Publications

May 2013
Article

How to Negotiate with VCs

By: Deepak Malhotra

VC-entrepreneur partnership agreements often contain flaws that become highly damaging as the parties come up against issues of power, trust, and much more. Yet many of the flaws are systematic and predictable—and hence preventable. The author, a longtime consultant to... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Negotiation Tactics; Entrepreneurship

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03 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Layoffs Can Be Bad Business: 5 Strategies to Consider Before Cutting Staff

“We’re very sorry to be taking this step,” he said in an email to employees, “and John and I are fully responsible.” While an apology may seem of little consequence to laid-off employees, it can help restore trust between surviving employees and View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Telecommunications; Technology; Financial Services; Manufacturing

09 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Called Back to the Office? How You Benefit from Ideas You Didn't Know You Were Missing

and prospective thinking of others. I suspect that our findings can generalize to any kind of institution.” You Might Also Like: Publish or Perish: What the Research Says About Productivity in Academia Humans vs. Machines: Untangling the... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

August 2021
Case

Livongo: Scaling a Purpose-Driven Organization in Healthcare

By: Ranjay Gulati, Aseem Shukla and Reva Nohria

When seasoned entrepreneur Glen Tullman founded the chronic health care startup Livongo in 2014, it was personal. His son lived with diabetes, and Tullman knew firsthand how taxing it could be to manage such an unrelenting disease. Livongo set out to empower people... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare Industry; Scaling; Telehealth; Health Care and Treatment; Small Business; Internet and the Web; Customer Focus and Relationships; Growth and Development Strategy; Opportunities; Mergers and Acquisitions; Health Industry

March 2020
Article

Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work-family Narrative as a Social Defense Against 24/7 Work Culture

By: Irene Padavic, Robin J. Ely and Erin M. Reid

It is widely accepted that the conflict between women’s family obligations and professional jobs’ long hours lies at the heart of their stalled advancement. Yet research suggests that this “work-family narrative” is incomplete: men also experience it and nevertheless... View Details

Keywords: 24/7 Work Culture; Hegemonic Narrative; Social Defense; Work-family Conflict; Systems-psychodynamic Theory; Work-Life Balance; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Organizational Culture

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Read Now

13 Aug 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Diasporas and Domestic Entrepreneurs: Evidence from the Indian Software Industry

Keywords: by Ramana Nanda & Tarun Khanna; Video Game; Web Services

23 Jul 2001
Research & Ideas

Sam Walton: Great From the Start

being kicked out of town. It didn't seem fair. I blamed myself for getting suckered into such an awful lease, and I was furious at the landlord. Helen, just settling in with a brand-new family, was heartsick at the prospect of leaving... View Details

Keywords: by Richard S. Tedlow; Retail

06 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

How Younger Immigrants Gain an Edge in American Business

Wellesley College, and Kendall E. Smith, a doctoral student at London Business School. A congressman takes action Initial expectations for the group’s prospects were low. George Esper, who was Vietnam correspondent for the Associated... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

February 2024
Teaching Note

Accelerating with Caution: Forecasting and Managing birddogs' Growth (A) and (B)

By: Mark Egan

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 224-023 and 224-024. As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs’ founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. A nascent direct-to-consumer apparel brand, birddogs had carved its niche in men’s... View Details

Keywords: Inventory Management; Forecasting Demand; Financial Constraints; Apparel; Startups; Corporate Finance; Forecasting and Prediction; Working Capital; Financing and Loans; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Demand and Consumers; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

September 2014 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Fast Ion Battery

By: Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Stephanie Puzio

John Davidson, a partner at Ware Street Capital (WSC) and a board member at Fast Ion Battery, had just received a phone call from Don Lerner at Bluelock Ventures telling him that Bluelock would not participate in the $5M bridge financing for Fast Ion Battery. Lerner's... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Real Options; Term Sheets; Clean Technology; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital

17 Feb 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

How Entrepreneurs Can Find the Right Problem to Solve

Ethnography. Observing prospects performing the job you hope to improve or replace can be extremely insightful. You may find hacks they would never tell you about in an interview or discover a whole new set of problems in their process.... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

18 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

How Eliminating Non-Competes Could Reshape Tech

include them in the contracts of new and prospective employees, and most new employees are not in a position to negotiate against the inclusion of the non-compete term. When a state government does nothing, non-competes by default are... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Technology

30 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 30

PublicationsHappy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending Authors:Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton Publication:Simon & Schuster, forthcoming Abstract If you think money can't buy happiness, you're not spending it right. Two rising stars in behavioral science... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2025
Article

Improving Customer Compatibility with Tradeoff Transparency

By: Ryan W. Buell and MoonSoo Choi

Through a large-scale field experiment with 393,036 customers considering opening a credit card account with a nationwide retail bank, we investigate how providing transparency into an offering’s tradeoffs affects subsequent rates of customer acquisition and long-run... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Customer Selection; Customer Compatibility; Retention; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Banking Industry; Australia

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April 2001 (Revised July 2002)
Case

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (A)

By: Susan M. Fournier, Kerry Herman, Laura Winig and Andrea Carol Wojnicki

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO), a branded and integrated content and media company dedicated to "elevating the role of the homemaker," went public on October 19, 1999, creating a company with a market value of $1.73 billion, and a stake for Stewart worth $1.2... View Details

Keywords: Management; Media; Identity; Personal Characteristics; Brands and Branding; Media and Broadcasting Industry