Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(6,971)
- Faculty Publications (2,809)
- December 2023
- Background Note
Organizational Learning
By: Willy Shih
This is a background note that surveys part of the extensive literature on organizational learning. The focus is on learning from experiences, how those learnings get translated into organizational routines and processes, and how that can also lead to getting stuck in... View Details
- December 2023
- Article
Association of Hospital System Affiliation with COVID-19 Capacity Burden
By: Zachary Levin, Pinar Karaca-Mandic, Richard J. Boxer and Regina E. Herzlinger
What is the message? The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the highly variable and uncoordinated responses by hospitals. The authors found that while the non-top ten system affiliated hospitals had a larger COVID-19 share index relative to independent hospitals, top-ten system... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Impact of Unionization on Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality: Evidence from Starbucks
By: Isamar Troncoso, Minkyung Kim, Ishita Chakraborty and SooHyun Kim
The US has seen a rise in union movements, but their effects on service industry marketing outcomes like customer satisfaction and perceptions of service quality remain understudied. In this paper, we empirically study the impact on customer satisfaction and... View Details
- November 2023
- Case
Riiid: Scaling AI Educational Services Globally
By: John Jong-Hyun Kim, Nancy Dai and Ruru Hoong
This article explores the definition and evolution of AI, its applications in education, and the role of AI, particularly in K-12 education. It discusses the founding of Riiid, an AI-driven educational technology company, and its journey in the education sector, with a... View Details
- November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Infarm: Betting the (Indoor) Farm on Food Security
By: Elie Ofek
In the summer of 2023, the co-founders of Infarm, a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company, were contemplating a major pivot going forward. While Infarm had successfully shown it could grow over 75 products—mainly herbs, leafy greens and mushrooms—in modular... View Details
- November 2023 (Revised June 2025)
- Case
Aviva plc: Examining Net Zero
By: Peter Tufano, Brian Trelstad and Matteo Gasparini
The board of Aviva Plc, one of the world’s largest insurers, must review its climate risk exposures and evaluate next steps. Risk experts at the firm have conducted a robust set of analyses prepared for its regulator, the Bank of England, simulating how various climate... View Details
- November 2023
- Case
Copilot(s): Generative AI at Microsoft and GitHub
By: Frank Nagle, Shane Greenstein, Maria P. Roche, Nataliya Langburd Wright and Sarah Mehta
This case tells the story of Microsoft’s 2018 acquisition of GitHub and the subsequent launch of GitHub Copilot, a tool that uses generative artificial intelligence to suggest snippets of code to software developers in real time. Set in late 2021, when Copilot was... View Details
- November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Technical Note
Customer Data Privacy
By: Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei Huang
This note provides an overview of the evolving landscape of customer data privacy in 2023. It highlights two pivotal aspects that make privacy a central concern for businesses: building and maintaining customer trust and navigating the intricate regulatory... View Details
- November 2023 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Kickstarter: Crowdfunding for the Arts
By: Rohit Deshpandé and Alexis Lefort
Kickstarter was a virtual crowdfunding platform and community that allowed creators of all kinds to raise funding for creative projects. The executive team was wrestling with a tension in its business model: the organization earned the majority of its revenue from... View Details
- November 2023
- Case
Apple Inc. in 2023
By: David B. Yoffie and Sarah von Bargen
Under CEO Tim Cook, Apple became the first trillion dollar market cap company, the first two trillion dollar company, and the first three trillion dollar company. Since the COVID pandemic, Apple gained over 20% of the world smartphone market and 50% of the U.S. market,... View Details
- November 27, 2023
- Article
How James Mwangi Worked to Democratize Banking Across Africa
By: Ranjay Gulati
- November 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Votorantim: Uniting Family and Business Across Generations
By: Christina R. Wing, Carla Larangeira and Pedro Levindo
Over a 105-year span, the Ermírio de Moraes family built Votorantim, one of Latin America’s largest industrial conglomerates, and among Brazil’s topmost businesses, also credited for helping “build” the country over decades. By early 2023, Votorantim included... View Details
- November 2023 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Celsius Network Inc.: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt in the Brave New World of Crypto Bankruptcy
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
In July 2022, Celsius Network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. CEO Alex Mashinsky acknowledged that Celsius had grown its assets “faster than the Company was prepared to deploy [them]” and as a result had made “certain poor asset deployment decisions.” Two months after... View Details
- October 2023
- Case
Hey Jane: Delivering Abortion Pills to the Doorstep
By: Rembrand Koning, Geraldine Pena-Galea and Sarah Mehta
This case tells the story of Hey Jane, a telehealth clinic founded in 2020 that provides virtual medication abortion services to eligible patients in nine U.S. states. By January 2023, the company had served more than 20,000 patients and raised nearly $10 million in... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Why Do Index Funds Have Market Power? Quantifying Frictions in the Index Fund Market
By: Zach Y. Brown, Mark Egan, Jihye Jeon, Chuqing Jin and Alex A. Wu
Index funds are one of the most common ways investors access financial markets and are perceived to be a transparent and low-cost alternative to active investment management. Despite these purported virtues of index fund investing and the introduction of new products... View Details
- October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
GameStop: Social Media Finds a Cheat Code (A)
By: Joseph Pacelli and Sarah Mehta
This case covers the events leading up to the 2021 GameStop short squeeze. Using GameStop as an illustrative example, the case explores the rise in retail trading, increased financial information sharing on social media, and the gamification of investing enabled by... View Details
- October 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Technical Note
Design and Evaluation of Targeted Interventions
By: Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei (David) Huang
Targeted interventions serve as a pivotal tool in business strategy, streamlining decisions for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness. This note delves into two central facets of such interventions: first, the design of potent decision guidelines, or targeting... View Details
- October 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
McDonald's Board of Directors (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
In October 2019, the McDonald’s Corporation board of directors, chaired by Enrique Hernandez, Jr., gathered to learn the results of their outside counsel’s investigation into the conduct of the CEO. On the surface, the iconic fast-food chain was thriving as growing... View Details
Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Chair; Board Decisions; Business Ethics; Corporate Boards; Fast Food; Franchising; Legal Aspects Of Business; Legal Battle; Legal Settlement; Misconduct; Regulation; Reorganization; Restaurant Industry; Sexual Harassment; Shareholders; Stakeholder Management; Strategy And Execution; Turnaround; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Culture; Executive Compensation; Leadership; Management; Ethics; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Food and Beverage Industry; Illinois; United States
- October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Fantuan
By: Feng Zhu and David Lane
In 2023, CEO Randy Wu was considering the optimal growth strategy for Fantuan, a restaurant food delivery platform that had expanded from its 2014 founding in Vancouver, Canada to serve the Chinese demand for Asian cuisine in urban markets across Australia, Canada, the... View Details
- October 2023 (Revised June 2024)
- Case
Catalent: Catalyzing the Next Era of Growth
By: Satish Tadikonda, William Marks and Kevin Emancipator
Catalent's newly appointed CEO, Alessandro Maselli, experienced the highs of the pharmaceutical contract development manufacturing (CDMO) space during COVID-19 while helping Moderna and others bring vaccines to market quickly and safely. After rushing to add capacity... View Details