Publications

August 2023
Case

Floward

By: Krishna Palepu and Namrata Arora

In 2022, Abdulaziz B. Al Loughani, CEO and co-founder of Floward, an online flower and gifting company established in Kuwait in 2017, contemplated the firm's growth trajectory. Floward, an e-commerce enterprise that offered fresh-cut flowers sourced directly from... View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Information Technology Industry; Middle East; North Africa; Saudi Arabia; Kuwait; United Arab Emirates; Jordan

December 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Manufacturing Moderna's Future

By: Satish Tadikonda and William Marks

In 2019, Moderna faced long odds of survival having failed to develop a successful clinical program out of the vast platform technology they had built around mRNA. Nearly overnight, the company skyrocketed to success with a vaccine for COVID-19, leading to an extremely... View Details

Keywords: Health Pandemics; Health Testing and Trials; Technological Innovation; Product Development; Production; Science-Based Business; Biotechnology Industry

2013
Working Paper

Did Bank Distress Stifle Innovation During the Great Depression?

By: Ramana Nanda and Tom Nicholas

We find a negative relationship between bank distress and the level, quality and trajectory of firm-level innovation during the Great Depression, particularly for R&D firms operating in capital intensive industries. However, we also show that because a sufficient... View Details

Keywords: Great Depression; R＆D; Bank Distress; Patents; Research and Development; Financial Crisis; Innovation and Invention; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; United States

Read Now

July 1989
Case

NWA, Inc. - Northwest Airlines Revenue Management

Northwest Airlines is evaluating improvements to its revenue management system. This system executes a program of economic price discrimination under which the airline attempts to control the conditions on its discount fare offerings. Students must evaluate the effect... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Air Transportation; Management Systems; Corporate Finance; Air Transportation Industry; United States

April 2020
Supplement

Cisco Systems and OpenDNS: Strategic Integration (B)

By: Andy Wu and David Wang

With more than 72,000 employees and revenues approaching the $50B mark, Cisco Systems is one of the largest information technology and networking firms globally. As the company grew and expanded into different lines of businesses, Cisco consistently looked outwards for... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Integration; Corporate Strategy; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Organizational Culture; Information Technology Industry

October 2022 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Founders First Capital Partners: An Approach to Capital Access Equity

By: Brian Trelstad, Mel Martin and Amy Klopfenstein

In June 2021, Kim T. Folsom, the founder and CEO of revenue-based financing firm Founders First Capital Partners (FFCP), must decide whether to issue another loan to OnShore Technology Group, an up-and-coming software validation company. FFCP provided revenue-based... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Financial Instruments; Financing and Loans; Interest Rates; Investment Return; Revenue; Capital; Financial Services Industry; North and Central America; United States

September 2011 (Revised December 2011)
Case

CARD Group: Mutually Reinforcing Institutions

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery, Michael Shih-Ta Chen and Dawn Lau

CARD (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development) is a Philippines-based microfinance organization that began as an NGO and has since expanded into eight related entities providing services to the poor. Under Founding Director Dr. Aristotle Alip's leadership, CARD... View Details

Keywords: Microfinance; Partners and Partnerships; Non-Governmental Organizations; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Philippines

December 2024
Case

Yum China: People First

By: David E. Bell, Shu Lin and Nancy Dai

Joey Wat, CEO of Yum China Holdings, Inc., which operated KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell in mainland China, oversaw KFC’s milestone as the first Western quick-service chain in China to surpass 10,000 stores, with Pizza Hut exceeding 3,000 locations. This expansion was... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Franchise Ownership; Performance Efficiency; Expansion; Employees; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; China

Web

Skydeck - Alumni

—on how to make sure your next career move is the right one Tracking Modern Air Travel’s Takeoff Former Continental Airlines CEO Frank Lorenzo (MBA 1963) recounts the radical ideas and relentless negotiations that transformed the airline View Details

13 Dec 2016
First Look

December 13, 2016

Conconi Abstract—In recent decades, advances in information and communication technology and falling trade barriers have led firms to retain within their boundaries and in their domestic economies only a subset of their production stages.... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

07 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

How Teams Work: Lessons from the Pandemic

more senior people assume that the more junior people understood the meeting because they were there.” In reality, while technology makes it possible to invite more and different people to virtual meetings, the lack of spontaneous “huddle... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

September 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Atomwise: Strategic Opportunities in AI for Pharma

By: Satish Tadikonda

Abraham Heifets and his co-founder, Izhar Wallach, had founded Atomwise to develop i) an AI engine to transform drug discovery by creating better medicines faster, and ii) a machine learning-based discovery engine that combined the power of convolutional neural... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Science-Based Business; Technological Innovation; Biotechnology Industry; Biotechnology Industry

October 2011 (Revised September 2014)
Case

Paddle8: Painting a New Picture of the Art Market

By: Mukti Khaire

The Paddle8 case is a short case that presents the idea for a new business in the global art market and asks students to evaluate whether it will work, given the structure and unique workings of the art market. Paddle8 is a New York-based startup that partners with... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Business Plan; Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Internet and the Web; Trade; Fine Arts Industry; New York (city, NY)

June 2003
Case

IBM and Linux (A)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin, Siobhan O'Mahony and James Quinn

In the fall of 1998, Dan Frye, member of IBM's emerging technologies and business team, is trying to decide whether to forge a strategic alliance with the Linux Development Community (LDC). Just two years earlier, IBM had its first exposure to an "open source" software... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Open Source Distribution; Problems and Challenges; Alliances; Cooperation; Computer Industry; Computer Industry

August 2022
Case

Atlanta Ransomware Attack (A)

By: Amit Goldenberg and Julian Zlatev

This case describes the March 2018 Ransomware attack on the information technology (IT) systems of the city of Atlanta and the response by Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and her administration. The case includes a brief background on Bottoms and her young administration at... View Details

September 2006 (Revised September 2007)
Case

Bang & Olufsen: Design Driven Innovation

By: Robert D. Austin and Daniela Beyersdorfer

A successful company, recognized worldwide for exquisite design of consumer electronics products, strives to better integrate software design into its traditional physical product design processes to meet the demands of a post-iPod world. Details the Bang & Olufsen... View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Production; Applications and Software; Product Design; Innovation and Invention; Product Development; Electronics Industry