Publications

07 Nov 2011
Research & Ideas

The Forgotten Book that Helped Shape the Modern Economy

affairs, could create national wealth based on manufacturing. This production would be fueled by an imperialistic British Empire, which through its expansion would provide the needed raw materials. The book proved extremely persuasive at... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

06 Mar 2013
What Do You Think?

Who Should Manage Our Work Time?

Summing Up Who Will Save Us From Our Work Habits? We have a problem in the workplace. Some of it is being forced upon us by forces in society. Some of it is of our own making. But we face increasing challenges in managing our work time... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

09 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

A Playbook for Small-Business Job Creation

skills, early education, and entrepreneurship training); and capital (equity, research grants, and loans). Mills is collaborating with HBS colleagues including professors Michael Porter, Jan Rivkin, and Joseph Fuller, who are focused on... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking; Financial Services

21 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Don’t Get Buried in Customer Data—Use It

With the advent of customer relationship management (CRM) in the late 1990s, companies came to believe that by using technology to tailor their offerings to individual consumers' needs, customer loyalty—and company profits—would... View Details

Keywords: by Jean Ayers

2010
Chapter

Leadership and History

By: Walter A. Friedman

Historians have written a lot about business leaders, especially successful ones. In fact, rags-to-riches stories have come to embody the philosophy of America itself, yet the term "business leadership" was rarely used until the early twentieth century. This chapter... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; History; Leadership

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Spirit at Work: The Search for Deeper Meaning in the Workplace

"spiritual anchors for the new millennium." Clearly, something of a nonmaterial nature is stirring in the corporate temple. But questions abound. Just what does it mean to bring spirituality into the workplace? Is this an appropriate way to help people feel... View Details

Keywords: by Marguerite Rigoglioso

11 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 11, 2007

also—and crucially so—on whether or not the platforms subsidize one side of the market in equilibrium. For example, with prices being strategic complements across platforms, we show that a cost-reducing investment by one firm may have a... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

11 May 2020
Op-Ed

Immigration Policies Threaten American Competitiveness

a vaccine to end the COVID-19 pandemic is Moderna, a Cambridge company with an immigrant co-founder and an immigrant CEO. Another firm already conducting vaccine trials is Inovio Pharmaceuticals of Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, led by... View Details

Keywords: by William R. Kerr

29 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

Building a Powerful Prestige Brand

Estée Lauder in 1930. Photograph courtesy of Estée Lauder Companies. The daughter of immigrant merchants in Queens, New York, Estée Lauder, born Josephine Esther Mentzer, began selling skin cream to women in New York City beauty parlors in the late 1920s. In 1946, she... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy F. Koehn; Beauty & Cosmetics; Consumer Products; Retail

21 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 21

well-established organizations to act in new ways is never easy. This book is designed to support business leaders and organizational scholars who are grappling with this challenge by pulling together leading-edge insights from some of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

16 Dec 2011
Research & Ideas

Reintroducing Intellectual Ambition to the Study of Business History

The 85-year-old Business History Review, published quarterly by Harvard Business School, is the acknowledged leading peer-reviewed journal in the field. (BHR has recently been made available online through Cambridge University Press.) So... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones & Walter Friedman

September 2019 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Keroche (A): Fighting for Share in the Kenyan Alcoholic Drinks Market

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pippa Tubman Armerding

This case discusses the challenges faced by Kenyan alcoholic drinks producer Keroche Industries Limited in 2003, when the Kenyan government accused the company of manufacturing and selling substandard alcoholic drinks, revoked its liquor licenses, and shut down its... View Details

Keywords: Keroche; Alcohol; Wine; Manufacturing; Informal Market; Regulation; Illicit; Illegal; Shutdown; Factory; Low-income Consumers; Multinational; Local; Government; Allegations; Accusations; Negative Press; EABL; Tusker; Beer; SAB; Chang'aa; Naivasha; Rift Valley; East Africa; Lawsuit; Legal Battle; Business Ventures; Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Production; Safety; Quality; Distribution; Small Business; Family Business; Crime and Corruption; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Income; Demographics; Geographic Scope; Geographic Location; Goods and Commodities; Government Legislation; Growth and Development; Business History; Lawsuits and Litigation; Laws and Statutes; Lawfulness; Goals and Objectives; Consumer Behavior; Market Entry and Exit; Problems and Challenges; Social Issues; Poverty; Strategy; Competition; Entrepreneurship; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Kenya; Nairobi; Africa

September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Case

GreenFire Energy, 2020: Geothermal Innovation

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In June 2020, GreenFire Energy Inc. (GreenFire) presented its report to the California Energy Commission indicating that its proof of concept project to demonstrate its new geothermal electricity generation technology, ECO2G™, had been a success. While conventional... View Details

Keywords: Geothermal Electricity; Renewable Energy; Energy Generation; Technological Innovation; Commercialization; Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions

28 Jun 2016
First Look

June 28, 2016

raise funds from outside investors. The relationship appears not to be causal but instead driven by selection effects across heterogeneous teams with varying degrees of inequality aversion. Publisher's link:... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2019 (Revised May 2020)
Case

AT&T, Retraining, and the Workforce of Tomorrow

By: William R. Kerr, Joseph B. Fuller and Carl Kreitzberg

By the late 2000s, rapid changes in the telecommunications industry forced AT&T’s management team to take on a task that CEO Randall Stephenson called the “biggest logistical challenge” they had ever seen: retraining 100,000 workers by 2020. In 2012, internal company... View Details

12 Jan 2016
First Look

January 12, 2016

medical devices after they are approved by the appropriate regulatory authorities. Historically, such surveillance was based on voluntary reports by medical practitioners, but with the widespread adoption of... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

21 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 21

several mechanisms: by conferring employer recognition, by enhancing social visibility, and by facilitating social comparison. In a nationwide health worker training program in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

16 May 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas and Research, May 16

mathematics. Yet they often struggle to fit the profiles sought by employers. A growing number of companies, including SAP, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Microsoft, have reformed their HR processes in order to access neurodiverse... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

2014
Chapter

Schumpeter's Plea: Historical Reasoning in Entrepreneurial Theory and Research

By: G. Jones and R. Daniel Wadhwani

This chapter draws on theories of entrepreneurship and history to explore the ways in which historical processes play an integral role in entrepreneurship. It builds off the plea by Joseph Schumpeter for an active exchange between historical approaches and theories of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Business History; Entrepreneurship; History; Organizations