Publications

Research Summary

Business History

By: Walter A. Friedman

Walter Friedman serves as co-editor of Business History Review. He has a special interest in the history of marketing and personal selling, and is author of Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Harvard, 2004). He is also interested in the... View Details

Research Summary

Cultural Entrepreneurship and the Business of the Arts

By: Rohit Deshpande

A more recent research program focuses on creating and managing ventures connected with the arts and culture. This research extends the concept of Customer-Centricity into the context of Audience Engagement. This primarily case-based work explores how successful... View Details

March 2017 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Corey Thomas and the IPO

By: Steven Rogers and Derrick Collins

Corey Thomas, the African American CEO of the company Rapid7, must decide if it is the right time to take the 15-year-old company public, as it stood poised to capitalize on what appeared to be the next frontier for digital technology markets—cybersecurity. In spite of... View Details

Keywords: Business Finance; Capital Markets; Private Equity; Internet and the Web; Initial Public Offering; Decision Making; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; United States

Summer 2024
Article

The Business Revolution: Economy-Wide Impacts of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Platforms

By: Hanna Halaburda, Jeffrey Prince, D. Daniel Sokol and Feng Zhu

In this essay, we identify several themes of the digital business transformation, with a particular focus on the economy-wide impacts of artificial intelligence and digital platforms. In doing so, we highlight specific industries, beyond just the high-profile “Big... View Details

Keywords: Digital Transformation; Digital Platforms; AI and Machine Learning

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September 1994
Teaching Note

Bribery and Extortion in International Business TN

By: James E. Austin and Tomas Otto Kohn

September 1999 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Caselets: Bribery and Extortion in International Business

By: Louis T. Wells Jr.

"Caselets" present several examples of decisions involving bribery or take other actions that could be considered as corrupt. View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Decisions; Trade

2016
Working Paper

The State of Small Business Lending: Innovation and Technology and the Implications for Regulation

By: Karen Gordon Mills and Brayden McCarthy

Small businesses were among the hardest hit in the Great Recession, accounting for more than 60% of the total jobs lost. The economic crisis was one focused on the banking sector, which is one reason for the disproportionately high impact on America’s small businesses,... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Financing and Loans; Financial Crisis

SSRN

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Article

Oral History and the Business History of Emerging Markets

By: Geoffrey Jones and Rachael Comunale

This article highlights the benefits that rigorous use of oral history can offer to research on the contemporary business history of emerging markets. Oral history can help fill some of the major information voids arising from the absence of a strong tradition of... View Details

Keywords: Oral History; Corruption; Business History; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Business and Government Relations; Government and Politics; Asia; Africa; Latin America

Research Summary

Industrial competitiveness in high tech and science-based businesses

By: Willy C. Shih

How do emerging economies develop industrial and technical capabilities that overtake those of advanced economies? Are there some industrial sectors that are especially susceptible to such targeting? What will it take to restore America’s... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Technology Diffusion; Knowledge Flows; Competitive Advantage; Globalization; Manufacturing Industry; Biotechnology Industry; Technology Industry; United States; China; Asia

March 2022
Module Note

Corporate Governance in Business Analysis and Valuation

By: Charles C.Y. Wang

October 1998 (Revised April 2000)
Case

Becton Dickinson: Ethics and Business Practices (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

February 2000
Case

Bluemercury: Leveraging the Click and Mortar Business Model

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Karen Barone

Keywords: Business Model

August 2021
Article

Business Education as If People and the Planet Really Matter

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Mounting concern over capitalism’s inability to address systemic challenges in our natural world (i.e. climate change) and social world (i.e. income inequality) is prompting reexamination of capitalism within business groups. This article argues that a concurrent... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Equality and Inequality; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Business Education; Transformation

March 2017 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Putin and the Russian Oligarchs

By: Geoffrey Jones, Rachael Comunale and Kate Lazaroff-Puck

This case examines the career of the Russian business oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky was one of a small group of business tycoons that became fabulously rich after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, as the new Russian government, advised by prominent... View Details

Keywords: Business ＆ Government Relations; Government and Politics; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Privatization; Soviet Union; Russia

03 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

The Power of Rituals in Life, Death, and Business

winning team). But what's the point? Behavioral scientist Michael I. Norton became interested in mourning rituals after reading Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering, which describes elaborate ways that parents, spouses, children,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

September 2003 (Revised June 2005)
Case

Learning from LeapFrog: Creating Educational and Business Value

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Christopher Dede and Susan Saltrick

Explores the success factors leading to one's company's rise to the number three ranking in the aggressively competitive toy industry. LeapFrog has made the strategic decision to exploit its educational model in two industry sectors: consumer toys and educational... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Decisions; Education; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Growth Management; Media; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Research; Value Creation

August 2007
Background Note

Assessing and Enhancing Individual Power in the Family Business System

By: John A. Davis

Describes how to asses and enhance an individual's bases, sources, and levels of power in a family business system. Relies on Franch and Raven's framework that identifies five bases of social power (reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, and expert), describing how... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Family and Family Relationships; Situation or Environment; Power and Influence

February 2010 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Harvard Business School Executive Education: Balancing Online and Offline Marketing

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

How does a small business set its online media budget? The HBS Executive Education Division can be viewed as a small-to-medium sized business unit with annual revenues of $107 million. As we watch it change its culture, practices, and organization from offline to... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Marketing Strategy; Budgets and Budgeting; Technology Adoption; Digital Marketing; Resource Allocation; Information Technology Industry

January 2007
Article

Acquisitions and Firm Growth: Creating Unilever's Ice Cream and Tea Business

By: G. Jones and Peter Miskell

This article provides a longitudinal case study of the use of acquisitions by the Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever to build the world's largest ice cream and tea businesses. The study supports recent resource-based theory which argues that complementary rather than... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Integration; Value; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Business and Shareholder Relations; Interests; Business Ventures; Employees; Food and Beverage Industry