Publications

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May 2017
Case

Pho Hoa Dorchester

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger, Michael Raiche and Roger Zhu

Pho Hoa is a traditional, family-owned Vietnamese restaurant in Dorchester, Massachusetts that opened in 1992. As he approached retirement in recent years, the founder/owner has scaled down his involvement in the day-to-day operations, leading to a number of... View Details

April 2018 (Revised February 2019)
Case

Gimlet Media: A Podcasting Startup

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

When digital distribution becomes an option for an analog industry, the effects on incumbents can be devastating. Is podcasting the beginning of the end of radio? Can it do what streaming video did to television and websites did to print? Two former public radio... View Details

Keywords: Podcasting; Business Ecosystem; Business Startups; Media; Disruption; Strategy

April 2019
Supplement

Upwork in 2019

By: David Yoffie and Allison M. Ciechanover

Stephane Kasriel, the CEO of Upwork, the leading platform for freelance labor, updates his progress on how to redesign its business model in 2019. View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Platform; Platform Businesses; Technology; Business Model; Digital Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Labor

2020
Working Paper

Revenue Collapses and the Consumption of Small Business Owners in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Olivia S. Kim, Jonathan A. Parker and Antoinette Schoar

Using detailed transaction-level data from financial accounts, this paper shows that the revenues of small businesses and the consumption spending of their owners both decline by roughly 40% following the declaration of the national emergency in March 2020. However,... View Details

Keywords: Revenue; Small Business; Health Pandemics; Spending

2023
Working Paper

Life After Death: A Field Experiment with Small Businesses on Information Frictions, Stigma, and Bankruptcy

By: Shai Benjamin Bernstein, Emanuele Colonnelli, Mitchell Hoffman and Benjamin Iverson

In a randomized control trial (RCT) with U.S. small businesses, we document that a large share of firms are not well-informed about bankruptcy. Many assume that bankruptcy necessarily entails the death of a business and do not know about Chapter 11 bankruptcy, where... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Knowledge Dissemination; Outcome or Result

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October 2009
Article

Pioneering Entrepreneur Yoshiko Shinohara on Turning Temporary Work into Big Business in Japan

By: Anthony J. Mayo and Mayuka Yamazaki

Tempstaff's founder, a pioneering Japanese entrepreneur, wondered whether she would go to jail for launching her business. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Gender; Business Startups; Employment Industry; Japan

1979
Other Unpublished Work

Fox Studios: Operating a Small Business - HBS Analysis and Decision Case

By: J. Ronald Fox and Frank S. Leonard

Keywords: Media; Business Ventures; Operations; Decision Making; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

20 Apr 1989 - 22 Apr 1989
Lecture

The Rise of Japan in International Business: Implications for the American Business Environment

By: W. Carl Kester

Keywords: Business Ventures; Situation or Environment; Japan; United States

2001
Report

The Diana Project: Women Business Owners and Equity Capital: The Myths Dispelled

By: Candida G. Brush, Nancy M. Carter, Elizabeth Gatewood, Patricia G. Greene and Myra M. Hart

Keywords: Business Ventures; Gender; Capital Budgeting

August 2019 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Family Matters: Governance at the Zamil Group

By: Christina R. Wing, Suraj Srinivasan and Esel Çekin

This case focuses on a large Saudi Arabian industrial conglomerate and family business Zamil Group’s corporate and family governance journey. The 12 sons of the founder led and grew the group successfully after taking over from their father in 1961. The secret to their... View Details

Keywords: Middle East; Family Ownership; Family-owned Business; Saudi Arabia; Family Business; Governance; Organizational Structure; Values and Beliefs; Steel Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Middle East; Saudi Arabia; Bahrain

18 Nov 2011
Conference Presentation

The Role of the University in the Development of the Family Business Field

By: John A. Davis

Keywords: Family Business; Higher Education; Growth and Development

Research Summary

Overview

By: Brian L. Trelstad

The focus of my research is on the systems of social innovation. How small groups of individuals come up with new products and services targeting important problems; how they finance these initial efforts, and convert prototypes into viable organizational strategies;... View Details

2011
Working Paper

From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America

By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana

As the main producers of managerial elites, business schools represent strategic research sites for understanding the formation of economic practices and representations. This article draws on historical material to analyze the changing place of economics in American... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Practice; Business Education; Labor and Management Relations; Decision Making; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Change; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Finance; Knowledge; Production; Business Conglomerates; Education Industry; United States

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August 2015 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Bridj and the Business of Urban Mobility (A): Developing a New Model

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Daniel Fox

Bridj, a Boston startup that provides Big Data-powered, "pop-up" bus routes that respond to transportation demand, has been in operation for a little over a year and has recently launched service in Washington, D.C., its second market. Despite media acclaim and... View Details

August 2021
Case

Mylestone: Can Multiple Pivots Preserve the Life of a Death Tech Startup?

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Marilyn Morgan Westner

Dave Balter and Jim Myers co-founded Mylestone, a death tech startup that applied technology to transform how grieving people memorialize the dead. The startup addressed a cultural problem and promised to solve a pressing need in the antiquated, multi-billion dollar... View Details

Keywords: Pivot; Startup; Business Model; Cryptocurrency; Ethical Decision Making; Emotions; Growth and Development Strategy; Ethics; Market Entry and Exit; Customer Relationship Management; Loss; Change Management; Relationships

2005
Book

Make Your Own Luck: 12 Practical Steps to Taking Smarter Risks in Business

By: H. Stevenson and Eileen C. Shapiro

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Business Ventures

May 2009
Case

Ceres Gardening Company: Funding Growth in Organic Products

By: John H. McArthur and Sunru Yong

Ceres is a leading player in the growing organic gardening industry, selling seeds, small plants, and related items. Their distribution depends heavily on retail sales through independent nurseries and garden centers. Because these small dealers are unable to finance... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Procedures; Marketing; Business Growth; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Marketing Strategy; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Marketing Channels; Credit; Financial Statements; Sales; Retail Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

March 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

H2 Green Steel: A Clean-Tech Triple Play?

By: Debora L. Spar, Gunnar Trumbull, Henry Tao and Julia Comeau

At the end of 2023, the Swedish startup H2 Green Steel was mid-way through construction on an integrated steel plant in Northern Sweden that would use abundant local hydro power to create Europe’s first commercial-scale green steel. Their goal was to help European... View Details

Keywords: Steel; Green Business; Green Technology; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Startups; Climate Change; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Steel Industry; Sweden

Article

How to Shift from Selling Products to Selling Services

By: Doug J. Chung

Only a few years ago, most software companies sold seat licenses for their products, charging customers on the basis of head count. But today, software is typically provided using cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) models that charge customers fees for... View Details

Keywords: SaaS Business Models; Sales; Management; Business Model; Salesforce Management; Applications and Software; Customer Relationship Management