Publications

09 Apr 2024
Research & Ideas

When Climate Goals, Housing Policy, and Corporate R&D Collide, Social Good Can Emerge

For almost four years, Omar Asensio and his colleagues have been studying the impact of federal energy programs on low-income neighborhoods. The intersection of technology—artificial intelligence, in particular—and public policy has long been an area of focus for... View Details

Keywords: by Glen Justice

May 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Symyx Technologies, Inc.

By: H. Kent Bowen, Courtney Purrington and Thomas D. Perry

Symyx is a science-based company spun out of Berkeley. Its unique materials technology has been exploited for 10 years, but the company needs a new business model. The company concept required the invention of hardware and software to do high throughput materials... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Transition; Engineering; Technological Innovation; Resource Allocation; Product Development; Partners and Partnerships; Science-Based Business; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software

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22 Sep 2023
News

Capital Connection

complexities of capitalizing their projects—from debt to equity funding options—on their own. This is precisely where DLS steps in, leveraging 20 years of industry experience and relationships to connect clients with the right investors.... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; Real Estate

September 2009 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Urban Decay: A Great Idea

By: Lena G. Goldberg

Casual discussions of ideas for a new business can have unintended legal consequences and expectations about founder status and ownership shares may diverge widely. Using facts from a litigated case, the concept of inadvertent formation of a partnership is explored. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Spoken Communication; Lawsuits and Litigation; Ownership Stake; Partners and Partnerships

02 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Casino Payoff: Hands-Off Management Works Best

At the gambling meccas that employ them, they are called "casino hosts"—essentially front-line employees with nevertheless big responsibilities. These staffers work to develop one-on-one relationships with high-rollers to make sure they... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Entertainment & Recreation

Article

181 Top CEOs Have Realized Companies Need a Purpose Beyond Profit

By: Claudine Gartenberg and George Serafeim

On August 19, 2019, the Business Roundtable (BR) issued a memo entitled “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.” The Business Roundtable, one of the most preeminent business lobbies in the United States, includes 192 CEOs of leading U.S. companies from Apple to... View Details

Keywords: Purpose; Corporate Purpose; Stakeholder Management; CEO; Mission and Purpose; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Strategy

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23 Mar 2021
Book

Succeeding in the New Work-from-Anywhere World

When the pandemic forced employees to flee offices and work from home in droves last year, many business leaders worried that productivity might take a dive. Would remote workers be too tempted by the lures of Netflix or too distracted by... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

13 May 2002
Op-Ed

A Cure for Enron-Style Audit Failures

If companies and regulators are ever to learn from the collapse of Enron—and prevent similar corporate debacles in the future—they must look more closely at the relationship between auditors, managers and the company audit committee. The... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Lorsch; Accounting

09 Feb 2017
Blog Post

Alumni: Where Are They Now? Featuring: Anddria Varnado (Clack-Rogers)

Current Position: Vice President, Strategy & Business Development at Williams-Sonoma Location San Francisco, CA Tell us what you’re up to these days. I’m currently leading strategy for Williams-Sonoma, Inc., where I am responsible for... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products / Retail

10 Nov 2015
Op-Ed

Authentic Leadership Rediscovered

“Authenticity has become the gold standard for leadership” —Harvard Business Review, January 2015 In the last 10 years, authenticity has become the gold standard of leadership. This is a sea change from 2003 when I wrote Authentic... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

11 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 11, 2018

Fashion Icon to Nazi Agent This case describes the career of the iconic French fashion designer Coco Chanel who created a transformational business during the first half of the 20th century. Beginning in her early adulthood, Chanel... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

05 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 5, 2019

forthcoming Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis Leverage and the Beta Anomaly By: Baker, Malcolm, Mathias F. Hoeyer, and Jeffrey Wurgler Abstract— The well-known weak empirical relationship between beta risk and the cost of... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

28 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 28

distinctive methods of prediction to investors and businesses and thrived in the boom years that followed World War I. Yet, almost to a man, they failed to predict the devastating crash of 1929. Despite their failures, this first... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2007
Article

Learning to Live with Governments: Unilever in India and Turkey, 1950-1980

By: G. Jones

A noteworthy characteristic of the contemporary global economy is the uneven distribution of world foreign direct investment (FDI). In 2007 three-quarters of world FDI was located in developed countries. The residual was concentrated in a small number of emerging... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Ethics; Foreign Direct Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Consumer Products Industry; India; Turkey

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November 2017
Case

Passion and Strategy: Novozymes' Embrace of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

By: Andy Zelleke and Emilie Billaud

This case explores the sustainability efforts at Novozymes, the world's largest and oldest producer of industrial enzymes. In 2015, the Danish company became the world’s first company known to have crafted a new corporate strategy based on the United Nations... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Transformation; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business Strategy; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Biotechnology Industry; Europe; Denmark

November 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Hugging Face: Serving AI on a Platform

By: Shane Greenstein, Daniel Yue, Kerry Herman and Sarah Gulick

It is fall 2022, and open-source AI model company Hugging Face is considering its three areas of priorities: platform development, supporting the open-source community, and pursuing cutting-edge scientific research. As it expands services for enterprise clients, which... View Details

Keywords: Community; Open-source; AI and Machine Learning; Product Development; Networks; Service Delivery; Research; Governance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Information Industry; Technology Industry; United States