Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(5,048)
- Faculty Publications (1,483)
- August 2020 (Revised November 2020)
- Case
Gogoro: From Electric Scooter to Energy Platform
By: Tarun Khanna and Billy Chan
The founder of Gogoro had always wanted to revolutionize the energy market from day one since he started the electric scooter business that featured an innovative battery swapping technology. Over the course of five years, he had developed a premium line of electric... View Details
- July 2020
- Supplement
Instabeat—Crossing the Finish Line
By: Shikhar Ghosh, Nicole Tempest Keller and Alpana Thapar
Lebanese entrepreneur Hind Hobeika was just 21 years old when she launched her startup, Instabeat, which had developed the first real-time bio-feedback device for swimmers to monitor and improve their performance. It had been an extremely testing 10-year journey to... View Details
- July 2020 (Revised September 2020)
- Case
Property Finder's Strategy for Online Classifieds in the MENA Region
By: Krishna G. Palepu, Gamze Yucaoglu and Fares Khrais
The case opens in 2020 as Michael Lahyani, founder and CEO of Property Finder, Dubai’s leading online real estate classifieds portal, contemplates the company’s five-year growth strategy.
Since its founding in 2005 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Property... View Details
- July 2020
- Case
Amanda and Kristen: Mented Cosmetics
By: Steven Rogers, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Alterrell Mills
The co-founders (Black HBS alumnae) of an e-commerce beauty startup explore the unmet needs within the beauty industry. This case study examines the entrepreneurial opportunities that come from identifying an underserved market, specifically within the Black community... View Details
Keywords: Brands and Branding; Competition; Customers; Disruption; Disruptive Innovation; Distribution Channels; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Macroeconomics; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Product Design; Product Development; Product Positioning; Sales; Social Issues; Social Marketing; Business Startups; Strategic Planning; Strategy; Supply Chain Management; Venture Capital; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Advertising Industry; Public Relations Industry; Chemical Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; North and Central America; United States; New York (city, NY); New York (state, US)
- 2020
- Article
How Signal Intensity of Behavioral Orientations Affects Crowdfunding Performance: The Role of Entrepreneurial Orientation in Crowdfunding Business Ventures
By: Goran Calic and Anton Shevchenko
Backers assess a crowdfunding campaign description not merely for a project’s capacity to deliver a reward, but also for the manner in which that reward is delivered. Viewed through the lens of signalling theory, crowdfunding performance depends on the signals of... View Details
- Summer 2020
- Article
Tech Clusters
By: William R. Kerr and Frederic Robert-Nicoud
Tech clusters like Silicon Valley play a central role for modern innovation, business competitiveness, and economic performance. This paper reviews what constitutes a tech cluster, how they function internally, and the degree to which policy makers can purposefully... View Details
- June 2020
- Case
Breakthroughs at Blueprint Medicines
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Kathy Giusti and Susie L. Ma
Precision medicine company Blueprint Medicines was building a successful track record for bringing drug therapies to market 40% faster than average. The company had spent $40 million dollars and two years building a compound library that became its drug development... View Details
- June 2020
- Teaching Note
Shiseido Acquires Drunk Elephant
By: Jill Avery
On October 7, 2019, the Shiseido Group announced that it would acquire clean skincare brand Drunk Elephant for $845 million, a valuation of 8.5 times sales. Did Shiseido pay too much or too little for this brand asset? How much was the Drunk Elephant brand worth and... View Details
Keywords: Brand Management; Brand Valuation; Brand Equity; Brand Value; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Startup; DTC; Brand Portfolio Strategy; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Mergers and Acquisitions; Valuation; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Japan; Asia; North America
- June 2020
- Case
What IKEA Do We Want?
