Publications

Find at Harvard

May 2017 (Revised July 2017)
Supplement

Aadhaar: From Voluntary to Mandatory

By: Tarun Khanna, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla

Approximately 1.1 billion residents of India (99% of the population) had a unique biometric identity—Aadhaar—by 2017. In six years, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had achieved an unprecedented milestone in emerging and developed markets. The... View Details

26 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

Why Great Ideas Get Stuck in Universities

Entrepreneurs must overcome many barriers to get discoveries to market, but academic researchers face an additional one they might not realize: themselves. Academics tend to develop a myopic focus on the unique expertise they spend their... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Biotechnology; Health

15 May 2024
Research & Ideas

A Major Roadblock for Autonomous Cars: Motorists Believe They Drive Better

rate on a scale from zero to five the level of driving automation they preferred for themselves, while the rest of the group shared the level they preferred for others. Level zero of the scale, which was developed by the Society of... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Transportation; Auto

January 2022
Case

Fueling a Cleaner Future: ACWA Power and Green Hydrogen

By: Dennis Yao and Alpana Thapar

In January 2020, Paddy Padmanathan, president and CEO of ACWA Power, was reflecting on the company’s sixteen-year record of success and thinking about its future growth plans. Founded in 2004, ACWA Power was a Saudi Arabian developer, owner, and operator of power and... View Details

Keywords: Green Hydrogen; Energy; Climate Change; Supply Chain; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Green Technology; Projects; Alliances; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Energy Industry; Saudi Arabia; Middle East; North Africa

January 2023
Case

Thomas Buberl: Refounding AXA

By: Hubert Joly, Mihir Desai and Amram Migdal

In 2022, AXA and its CEO Thomas Buberl faced new types of challenges, including systemic risks such as climate change, geopolitical instability, public health crises, and social tensions caused by economic risks. AXA was one of the world’s largest insurers. Since... View Details

December 2019
Case

Walmart Ecommerce (B): Omnichannel Pursuits

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case is an abridged version (part 2 of 2) of "Walmart's Omnichannel Strategy: Revolution or Miscalculation?" HBS Case No. 720-370. The (B) case describes Walmart’s omnichannel strategy in 2018 as it battled Amazon for online retail market share. Walmart aimed to... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Strategy; Internet and the Web; Distribution; Distribution Channels; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry; Bentonville; Arkansas; United States

April 2013 (Revised October 2013)
Case

National Instruments

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Keri Pearlson and Natalie Kindred

This case explores the use of social media to support product design, customer support, marketing and HR activities at National Instruments (NI). Based in Austin, Texas, with over $1 billion in 2011 sales, NI designs, produces, and sells software and hardware platforms... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Applications and Software; Organizational Culture; Technological Innovation; Digital Platforms; Innovation and Management; Media; Management Systems; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry; Texas

March 1998
Case

Launch

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Launch has developed an entertainment publication on CD-ROM with 240,000 subscribers and has recently introduced an on-line entertainment product (www.mylaunch.com) to complement the CD-ROM. Deals with multiple-channel delivery and platform selection and branding on... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Distribution Channels; Information Publishing; Brands and Branding; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Publishing Industry

Web

About | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

Finance courses and second-year elective courses on Business at the Base of the Pyramid and impact investing. He also teaches in various executive education courses and in the PhD development sequence in the department of Economics. Much... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

The Information Age has introduced well recieved opportunities to track performance. Fitbits and Fuelbands show individuals their own performance; service companies including Uber and leading hospitals help pick from drivers or doctors based on how others rate them;... View Details

Keywords: Management Accounting; Performance Measurement; Incentives; Control; Healthcare Industry; Education; Education Industry; Health Industry; Transportation Industry; Energy Industry; Auto Industry; United States; Japan; India

14 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Water, Electricity, and Transportation: Preparing for the Population Boom

By 2050, the Earth's population will likely exceed 9 billion people, up 30 percent from 6.9 billion today, according to projections from both the US Census Bureau and the United Nations. What's more, the population in the world's cities is expected to increase by 3... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

16 Jul 2024
Blog Post

Advancing Health Equity: Social Enterprise Summer Fellow Simona Stancov (MBA 2025)

consulting background, I have spent a lot of time thinking about and developing strategies. My first semester at HBS taught me that while a strong strategy inspires and focuses energy, it is excellent leadership, finance, operations, and... View Details

5 Sep 2013
Conference Presentation

The Color of Taste: Selling Food in Clear Packages in the Early-Twentieth-Century United States

By: Ai Hisano

This paper examines the role of color in the marketing and retailing of food products by focusing on the increasingly popular presentation of food in clear packages in the early-twentieth-century United States. In the 1910s, a candy company began using cellophane to... View Details

Keywords: Food; Product Marketing; Food and Beverage Industry

February 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Taffi: Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia

By: Paul A. Gompers and Fares Khrais

Taffi was a tech-enabled fashion styling startup founded by Shahad Geoffrey in Saudi Arabia in 2020. Within three years of operating, Geoffrey had pivoted the business multiple times. In 2023, Geoffrey was attempting the business’s most ambitious pivot yet, shifting... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Fashion Industry; Technology Industry; Saudi Arabia; Arabian Peninsula

September 1999 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Strategic Deal Making at Millennium Pharmaceuticals

A small start-up in 1993, Millennium Pharmaceuticals was a name-brand biotechnology company by the end of 1998, with a market capitalization of $1.4 billion. The Cambridge-based company's growth strategy had relied heavily on building alliances for early-stage drug... View Details

Keywords: Alliances; Negotiation Deal; Growth and Development Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Cambridge