Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(8,574)
- Faculty Publications (1,474)
- December 2021 (Revised January 2023)
- Supplement
Katerra (B)
By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn
In May 2020, SoftBank executives, having invested nearly $2 billion in Katerra, decided the vision of an end-to-end, vertically-integrated construction process was worth saving—with some major changes to company structure. The SoftBank Vision Fund invested $200 million... View Details
- December 2021
- Article
Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight
By: Aticus Peterson and Andy Wu
We study how learning by experience across projects affects an entrepreneur's strategic foresight. In a quantitative study of 314 entrepreneurs across 722 crowdfunded projects supplemented with a program of qualitative interviews, we counterintuitively find that... View Details
- 2021
- Book
The Future of Executive Development
By: Mihnea C Moldoveanu and Das Narayandas
Executive development programs have entered a period of rapid transformation, driven by digital disruption and a widening gap between the skills that participants and their organizations demand and those provided by their executive programs. This work delves into the... View Details
- November 15, 2021
- Article
What Do Black Executives Really Want?
By: Frank Cooper III and Ranjay Gulati
Recruiting and retaining Black talent is a priority for many organizations. Most are committed to and investing in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). And yet, according to interviews and focus groups with Black executives working in a variety of blue-chip... View Details
- Article
How NFTs Create Value
By: Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers
How much could a cluster of pixels possibly be worth? More pointedly, why is it worth anything at all? The explosion of NFTs and their accompanying marketplaces have left many baffled, incredulous, and deeply skeptical. But while NFTs may be fetching eye-popping,... View Details
- November 2021 (Revised January 2022)
- Case
Scott Tucker (A): Race to the Top
By: Aiyesha Dey and Amram Migdal
The case tells the story of the rise and fall of Scott Tucker, an entrepreneur, businessman, passionate race car driver, competitor, and owner of a professional racing team. From 1997 to 2012, Tucker built a nationwide network of payday lending businesses, becoming a... View Details
- November 2021 (Revised January 2022)
- Supplement
Scott Tucker (B): The Feds Catch Up
By: Aiyesha Dey and Amram Migdal
The case tells the story of the rise and fall of Scott Tucker, an entrepreneur, businessman, passionate race car driver, competitor, and owner of a professional racing team. From 1997 to 2012, Tucker built a nationwide network of payday lending businesses, becoming a... View Details
- November 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Advent International and Walmart Brazil's Deal
By: Victoria Ivashina, Ruth Costas and Pedro Levindo
Advent International, one of the world’s leading private equity firms, must decide whether to acquire Walmart’s subsidiary in Brazil or not. Although Walmart Brazil is losing cash at a rapid pace, Advent thinks it has a solid plan to recover the company’s finances.... View Details
- November 2021 (Revised January 2022)
- Case
Nicole M. Jones and The Hangar℠: Delta Air Lines' Global Innovation Center
By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards
In 2016, Nicole M. Jones was hired to lead The Hangar, Delta Air Lines’ new innovation center in Atlanta, Georgia. Delta’s leadership had intended for The Hangar to catalyze a new approach to innovation at the company. After conducting three months of research on... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
Customer-Centric Design with Artificial Intelligence: Commonwealth Bank
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Jin Hyun Paik and Steven Randazzo
As Commonwealth Bank (CommBank) CEO Matt Comyn delivered the full financial year results in August 2021 over videoconference, it took less than two minutes for him to make his first mention of the organization's Customer Engagement Engine (CEE), the AI-driven customer... View Details
- October 13, 2021
- Editorial
How Companies Can Improve Employee Engagement Right Now
By: Daniel Stein, Nick Hobson, Jon M. Jachimowicz and Ashley Whillans
A year and a half into the pandemic, employees’ mental “surge capacity” is likely diminished. Managers must take proactive steps to increase employee engagement, or risk losing their workforce. Engaged employees perform better, experience less burnout, and stay in... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
upGrad: Delivering Career Outcomes Online: Degree by Degree
By: John J-H Kim, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla
In August 2021, the founders of upGrad, the latest unicorn in the Indian higher education online space, were deciding how to best use the funds to execute on their ambitious growth plans. Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli had envisioned upGrad as an... View Details
- October 7, 2021
- Article
Carbon Might Be Your Company’s Biggest Financial Liability
By: Robert G. Eccles and John Mulliken
The price of carbon may be zero in many places today, but it’s unlikely to remain zero for long. That means that many companies have hidden liabilities on their books. To cover their carbon short position, executives can take several steps: Measure the position in... View Details
- October 2021
- Background Note
How to Write an Action-Planning Memo
By: Ryan Raffaelli and Akshaya Varghese
The ability to communicate an action plan through writing is essential for advancing ideas, earning credibility, and garnering support. Research has shown that leaders who write formal plans are more likely to execute successfully—written plans help members of an... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
The Opioid Settlement and Controversy Over CEO Pay at AmerisourceBergen
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged had contributed to the nationwide... View Details
Keywords: Opioids; Drug; Investors; Shareholder Activism; Investment Activism; Executive Compensation; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Legal Liability; Distribution Industry; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; West Virginia; Tennessee; Ohio; Pennsylvania
- September 2021
- Case
Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance
By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
The two vignettes within “Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance” (HBS No. 122-024) present various issues relating to governance in professional service firms (“PSFs”). In the first, the Managing Director of a U.S. consulting firm contemplates whether to... View Details
Keywords: Consulting Firms; Professional Services; Board Of Directors; Professional Service; Global Firm; Executive Leadership; Globalized Firms and Management; Private Equity; Governing and Advisory Boards; Global Strategy; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Leadership Development; Leading Change; Emerging Markets; Strategic Planning; Partners and Partnerships; Service Industry; United States; India
- September 2021 (Revised December 2023)
- Case
On the Bubble: Startup Bootstrapping
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Tom Quinn and Annelena Lobb
Bubble was a software company in the low-code/no-code market, making tools that allowed users without traditional programming backgrounds or technical skills to build software. The case covers cofounder Joshua Haas’s engineering background, as he experienced a high... View Details
Keywords: Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Plan; Disruption; Transformation; Trends; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Relationship Management; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Equity; Executive Compensation; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Job Interviews; Growth and Development Strategy; Ownership Stake; Opportunities; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; New York (city, NY); California; France
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Demand for Executive Skills
By: Stephen Hansen, Raffaella Sadun, Tejas Ramdas and Joseph B. Fuller
We use a unique corpus of job descriptions for C-suite positions to document skills requirements in top managerial occupations across a large sample of firms. A novel algorithm maps the text of each executive search into six separate skill clusters reflecting... View Details
- September 2021
- Case
Francoise Brougher (A)
By: Edward H. Chang, Nour Kteily and Kathleen McGinn
Francoise Brougher was a high-powered technology executive in Silicon Valley. After successful stints at Google (where she rose to lead a $16 billion ad sales business) and Square (which she helped take public), she joined Pinterest as its first Chief Operating Officer... View Details
- Article
Is This the Right C-Suite Role?
By: Anne Donnellon, Joshua D. Margolis and Amy Gallo
A Harvard Business School Case Study is presented which asks "Is This the Right C-Suite Role?" Experts Rakefet Russak Aminoach, managing partner at venture capital firm TeamB, and Nadia Rawlinson, chief people officer at Slack and a board director at Vail Resorts and... View Details