By: Juan Alcácer, Cynthia A. Montgomery, Emilie Billaud and Vincent Dessain
In 2018, Swedish furniture maker IKEA was undergoing a significant transformation. Challenged by the rise of online shopping and changing consumer behavior, and mourning the death of its founder, the Company's top executives knew they had to step out of their comfort... View Details
- June 2020
- Case
MOD Pizza: A Winning Recipe? (Abridged)
By: Boris Groysberg, John D. Vaughan and Matthew Preble
This is an abridged version of “MOD Pizza: A Winning Recipe?” HBS Case No. 416-004. Scott and Ally Svenson, the founders of MOD Pizza, had to make a number of decisions in planning how to scale their small company. They wanted to grow MOD from 45 stores as of May 2015... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Selection and Staffing; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Service Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States
- 2020
- Working Paper
EMEs and COVID-19: Shutting Down in a World of Informal and Tiny Firms
By: Laura Alfaro, Oscar Becerra and Marcela Eslava
Emerging economies are characterized by an extremely high prevalence of informality, small-firm employment and jobs not fit for working from home. These features factor into how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the economy. We develop a framework that, based on... View Details
- June 2020
- Teaching Note
Armarium: Luxury Fashion Brands for Rent
By: Jill Avery and David Fubini
Armarium, a two-sided digital platform that offered consumers the opportunity to rent the most coveted, current season high fashion clothing and accessories from the top global luxury brands, had emerged from its first sales season with two distinct customer segments:... View Details
Keywords: Luxury Brand; Fashion; Sharing Economy; Two-sided Marketplace; Target Market; Customer Selection; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Two-Sided Platforms; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Value and Value Chain; Fashion Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; North America
- June 2020
- Article
Start-up Inertia versus Flexibility: The Role of Founder Identity in a Nascent Industry
By: Tiona Zuzul and Mary Tripsas
Through an inductive, comparative study of four early entrants in the nascent air taxi market, we examine why start-ups, generally characterized as flexible, malleable entities, might instead exhibit inertial behavior. While two of the firms engaged in ongoing... View Details
- June 2020
- Article
U.S. Monetary Policy and Emerging Market Credit Cycles
By: Falk Bräuning and Victoria Ivashina
Foreign banks’ lending to firms in emerging market economies (EMEs) is large and denominated predominantly in U.S. dollars. This creates a direct connection between U.S. monetary policy and EME credit cycles. We estimate that over a typical U.S. monetary easing cycle,... View Details
Keywords: Global Business Cycle; Monetary Policy; Reaching For Yield; Money; Policy; Credit; Emerging Markets
- May 2020
- Case
Trust Merchant Bank
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Pippa Tubman Armerding, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Salim Dewji
Trust Merchant Bank (TMB), a leading bank in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), needs to decide whether to enter the soon-to-be-liberalized insurance industry. Since its founding in 2004, TMB has played a pivotal role in reshaping the DRC banking landscape by... View Details
Keywords: Retail Banking; Financial Services; Financial Inclusion; Turnaround; Fintech; Banks and Banking; Financial Condition; Insurance; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Business Model; Family Business; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Monopoly; Banking Industry; Insurance Industry; Africa; Congo, Democratic Republic of the
- May 2020 (Revised July 2020)
- Case
Justice-as-a-Service at RightNow
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Amir Reza Rezvani
The case examines the focus of an early stage company, and how an unexpected external incidence can threaten or void the business model. It encompasses issues such as minimal viable product, defining and pivoting a business model, organizational requirements for a... View Details
- May 2020 (Revised December 2022)
- Case
Soofa: Displaying the Right Path?
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Amy Klopfenstein and Amram Migdal
In November 2019, Sandra Richter, co-founder and CEO of Soofa, a network of advertising-supported digital bulletin boards, must decide between two different fundraising and expansion plans for her company. One plan entails raising $15 million in a Series A round and... View Details
Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Model; Business Plan; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Decisions; Ethics; Geography; Geopolitical Units; Finance; Investment; Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Demand and Consumers; Network Effects; Media; Society; Urban Development; Sustainable Cities; Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Digital Platforms; Strategy; Business Strategy; Expansion; Relationships; Partners and Partnerships; Capital; Venture Capital; Advertising Industry; Technology Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; North and Central America; United States; Massachusetts; Cambridge
- May 2020
- Case
Big Boom Beverages: Fight or Flight?
By: Stephen A. Greyser and William Ellet
Four college friends market a beverage that combines ingredients like those in a drink they consumed in college bars. It includes a caffeinated energy drink, malt liquor, and a soft drink flavoring. They launch the business, Big Boom Beverages (BBB), with their own... View Details
- May 2020
- Teaching Note
Big Boom Beverages: Fight or Flight? (Brief Case)
By: Stephen A. Greyser and William Ellet
Teaching Note for HBS Brief Case No. 920-557. The case addresses analysis and decisions related to the entrepreneurial life of a distinctive energy beverage, including its niche market launch, early problems, reformulation, social media impact, market success, and... View Details
- May 2020 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Gavi and COVID-19: Pandemic of the Century
By: Tarun Khanna and Sid Misra
Gavi has helped immunize over 760 million children in the world's poorest countries over the past 20 years saving 13 million lives. How should Gavi respond to the need for a vaccine for the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic? View Details