Publications

November 2014
Case

BRAC in 2014

By: Tarun Khanna, Rachna Tahilyani, Reeti Roy and Aldo Sesia

In the early 1970s BRAC was a startup nongovernmental organization (NGO) working in Bangladesh. By 2014, it was the world's largest NGO. It had a strong presence in Bangladesh and had begun to deliver social development programs in nine other countries. Its founder and... View Details

Keywords: BRAC; Bangladesh; NGO; Strategy; Business Model; Business Organization; Social Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Social Enterprise; Social Issues; Poverty; Bangladesh

November 2020 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Holaluz: Taking on the Spanish Energy Market

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Oded Koenigsberg, Elena Corsi and Emer Moloney

In 2020, the three cofounders of Holaluz, a newcomer to Spain’s electricity retail market, are preparing to launch a new offering: installing and managing solar panels on households' roofs at no extra cost for the consumer, who would still benefit from the energy... View Details

Keywords: Electricity; Solar Power; Subscription Business; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Service Delivery; Business Model; Product Launch; Marketing; Energy Industry; Spain

2024
Working Paper

The Rise of Alternatives

By: Juliane Begenau, Pauline Liang and Emil Siriwardane

Since the 2000s, U.S. public pensions have shifted their risky investments towards alternative assets like private equity and hedge funds, some more aggressively than others. We explore several explanations for these cross-sectional trends, focusing on those implied by... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Investment Return; Risk and Uncertainty

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Research Summary

Institutional influences on the firm: cross-country comparisons

A third stream of work examines the influence of country institutions on firms in a cross-country comparative context. In a paper co-authored with Jordan Siegel (published in Management Science in 2009), we employed a quasi-natural experiment: a... View Details

18 Mar 2014
First Look

First Look: March 18

processes for sorting and recycling waste materials that are still employed today. Yet it proved difficult to combine making profits and achieving social value in accordance with the "shared value" model of today. As providers... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Creating World-Class Board Governance at SECO

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Emer Moloney

In Spring 2023, SECO CEO Massimo Mauri had the ambition to grow the €200 million revenue technology company to a €1 billion company by 2030. Founded in Italy in the 1970s, the family-owned company had gone through a period of growth and internationalization,... View Details

July 2020
Case

CSL Capital Management: Patriot Proppants (A)

By: Victoria Ivashina and Yury Kapko

This two-part case series follows CSL Capital’s 2009 investment in the greenfield manufacturing company, Patriot Proppants. CSL, a recently established investment firm, employs a unique investment model, funding new ("green field") energy service businesses that serve... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Renewable Energy; Business Model; Decision Making

15 May 2007
First Look

First Look: May 15, 2007

economic models predict that they do not systematically differ. With online grocery data, we show that people are decreasingly impatient the further in the future their choices will take effect. In general, as the delay between order... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

15 Mar 2016
First Look

March 15, 2016

is still thriving—while dramatically reinventing it? How do you envision a change in your current business model before a crisis forces you to abandon it? Innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan expands the leader's innovation tool kit with a... View Details

02 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Four VCs on Evaluating Opportunities

Partner, Trinity Ventures In no particular order, for us they are team, market opportunity, and the product/value proposition for the solution. Technology differentiation or business model differentiation is also important to sustain a... View Details

Keywords: by Lauren Barley

January 2014
Case

Steven Carpenter at Cake Financial (Abridged)

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Joseph B. Fuller and Shikhar Ghosh

Steven Carpenter reflects on the successes and failures of his recent venture, Cake Financial. Carpenter had just sold the four-year-old startup and was at work on a new business plan. But first, he wanted to understand why Cake Financial, a service that allowed users... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Internet; Financial Services Industry; Web Services Industry

02 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 2

and Finance (forthcoming). (Also Harvard Business School Working Paper No. 05-053 and NBER Working Paper No. 13131.) Abstract The main arguments in favor of and against nominal and indexed debt are the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

12 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 12, 2007

firms. They also affect trading signal classifications, back-testing inferences, track records of individual analysts, and models of analysts' career outcomes in the three years following the changes. Long-Run Stockholder Consumption Risk... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

14 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Curiosity, Not Coding: 6 Skills Leaders Need in the Digital Age

to live with the risk profile necessary for breakthrough ideas (as opposed to incremental choices) they must model what it means to act with courage and conviction: identifying as many risks as they can and working with their colleagues... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards; Technology

07 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Fail—and How Their Founders Can Bounce Back

Market went through several business models before finding one that worked. But the opposite was true after the boom; a company could have a great idea and a great team, but still fail to achieve traction due to lack of View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

14 Jul 2015
First Look

First Look: July 14, 2015

Case 315-109 Pearson Affordable Learning Fund An in-house venture capital fund for affordable private schools at the base of the pyramid established by Pearson, the world's largest education company, PALF... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2015
Case

Uncharted Play (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Ali Huberlie

The case recounts the process of launching an early stage venture, from idea conception through initial efforts to validate the concept, followed by product launch, and fund raising. It emphasizes the Customer Value Proposition of the business model, and asks – Who is... View Details

Keywords: Early Stage; Female Protagonist; Value Proposition; Team Building; Founders' Agreements; Start-up; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Business Startups; Sports; United States; North America; Nigeria; Africa