Publications

September 1985 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Population Services International: The Social Marketing Project in Bangladesh

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Population Services International (PSI) was a not-for-profit agency founded to disseminate family planning information and to market birth control products, primarily in less developed countries seeking to curb their population explosions. In 1976, PSI concluded an... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Health; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Nonprofit Organizations; Bangladesh

September 2007 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Still Leading (B6): Sherry Lansing—Producing Social Change

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Lance Pierce

Sherry Lansing, head of a Hollywood studio, left to start a foundation. Describes the issues in her transition. View Details

Keywords: Transition; Problems and Challenges; Personal Development and Career; Nonprofit Organizations; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

02 Jul 2009
Research Event

Business Summit: The Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Transforming American Public Education

like lack of political will to drive change. Yet amid these formidable barriers, a set of passionate social entrepreneurs are disrupting the status quo in education with innovative and effective approaches that are producing measurable... View Details

Keywords: Education

03 May 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Can a Social Entrepreneur End Homelessness in the US?

Keywords: Re: Brian L. Trelstad

10 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

How to Live Happier in 2023: Diversify Your Social Circle

closely, the researchers conducted an online survey of nearly 600 people in the United States, asking them to recall their social interactions the previous day and categorize them into categories like stranger, acquaintance, friend, or... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

January 2010
Teaching Note

Youth Villages: The challenges of scaling a nonprofit with government as the primary funding source (TN)

By: Allen S. Grossman

Teaching Note for [309007]. View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Nonprofit Organizations; Emotions; Behavior; Cost; Growth and Development Strategy; Age; Business and Government Relations

April 1990 (Revised November 1992)
Case

Population Services International: The Social Marketing Project in Bangladesh (Abridged)

By: James E. Austin

Population Services International (PSI) was a not-for-profit agency founded to disseminate family planning information and to market birth control products, primarily in less developed countries seeking to curb their population explosions. In 1976, PSI concluded an... View Details

Keywords: Conferences; Developing Countries and Economies; Information Publishing; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Agreements and Arrangements; Product; Nonprofit Organizations; Pharmaceutical Industry; Bangladesh; Washington (state, US)

June 2008 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Year Up: A Social Entrepreneur Builds High Performance

By: Allen S Grossman and Naomi Greckol-Herlich

Year Up, a nonprofit job-skills training program for low-income, urban youth has run four successful programs in four cities for the past seven years. Now, after an ambitious capital campaign, the organization is poised to grow into a national program in an attempt to... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Growth Management; Quality; Nonprofit Organizations; United States

22 Feb 2000
Research & Ideas

Social Capital Markets: Creating Value in the Nonprofit World

The Harvard Business School Initiative on Social Enterprise is embarking on a new intellectual endeavor to understand a fast-changing and fertilearena — the Social Capital... View Details

Keywords: by Anne Kavanagh

July 2019 (Revised May 2020)
Supplement

Piramal e-Swasthya (C): A New Name, Bigger Scope, and Public-Private Partnerships

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Joyce J. Kim

In 2010, Anand Piramal acquired the Health Management Research Institute (HMRI), a healthcare venture, and merged it with his original digital healthcare startup Piramal e-Swasthya (PeS), so that PeS became Piramal Swasthya. After acquiring HMRI, Piramal Swasthya... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Healthcare; Innovation; Emerging Economies; Scaling; Social Enterprise; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Management; Emerging Markets; Growth and Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Partners and Partnerships; India

2014
Article

The Governance of Social Enterprises: Mission Drift and Accountability Challenges in Hybrid Organizations

By: Alnoor Ebrahim, Julie Battilana and Johanna Mair

We examine the challenges of governance facing organizations that pursue a social mission through the use of market mechanisms. These hybrid organizations, often referred to as social enterprises, combine aspects of both charity and business at their core. In this... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Hybrid Organizations; Nonprofit; Performance Measurement; Legal Form; Agency Theory; Stakeholder Management; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Corporate Accountability

Find at Harvard

October 2018 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Khan Academy 2018

By: William Sahlman and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded in 2008, Khan Academy was a global educational nonprofit with a mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone anywhere in the world. By 2018, the organization had expanded into numerous content areas, product areas, and geographic markets.... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Sustainability; Scaling; Social Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Strategy; Education; Entrepreneurship; Teaching; Education Industry; California

2010
Working Paper

The Limits of Nonprofit Impact: A Contingency Framework for Measuring Social Performance

By: Alnoor Ebrahim and V. Kasturi Rangan

Leaders of organizations in the social sector are under growing pressure to demonstrate their impacts on pressing societal problems such as global poverty. We review the debates around performance and impact, drawing on three literatures: strategic philanthropy,... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Expectations; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Issues

Read Now

20 Jun 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Fame, Faith, and Social Activism: Business Lessons from Bono

escalating, high-profile campaign against Third World debt, poverty, war and disease. “Any CEO who thinks his or her job is about maximizing shareholder value is living in the past.” Koehn, a Harvard Business School historian who has studied View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Entertainment & Recreation

03 Sep 2013
Working Paper Summaries

How the Zebra Got Its Stripes: Imprinting of Individuals and Hybrid Social Ventures

Keywords: by Matthew Lee & Julie Battilana

20 Aug 2014
Research & Ideas

Why the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a Social Media Blockbuster

emulated? Anything that can contribute to social capital. The content must be easy to create but not as easy as photographing one's morning cappuccino. For example, someone in Toronto snapped a selfie with the controversial mayor Rob... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton

September 2022
Case

HPP: Tapping the Netherlands’ Potential

By: Brian Trelstad and Idelès Kaandorp

Stichting Het Potentieel Pakken (HPP) was launched to solve a systemic problem in the Dutch Labor Market: gender inequity that was leading to a large number of women to work part-time in fields that were in desperately short supply of labor, like health care, child... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Grants; Scaling And Growth; Nonprofit Organizations; Opportunities; Gender; Income; Employment; Health Care and Treatment; Human Capital; Mission and Purpose; Motivation and Incentives; Growth and Development Strategy; Employment Industry; Health Industry; Education Industry; Consulting Industry; Europe; Netherlands