Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(5,104)
- Faculty Publications (1,070)
- October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
- Case
Engine No. 1: An Impact Investing Firm Engages with ExxonMobil
By: Mark Kramer, Shawn Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi and T. Robert Zochowski
ExxonMobil, the world's fifth largest source of carbon emissions, remained committed to aggressively expanding its oil & gas business despite global warming. During the COVID pandemic this strategy resulted in massive losses as the price and demand for oil declined. ... 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
- Article
Behavioral and Neural Representations en route to Intuitive Action Understanding
By: Leyla Tarhan, Julian De Freitas and Talia Konkle
When we observe another person’s actions, we process many kinds of information—from how their body moves to the intention behind their movements. What kinds of information underlie our intuitive understanding about how similar actions are to each other? To address this... View Details
- October 2021
- Article
Overcoming the Cold Start Problem of CRM Using a Probabilistic Machine Learning Approach
By: Nicolas Padilla and Eva Ascarza
The success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs ultimately depends on the firm's ability to understand consumers' preferences and precisely capture how these preferences may differ across customers. Only by understanding customer heterogeneity, firms can... View Details
- 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
- September 2021 (Revised October 2022)
- Supplement
Hester Pharmaceuticals (B): Securing Supply
By: Dante Roscini and John Masko
Supplements the (A) case. In late 2020, demand for Hester Pharmaceutical’s (Hester’s) breakthrough oncology drug Akrozumab was outstripping the company’s most optimistic projections. In order to increase manufacturing capacity and meet the demand, Hester was... View Details
- September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
Telepass: From Tolling to Mobility Platform
By: Chiara Farronato, Stefano Denicolai and Sarah Mehta
Telepass, until very recently the sole processor of electronic toll payments on Italy’s highways, has ambitions beyond tolling. Since the mid-2010s, the company has been expanding into adjacent services. In 2017, Telepass launched TelepassPay—a mobile payment... View Details
Keywords: Mobile Payment; App; Mobility Services; Analysis; Change; Change Management; Transformation; Transition; Innovation and Invention; Strategy; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Transportation; Transportation Networks; Value; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Technology Industry; Transportation Industry; Insurance Industry; Europe; Italy; Milan
- 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 13, 2021
- Article
Managing Through Crunch Time—Without Burning Out Your Team
By: Flavio Serapiao, Andrew Hill and Boris Groysberg
Crunch times—the long, stressful hours of work that are often required in the final weeks before a new product launch—can have an inordinate impact on the success of businesses and they’re powerful shapers of organizational culture. Effective leaders understand that... 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
- September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
STARZPLAY: Shooting for the Stars
By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini and Alpana Thapar
In mid-2021, Maaz Sheikh, cofounder and CEO of STARZPLAY, a Dubai-based subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider that catered to the Middle East and North Africa region, was wrestling with how to find the right balance between continued subscriber growth and... View Details
Keywords: Pricing; Growth; Profitability; Subscription Business; Business Model Innovation; Fintech; Subscription; Performance Measurement; Promotions; International Marketing; Streaming; Competition; Marketing; Price; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Performance; Measurement and Metrics; Business Model; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Middle East; North Africa
- Article
Party-State Capitalism in China
By: Margaret Pearson, Meg Rithmire and Kellee Tsai
The “state capitalism” model, in which the state retains a dominant role as owner or investor-shareholder amidst the presence of markets and private firms, has received increasing attention, with China cited as the main exemplar. Yet as models evolve, so has China’s... View Details
Keywords: Economic Policy; Communism; Capitalism; State Capitalism; Economic Systems; Economics; Policy; China
- August 2021
- Supplement
Shorefast: A Strange and Familiar Way to Reimagine Capitalism: Zita Cobb, Founder and CEO
By: Brian Trelstad
Video Supplement for HBS Case No. 320-098. In 2006, Zita Cobb and two of her brothers, Alan Cobb and Tony Cobb, native Newfoundlanders, launched Shorefast to help grow another leg of Fogo Island’s economy. Like so many rural communities, Fogo Island’s fate was tied... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Mylestone: Can Multiple Pivots Preserve the Life of a Death Tech Startup?
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Marilyn Morgan Westner
Dave Balter and Jim Myers co-founded Mylestone, a death tech startup that applied technology to transform how grieving people memorialize the dead. The startup addressed a cultural problem and promised to solve a pressing need in the antiquated, multi-billion dollar... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Apax Digital
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
The Apax Digital team faced important decisions as they contemplated raising a second fund. Apax Digital Fund I was a $1.1 billion vehicle focused on mid-market growth equity and growth buyouts in the technology sector. The fund had performed well, and the Managing... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
How Do Households Suppress the Price of Tail Risk?
By: Laurent Calvet, Claire Célérier, Gordon Liao and Boris Vallée
This paper investigates the effects of the issuance of retail products with non-linear payoffs on option prices. For a given underlying asset, when the outstanding volume of products embedding a short-put position increases, implied volatility at the corresponding... View Details
- July 2021 (Revised September 2024)
- Case
Supreme: Remaining Cool While Pursuing Growth
By: Jill Avery, Sandrine Crener, Marie-Cecile Cervellon and Ranjit Thind
Following VF Corporation’s acquisition of cult streetwear brand Supreme, consumers and industry pundits were nervous that becoming part of a large, public corporation would put an end to Supreme’s slow and careful growth trajectory as pressure for quarterly results... View Details
- 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
- 2021
- Working Paper
Dirty Money: How Banks Influence Financial Crime
By: Joseph Pacelli, Janet Gao, Jan Schneemeier and Yufeng Wu
On September 21st, 2020, a consortium of international journalists leaked nearly 2,500 suspicious activity reports (SAR) obtained from the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, exposing nearly $2 trillion of money laundering activity. The event raises important... View Details
- 2021
- Article
Nudging the Commute: Using Behaviorally-Informed Interventions to Promote Sustainable Transportation
By: Ashley Whillans, Joseph Sherlock, Jessica Roberts, Shibeal O'Flaherty, Lyndsay Gavin, Holly Dykstra and Michael Daly
Dramatic reductions in carbon emissions must take place immediately. A human-centric method of reducing environmental impacts is to “nudge” employees away from single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) toward more sustainable commuting options. While an abundance of research... View Details