Publications

April 2008 (Revised April 2009)
Case

Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc.

By: Robert G. Eccles and David Lane

As CEO of leading executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles for the past 18 months, Kevin Kelly was pleased with his accomplishments so far but concerned about threats he perceived to Heidrick's position at the highest levels of the executive search business. In... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Recruitment; Disruptive Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Employment Industry; Service Industry

June 11, 2014
Article

Keep Learning Once You Hit the C-Suite

By: Boris Groysberg

What skills do companies prize in C-level executives? To answer these questions, we surveyed 32 senior search consultants at a top global executive-placement firm. Experienced search consultants typically interview hundreds and even thousands of senior executives; they... View Details

Keywords: Executive Ability; Management Skills; Learning

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February 2001 (Revised June 2001)
Case

ClubTools, Inc.

By: Paul W. Marshall and Kristin Perry

Discusses the development of an Internet start-up by a recent HBS graduate. Details the company's business plan, incubation, technology development, marketing strategy, and search for funding. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Plan; Cash Flow; Marketing Strategy; Financing and Loans; Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Forecasting and Prediction

2020
Working Paper

The Evolutionary Nature of Breakthrough Innovation: Re-Evaluating the Exploration vs. Exploitation Dichotomy

By: Dominika K. Sarnecka and Gary P. Pisano

Over the past few decades, a consensus has emerged that breakthrough innovations emerge from exploration of novel terrain while more routine innovations are the product of exploitation. In this paper, we revisit this explore versus exploit dichotomy with an analysis... View Details

Keywords: Breakthrough Innovation; Exploration And Exploitation; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation

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June 2001 (Revised July 2001)
Case

SKOLAR: Launching a University Technology Spinoff Company

SKOLAR is the first company formally spun out of Stanford University. The company is searching for the right business model to commercialize its Internet-based medical information offering. View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Commercialization; Higher Education; Information Technology; Business Startups; Information Technology Industry; Education Industry; California

March 2016 (Revised February 2023)
Exercise

Advertising Experiments at RestaurantGrades

By: Michael Luca, Weijia Dai and Hyunjin Kim

Advertising Experiments at RestaurantGrades is an exercise in which students are asked to analyze and make a recommendation on the basis of simulated experimental data. The setting is a hypothetical restaurant review company called RestaurantGrades (RG), which shows... View Details

Keywords: Analysis; Digital Marketing

June 2008
Article

The Market for Mergers and the Boundaries of the Firm

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and David Robinson

We relate the property rights theory of the firm to empirical regularities in the market for mergers and acquisitions. We first show that high market-to-book acquirers typically do not purchase low market-to-book targets. Instead, mergers pair together firms with... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Assets; Investment; Property; Mathematical Methods; Boundaries

July 2014 (Revised August 2015)
Case

Qihoo

By: Feng Zhu

Qihoo, one of the largest Internet companies in China today, was founded in 2005. The company started its business by offering a security software product, and quickly dominated the market in China after its unusual move of giving its product away for free in 2009.... View Details

Keywords: Platform Strategy; Business Model Innovation; Chinese Internet Market; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Information Technology Industry

July 2001
Exercise

Working with Your "Shadow Partner": Building a High Tech Investment Portfolio

By: Dwight B. Crane and Richard L. Nolan

Team-based exercise designed to illustrate the use of the Internet directly by executives. Requires going on the Internet to search for information required to construct a high-tech investment portfolio. View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Groups and Teams; Internet and the Web; Information Management

May, 2019
Article

Who Would You Like to Work With?: Use of Individual Characteristics and Social Networks in Team Formation Systems

By: Diego Gomez-Zara, Matthew Paras, Marlon Twyman, Jacqueline N. Lane, Leslie A. DeChurch and Noshir Contractor

People and organizations are increasingly using online platforms to assemble teams. In response, HCI researchers have theorized frameworks and created systems to support team assembly. However, little is known about how users search for and choose teammates on these... View Details

Keywords: Team Formation; Groups and Teams; Recruitment; Networks; Diversity

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May 2009 (Revised January 2011)
Case

HubSpot: Inbound Marketing and Web 2.0

By: Thomas J. Steenburgh, Jill Avery and Naseem Ashraf Dahod

This case introduces the concept of inbound marketing, pulling customer prospects toward a business through the use of Web 2.0 tools and applications like blogging, search engine optimization, and social media. Students follow the growth of HubSpot, an entrepreneurial... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Entrepreneurship; Price; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Communications; Social and Collaborative Networks; Segmentation; Web

June 1997 (Revised October 2001)
Case

Elliot Lebowitz

By: Paul A. Gompers and Alexander Tsai

Elliot Lebowitz, president and CEO of BioTransplant, must decide on a strategy for this young biotechnology start-up. Among the issues to be resolved are focus of research and search for strategic alliance partners. View Details

Keywords: Alliances; Research; Business Startups; Management Teams; Business Strategy; Biotechnology Industry; United States

June 2003 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Schering-Plough and Genome Therapeutics: Discovering an Asthma Gene

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Marc Aquino

Personalized medicine requires the identification of mutated genes. Schering-Plough's search for the one related to asthma requires finding families with the disease. Examines the industry that helps conduct such research, including contract research organizations. View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Research and Development; Genetics; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

24 Oct 2024
Research & Ideas

With Millions of Workers Juggling Caregiving, Employers Need to Rethink Support

companies don’t do exit interviews, so they don’t connect data about why somebody leaves in performance reviews. They don’t say, “Is there anything that’s causing you to think about leaving the company?” “Employers should review how they View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

27 Oct 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Does Venture Capital Attract Human Capital? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Keywords: by Shai Bernstein, Kunal Mehta, and Richard Townsend

2021
Working Paper

The Demand for Executive Skills

By: Stephen Hansen, Tejas Ramdas, Raffaella Sadun 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

Keywords: Executives; Management Skills; Competency and Skills

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April 2010 (Revised March 2011)
Supplement

Google in China (B)

By: John A. Quelch

In a January 2010 public statement, Google threatened to stop censoring its search results on its Google.cn website, as required by Chinese authorities. Should Google exit China? Or attempt a compromise with the Chinese government? View Details

Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Crisis Management; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Internet and the Web; Information Technology Industry; China

January 2010 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Google in China (A)

By: John A. Quelch

In January 2010, Google threatened in a public statement to stop censoring its search results on its google.cn website, as required by Chinese authorities. Should Google exit China? Or attempt a compromise with the Chinese government? View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Internet and the Web; Information Technology Industry; China