Industry; Education Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Morocco; Africa

Jeffrey F Rayport is a faculty member in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the School’s MBA and Executive Education Programs and on HBS Online. His primary focus in teaching and research is growth-stage technology... View Details

Web

Curriculum - MBA

reproduction, including sex selection, savior siblings, and age restrictions in IVF; and genetic engineering in assisted reproduction. Ethics in Genomics This course offers an in-depth exploration of key ethical challenges and... View Details

15 Feb 2022
Book

When Working Harder Doesn’t Work, Time to Reinvent Your Career

Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. The book examines the changes in people’s brains as they near middle age that make old ways of doing things—such as constantly working harder—less satisfying and... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

October 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Veeva Systems: The Next Frontier

By: Satish Tadikonda and William Marks

Born out of a desire to bring technological advances in enterprise software into the healthcare vertical, Peter Gassner and Matt Wallach founded Veeva to bring life sciences companies into the digital age for data management in both the commercial and R&D sectors. Over... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Governance Compliance; Applications and Software; Growth Management; Expansion; Technology Industry