Publications

29 Feb 2024
Blog Post

African American Student Union Spotlight on Social Enterprise

their journeys before and during the MBA program. Sandra Tsikor (MBA 2025) Where is your hometown? I was raised in Tema, Ghana and moved to New York City when I was 8 years old. What was your pre-MBA industry and role? Prior to HBS, I... View Details

January 2013 (Revised June 2018)
Case

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google 2018

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Four businesses had, by 2012, grown to dominate the infrastructure that all firms rely on to reach online customers. Will the balance of power among the four persist, will one take command at the expense of the other three, or are all four more vulnerable than they... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Competitive Advantage; Infrastructure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth and Development; Service Industry; Service Industry; United States

22 Dec 2022
Blog Post

TOP 10 MBA VOICES BLOGS OF 2022

and most sections have 1-2 mothers. Across the RC (first-year) and EC (second-year) MBA student body, we have over 20 mothers on campus. Read More>>> FROM HBS TO CUTTING-EDGE TECH Growing up I always wanted to be an engineer, more specifically a roboticist.... View Details

November 2022 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Northvolt: Building Batteries to Fight Climate Change

By: George Serafeim, Debora L. Spar, P. Tufano and Julia M. Comeau

In 2016, Swedish entrepreneurs Carl-Erik Lagercrantz and Peter Carlsson founded an electric battery company called Northvolt with the dual goals of creating a company to address climate change and bringing battery manufacture to Europe. Northvolt, which succeeded in... View Details

Keywords: Batteries; Climate Change; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Green Technology; Mission and Purpose; Goals and Objectives; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Green Technology Industry; Battery Industry; Sweden; Europe

April 2024 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Moderna: Pioneering a People Platform to Accelerate Science Innovation

By: Tatiana Sandino, Emil Dy and Samuel Grad

Moderna was founded in 2010 to explore how messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) could be used to create breakthrough medicines by encoding instructions for the body to create antibodies. When Stéphane Bancel (HBS 2000) took over in 2011, he bet on the potential of this... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Talent and Talent Management; Selection and Staffing; AI and Machine Learning; Digital Strategy; Innovation and Management; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Systems; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Alignment; Employee Relationship Management; Science-Based Business; Expansion; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

October 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

BlackRock (A): Selling the Systems?

By: Ranjay Gulati, Jan W. Rivkin and Kelly McNamara

As the case opens in 1999, several key leaders at BlackRock, Inc., then a relatively small asset management firm, are trying to convince CEO Larry Fink and others that the firm should begin to offer Aladdin—its proprietary analytics and trading platform—to other asset... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Competition; Information Technology; Asset Management; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; United States

Web

Buy Now, Pay Later: Credit and the Market Economy: The Rise of Credit Reporting

the Courts Credit and Information Technology Credit in a Consumer Society Research Links Credits “Credit is the vital air of the system of modern commerce. It has done more — a thousand times more — to enrich nations than all the mines of... View Details

01 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

A Bank That Takes Parmesan as Collateral: The Cheese Stands a Loan

tailor a financing infrastructure to the operating characteristics of a supply chain," says Nikolaos Trichakis, an assistant professor in the Technology and Operations Management unit at HBS, who co-authored the case with Gerry... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking; Food & Beverage

September 2020
Case

Uber at a Crossroads (2017)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes the history of Uber, its business model—including the ways it differed from that of the traditional taxi industry—and its competition with Lyft. The case is set in 2017, a year in which Uber was plagued by even more scandals than usual, though its... View Details

August 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

Money Fellows: The Quest for Expansion

By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui, Michael Chu and Ahmed Dahawy

This case explores the opportunities and challenges associated with expanding the operations of a complex entrepreneurial business model. It highlights how cultural aspects of different geographies impact a startup's operational and economic models. The case also... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Developing Countries and Economies; Geographic Scope; Business Strategy; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Business and Shareholder Relations; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Egypt

June 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Majid Al Futtaim Retail Geographic Expansion: Brick or Click?

By: Juan Alcácer and Alpana Thapar

This case illustrates the challenges that retailers face when they aggressively pursue geographical growth by expanding both their physical store network and their online presence. It features Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Retail, a franchisee of Carrefour hypermarkets in the... View Details

Keywords: Stores; Ecommerce; Strategy; Expansion; Geographic Location; Decision Making; Internet and the Web; Digital Transformation; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Middle East

30 May 2023
News

Finding PRIDE

fear around being gay in the business world. I felt it would be damaging to my career to be found out, so I limited myself to creative industries where I thought my gayness would be more acceptable if revealed. I worked at Apple for five... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

November 2022 (Revised June 2023)
Case

UGG Steps into the Metaverse

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Sharon Joseph, Sunil Gupta and Julia Kelley

In the fall of 2022, boot maker UGG and its parent company, Deckers, were working to position the brand in the nascent but fast growing metaverse. The metaverse, the online realm that individual users could navigate as digital avatars, was becoming more commercialized,... View Details

Keywords: Metaverse; Digital Marketing; Innovation and Invention; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Internet and the Web; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

19 Aug 2021
Op-Ed

Don't Ignore Your Employees' Misery—TAKE Control

profitability in many instances. So why are so many employers pushing so forcefully for all employees to return to the office, even as employee turnover across industries is increasing? It’s a pattern not isolated to the corporate world.... View Details

Keywords: by Hise O. Gibson and MaShon Wilson

22 May 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 22, 2018

case:https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/217069-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 318-001 Environmental Technology Fund Partners and E-Leather It is 2014 and Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF) Partners, a... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

March 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Systems Infrastructure at Google (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker

This case describes how a senior vice president of engineering at Google, Bill Coughran, leads a high-performing engineering organization. The case focuses specifically on Coughran's encouraging two teams of engineers to develop competing solutions for application... View Details

Keywords: Independent Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Leadership Development; Product Design; Groups and Teams; Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Competitive Strategy; Technology Industry; United States