small businesses - Publications - Faculty & Research

29 Nov 2018
Blog Post

The HBS Community - Student Initiatives

If you were to ask students or alumni what the best thing about Harvard Business School is, they will almost always respond; “the people.” When we started at HBS in the fall of 2017, we found that our classmates – both in and out of... View Details

31 Mar 2022
News

A Community Hunger Solution with Global Ambitions

replicate the idea in his home country of India, Ghose studied ReFood’s model, spoke to its founder, and took that knowledge home to two friends. One evening in August of 2014, the small team hit the streets of New Delhi with food for 150... View Details

01 Dec 2005
News

Trillion-Dollar Fixer-Upper

The commercial real estate business was in a shambles fifteen years ago, but just look at it now. After a complete rehab, the industry has become the darling of investors eager for alternatives to lackluster stocks and bonds. But will the... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Real Estate

04 Sep 2019
News

Action Plan: A New ’Cue

passion.” That passion didn’t become a business for Corsello until 2016. The idea had come to him as he drove home from an OPM unit. On the expressway he saw signs for McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s. Why, he wondered, was there no... View Details

Keywords: April White

01 Jan 2003
News

Charles O. Rossotti, MBA 1964

financial management system held together by baling wire." Along with bringing the IRS's financial management system into the 21st century, Rossotti reorganized the agency into four units, each responsible for a specific group of taxpayers: individuals with wage and... View Details

01 Jan 2006
News

Sir Ronald M. Cohen, MBA 1969

School gave me the ability to have a broad overview that focused not only on the financial dimension of a business but on its many other facets, including management, strategy, manufacturing, and marketing. I began to rely increasingly on... View Details

12 Nov 2018
Research & Ideas

'Always On' Isn't Always Best for Team Decision-Making

Improve Collective Intelligence, written by Ethan Bernstein, the Edward W. Conard Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School; Jesse Shore, assistant professor at Boston... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

01 Oct 2001
News

New Economy Notables: Scott D. Cook

cofounder of Intuit, the world leader in software for personal and small business finance. After studying economics and math at the University of Southern California and earning his MBA, he learned the ropes... View Details

Keywords: Young, Susan; Computer Systems Design and Related Services; Professional Services

19 Oct 2009
Research & Ideas

Why Are Web Sites So Confusing?

stories. Indeed, all of these intermediaries are in the business of matching consumers with products. Trouble is, prior to visiting an intermediary, consumers are interested only in some products, which may not necessarily be the ones... View Details

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu & Bruno Jullien

01 Mar 2019
News

In My Humble Opinion: Easy Rider

Before he launched Harley-Davidson in India, Anoop Prakash (MBA 2001) held business development roles in technology and was a consultant at McKinsey. He also had experience in the public sector and in the US Marine Corps. But he hadn’t... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Transportation Equipment Manufacturing; Manufacturing

01 Dec 2017
News

The Robots Are Coming to Save Your Job

coworkers, Eckert says. Created for small businesses rather than the automotive industry—which makes up 70 percent of the US industrial robot market—Rethink’s bots do the boring, monotonous stuff. Humans get... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell

01 Dec 2011
News

Ticktock

The cases deal with universal entrepreneurial consumer product questions: Should the product be sold at big-box stores or through upscale specialty boutiques? (In the beginning, Nanda stuck with small museum shops and specialty catalogs,... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel; viral marketing; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

15 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Find Your Pragmatic Path through Radical Uncertainty

social restrictions and reopen businesses? Other questions depend on the answers to the medical questions. Will government funds for the disadvantaged people and businesses be sustainable? What will happen to inflation? Will food supplies... View Details

Keywords: by Howard Stevenson, Eugene B. Kogan, and Shirley Spence

01 Mar 2008
News

Innovation, Inc.

acknowledged place in the business world. Yet any entrepreneur can attest to the creative power required to build an organization where none existed before. “Look, I made a hat /Where there never was a hat,” sings Georges Seurat in the... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Mary Tripsas; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Management

22 Apr 2008
First Look

First Look: April 22, 2008

line. Purchase this case: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=306064 The International Finance Corporation's Grassroots Business Initiative Harvard Business School Case 508-063... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

12 Jan 2004
Research & Ideas

Does Your HQ Operation Fit With Corporate Strategy?

The specter of "headquarters" usually looms large in the business world's imagination, but few managers—and few CEOs, especially new CEOs—understand how size, structure, and performance of headquarters interact. To investigate,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

26 May 2015
Research & Ideas

Corporate Field Researchers Share Tricks of the Trade

world. Among economic scholars, field research often takes place within the walls of corporations, non-profits, small businesses, or government entities. Ideally, these organizations eventually can apply the findings of the research to... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

15 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

The Founding CEO’s Dilemma: Stay or Go?

Noam Wasserman is an assistant professor and MBA Class of 1961 Fellow in the entrepreneurial management unit at Harvard Business School. His paper "Founder-CEO Succession and the Paradox of Entrepreneurial Success," published in... View Details

10 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

A Fast Start on Your New Job

relationships to sustain them. Transitions also are times when small differences in a new leader's actions can have disproportionate impacts on results. Everyone is straining to take the leader's measure and people are forming opinions... View Details