Publications

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June 1996 (Revised November 1996)
Background Note

Economic Gains from Trade: Comparative Advantage

By: Robert E. Kennedy and Nancy F. Koehn

How nations trade and whether they benefit from it are two of the oldest and most important questions in political economy. In the 170 years since David Ricardo formally developed the theory of comparative advantage, it has become one of the principles most widely... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Microeconomics; Trade; Cost Management; Business and Government Relations

October 2000 (Revised March 2001)
Case

eLance.com: Building a Professional Services Marketplace

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Kristin Kohler

Launched as an eBay for services, eLance promises to leverage the capabilities of the Internet to not only change the way services are bought and sold, but change the fundamental dynamics of the global economy. Building on theories posited in the HBR article by Tim... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Job Search; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Web Sites; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry

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July 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Supplement

Airbnb Emerges from the Pandemic: Lessons for Stakeholder Governance (B)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Allison M. Ciechanover

As the COVID pandemic spread in early 2020, global travel ground to a halt. For Airbnb, the San Francisco-based platform for renting accommodations, the impact was both swift and severe as revenues plummeted more than 70% over the prior year. Responding to the sudden... View Details

Keywords: Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Leadership; Two-Sided Platforms; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Travel Industry; Tourism Industry; Service Industry; United States

Web

About the Project - Managing the Future of Work

outdated workforce development models and human resource practices. Instead, they will need to embrace new ideas, create new institutions, and forge new alliances with external stakeholders—in ways that build competitive advantage for the... View Details

September 2024
Case

Open Door Legal: Universal Legal Access

By: Brian Trelstad, Taylor Greenthal and Sarah Mehta

This case is about Open Door Legal (ODL), a San Francisco-based civil legal aid nonprofit. CEO Adrian Tirtanadi founded the organization in 2012 with a mission to achieve universal access to legal representation for all city residents. By 2024, ODL had opened four... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Law; Growth Management; Nonprofit Organizations; Civil Society or Community; Business Model; Expansion; Legal Services Industry; United States; California; Los Angeles; San Francisco

October 2013 (Revised August 2016)
Case

NOWaccount

By: Ramana Nanda, William A. Sahlman and Lauren Barley

It was September 2013, and NOWaccount Network Corporation (NOW®) co-founders John Hayes and Lara Hodgson were putting the final touches on the presentation deck for their annual shareholders' meeting. Along with co-founder Stacey Abrams, the pair had designed NOW's... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Finance; Entrepreneurship

23 Nov 2021
Book

What It Takes to Build an Organizational Culture That Wins

pandemic, for which no plan could be made. Agility, not long-range planning, is the answer to hard-to-predict events. Finally, effective culture is especially important for organizations in the start-up phase of their development in which several View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

Web

Key Concepts - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

problems in the health care industry. It has been stuck in outdated management practices and payment models that made the problem progressively worse over the past 50 years despite tremendous advances in medical science. While medical... View Details

2014
Working Paper

Financing Risk and Innovation

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We provide a model of investment into new ventures that demonstrates why some places, times, and industries should be associated with a greater degree of experimentation by investors. Investors respond to financing risk―a forecast of limited future funding―by modifying... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Venture Capital; Financial Markets; Financing and Loans; Investment; Price Bubble; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Risk and Uncertainty

Read Now

14 Dec 2016
HBS Seminar

Siobhan O'Mahony and Rebecca Karp, Boston University

31 Oct 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 31, 2017

healthcare system. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53401 Business and Sustainability: New Business History Perspectives By: Bergquist, Ann-Kristin Abstract—This working paper... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Web

Campus & Community | About

essential to responsible leadership in the modern business world. School Policies Our Community Values and the policies that support them embody our aspiration to be a model of leadership, honor, and... View Details

Web

MBA Experience - Leadership

achieve superior performance. The final module introduces a model for strategic career management. Leadership & Corporate Accountability In this course, students learn about the complex responsibilities facing View Details

Web

Profiles - MBA

intersection of technology and business Last summer, I worked for a startup that developed machine learning models for health insurance companies and for online pricing. I was inspired by how they were able... View Details

22 Apr 2008
Working Paper Summaries

An Exploration of Technology Diffusion

Keywords: by Diego A. Comin & Bart Hobijn

August 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

The Oakland Athletics: Strategy & Metrics for a Budget

By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler

This case considers Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane’s data driven and, in baseball circles unconventional, approach to winning games over the duration of the long Major League Baseball season. Beane’s critical approach to crafting strategy within his... View Details

Keywords: Data Analysis; Metrics; Data Science; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Measurement and Metrics; Competitive Strategy; Organizational Culture; Sports Industry

2015
Book

How the Internet Became Commercial: Innovation, Privatization, and the Birth of a New Network

By: Shane Greenstein

In less than a decade, the Internet went from being a series of loosely connected networks used by universities and the military to the powerful commercial engine it is today. This book describes how many of the key innovations that made this possible came from... View Details

January 2015 (Revised March 2017)
Case

New Urban Mechanics

By: Mitchell Weiss

Funding to scale Citizens Connect, Boston's 311 app, is both a blessing and a burden and tests two public entrepreneurs. In 2012, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts provides Boston's Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics with a grant to scale Citizens Connect across the... View Details