Publications

January 2018
Case

Peak Games: Hiring Priorities in Times of Rapid Growth (A)

By: William R. Kerr and Gamze Yucaoglu

Sidar Şahin, founder and CEO of Peak Games, a Turkey-based global mobile gaming company, must decide on the final list of candidates for the critical global marketing director position the company has been trying to fill for over a year. Since its founding in 2010,... View Details

Keywords: Recruiting; Staffing; Emergent Countries; Entrepreneurial Management; Private Sector; Business Strategy; Decision; Growth Management; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Selection and Staffing; Talent and Talent Management; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Industry; Turkey

10 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Retailing Revolution: Category Killers on the Brink

near 20 percent online market share. Apparel, greeting cards, party supplies, and office products have reached double-digit penetration as well while sporting goods and cosmetics will likely reach double-digit View Details

Keywords: by Rajiv Lal & Jose B. Alvarez; Retail

15 Jun 2020
Blog Post

Black MBA Students Pen Letters to the HBS Community: Letter 1/5

for predominantly white spaces is still not enough to keep Black people safe – and there isn’t a job title or degree in the world that can protect Black communities from institutionalized and systemic racism. Members of the HBS African... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Hidden Alpha

By: Manuel Amman, Alexander Cochardt, Lauren Cohen and Stephan Heller

This paper documents the central role of hidden connections between fund managers and firm officers in financial markets, drawing on an extensive dataset of over 100 thousand manually identified Facebook profiles and their 35 million Facebook friends. Our findings... View Details

Keywords: Returns; Investment Return; Networks

Read Now

12 Dec 2019
Research & Ideas

How to Turn Down the Boil on Group Conflict

it was Democrats who were proposing the change to make the commission fairer, even though a Democrat was currently in the governor’s office and stood to lose advantage through the change. In that case, Democrats and Republicans alike... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

08 May 2019
Blog Post

Top-Notch Talent Begets Top-Notch Talent

When Jamie Cheney (MBA 2007) and Annie Davis (MBA 2007) studied together at Yale for their undergrad and later at HBS for their graduate degrees, they had no idea that they would end up working together – or that this work would be in the human capital View Details

April 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

WeWork—November 2018

By: Paul A. Gompers, Patrick Sweeney and Alex Gachanja

In May 2017, SoftBank announced the official launch of the Vision Fund — which promptly became the largest technology-focused investment fund in the world, with nearly $100 billion in capital under its management. Reports from a few months prior hinted that SoftBank... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Valuation; Corporate Governance

04 May 2023
Blog Post

Sustainability: Career Advice from HBS Career Coach Hillary Mann

Hillary Mann is a Corporate Relations Director in the Career and Professional Development Office covering Consumer Products, Retail & Luxury Goods, Hospitality, Agribusiness, and Sustainability. She enjoys helping students and alumni... View Details

21 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

The Pandemic Conversations That Leaders Need to Have Now

transition back to “normal” (whatever that means). Although we are still living in COVID-19’s grip, companies are starting to devise plans to bring their workforces back to the office in the coming weeks and months. In recent... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Robin Abrahams, and Katherine Connolly Baden

01 May 2015
Blog Post

How Being an HBS Partner Changed My Life

I thought HBS would be my husband’s adventure. He would explore and I would share in that by co-piloting his journey. In hindsight, I have shared in his HBS travels, but he has also View Details

September 2021
Case

Francoise Brougher (A)

By: Edward H. Chang, Nour Kteily and Kathleen McGinn

Francoise Brougher was a high-powered technology executive in Silicon Valley. After successful stints at Google (where she rose to lead a $16 billion ad sales business) and Square (which she helped take public), she joined Pinterest as its first Chief Operating Officer... View Details

Keywords: Gender Discrimination; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Resignation and Termination; Negotiation

Profile

Marla Malcolm Beck

Growing up in Oakland, California, Beck was inspired by her father, a self-made real estate developer with a laudable work ethic. He never went to college, Beck said, but he became a successful entrepreneur through discipline and desire. When she was in high school,... View Details

January 2017 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Chicago and the Array of Things: A Fitness Tracker for the City

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

The city of Chicago has recently launched a project called the Array of Things. The program involves a series of sensor nodes placed around the city that capture a massive amount of data including pedestrian and vehicle flow, air quality, and cloud cover. The Array of... View Details

Keywords: Smart Connected Products; Smart Cities; Internet Of Things; Sensors; Govenment; Government Administration; Technological Innovation; Digital Platforms; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Public Administration Industry; Technology Industry; Chicago; United States

September 2013
Case

United Rentals (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch, Kathleen Durante and Emily McTague

In December 1997 United Rentals (URI) went public on the NYSE. Ten years later, during the peak of the economic meltdown, the company's performance was in decline. United Rentals had experienced its share of problems in the prior years and was still struggling to... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Dynamics; Accounting Fraud; Governance; Board Committees; Merger; Corporate Governance; Construction Industry; United States