Publications

December 2004 (Revised June 2005)
Case

Chez Cora

By: David E. Bell, Hal Hogan and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Chez Cora is a chain of breakfast restaurants that successfully expanded from Quebec to Ontario. Is it organized appropriately for more growth? Could the concept work in the United States? If so, how should a migration to the United States be structured? Includes color... View Details

Keywords: Food; Global Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Growth Management; Service Operations; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; Canada; United States

Find at Harvard

August 2019 (Revised April 2020)
Case

BlueVine Capital: Growth Factors

By: Marco Di Maggio and Nathaniel Schwalb

The start-up, BlueVine Capital Inc. (BlueVine), used data and technology to help finance small businesses via factoring and lines of credit. The case explains the small business financing market in mid-2010s, how CEO Eyal Lifshitz identified the opportunity for... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Business Startups; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Innovation Leadership; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry

January 1997 (Revised June 1997)
Case

Corporate New Ventures at Procter & Gamble

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Dean Whitney

Consumer products giant Procter & Gamble is faced with an urgent need to revitalize new-product innovation, given its recent focus on incremental product improvements and its aggressive growth goals. As part of this effort, the company's top executives form a small,... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Creativity; Working Conditions; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Groups and Teams; Retail Industry; Ohio

01 Mar 2010
News

How to Spur Prosperity

about how venture capitalists fund companies, they usually do it in stages, giving a little money to start, waiting for it to percolate, and maybe doing a midcourse correction. For the public sector to do that, politicians have to accept that they may need to rethink... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Administration of Economic Programs; Government

April 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Teaching Note

Netflix's Culture: Binge or Cringe?

By: Hubert Joly, Leonard A. Schlesinger, James Barnett and Stacy Straaberg

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 522-096. View Details

December 1999 (Revised December 2000)
Case

Charles Schwab: A Category of One

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Thomas H. Esperson

Examines Charles Schwab's on-line discount brokerage firm and questions whether or not Schwab has effectively balanced the old and new world of stock trading, and has remained a leader between giants like Merrill Lynch and Internet pure plays like E-Trade. Also looks... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Banks and Banking; Technological Innovation; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

September 1999 (Revised June 2001)
Case

eBay, Inc.

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Kelley Porter

eBay was the world's largest and most popular person-to-person trading community on the Internet. In early 1999, the company was doing very well and seemed to have solved many of its early problems. However, on March 30, 1999, Amazon.com announced that it was entering... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Planning; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry

15 Jan 2025
Blog Post

Building Bridges to Sustainable Infrastructure with Allied Climate Partners

energy around shaping its investment strategy, and my role reflected this dynamic environment. My responsibilities spanned two main areas: supporting fund strategy by conducting deep dives into new markets and verticals that might offer... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

19 Apr 2018
News

One Last Pitch

The 2018 New Venture Competition started last fall with 360 teams. By Wednesday, April 18, just 12 teams—four finalists from each of the Alumni, Student Social Enterprise, and Student Business tracks—were left standing, vying for $315,000 in prize money and in-kind... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Myers

01 Sep 2015
News

Ink

strategy and assessing your place in the competitive landscape. Tool 15, “Taming Co-opetition,” helps one determine the risks and rewards of sleeping with the enemy. Essentially, the advice is, don’t. “With few exceptions, being in... View Details

01 Sep 2013
News

What's Trending at HBS?

Improves Your Own Happiness—and Your Organization's Bottom Line" on November 12; and Joe Lassiter and iLab managing director Gordon Jones giving an update on "Innovation at Harvard, the New Innovation Lab" on December 10. All programs... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

January 2013
Supplement

Cabot Corporation: The Fuel Cell Decision (B)

By: Willy Shih and Ying Zhou

Managers at Cabot Corporation are faced with deciding the future of its fuel cell program. The (A) case recounts the view of the business manager and the technical project lead, and the (B) case describes the perspective of a senior manager who is the head of the New... View Details

01 Dec 2013
News

Faculty Opinion: Making It Better

while writing cases for my MBA course Innovating in Health Care, I created a forum at which health-care leaders from around the globe could gather to learn from each other and share breakthrough knowledge. At HBS in June, with Senior... View Details

Keywords: Herzlinger, Regina; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Ambulatory Health Care Services; Health, Social Assistance

15 Nov 2016
News

Uncovering The Secrets of Mittelstand Success

companies prevalent in German-speaking countries—has long captured the attention of global business practitioners and scholars. Why are these firms so competitive globally, particularly in emerging markets, and how have they managed to View Details

May 2025
Case

Windsurf and the AI Code Assistant Market

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Sudhanshu Nath Mishra and Radhika Kak

In April 2025, the founding team of Windsurf, an AI start-up specializing in code generation gathered in Mountain View, California, to assess its remarkable year of growth. The company had scaled from a niche GitHub Copilot alternative to a breakout player with over... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Venture Capital; Innovation Leadership; Technological Innovation; Business Growth and Maturation; Competition; Business Strategy; Technology Industry; United States