Publications

January 2021
Case

Andela: Africa's AWS for Talent

By: Caroline M. Elkins, Tarun Khanna and Joyce J. Kim

Five years after the company’s founding, Andela, a company that built and trained remote engineering teams, became arguably Africa’s greatest technology unicorn. By January 2019, Andela raised $100 million in Series D funding. As Andela looked to scale in an... View Details

Keywords: Education In Africa; Entrepreneur; Remote Work; Software Engineering; Edtech; Entrepreneurship; Education; Applications and Software; Engineering; Growth and Development Strategy; Africa

December 2007
Article

China + India: The Power of Two

By: Tarun Khanna

China and India are burying the hatchet after four-plus decades of hostility. A few companies from both nations have been quick to gain competitive advantages by viewing the two as symbiotic. If Western corporations fail to do the same, they will lose their competitive... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Economic Growth; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Multinational Firms and Management; Business History; Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; China; India

Web

Using Oral History in Business and Management Studies - Creating Emerging Markets

Colombia), Marcelo Bucheli (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Tarun Khanna (Harvard Business School). The online conference was organized by CEM Faculty... View Details

December 2015
Article

Task Shifting in Surgery: Lessons from an Indian Heart Hospital

By: Budhaditya Gupta, Robert S. Huckman and Tarun Khanna

We present a case study that illustrates task shifting, the transfer of activities from senior to junior colleagues, in the context of cardiac surgery at the Narayana Health City Cardiac Hospital (NH) in India. The case discusses the factors driving the adoption of... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Rank and Position; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; India

11 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 11

they made by history, or do they make it? In Indispensable, Harvard Business School professor Gautam Mukunda offers an enticingly fresh look at how and when individual leaders really can make a difference. View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

22 Jun 2010
First Look

First Look: June 22

issues concerning 363 sales and the appropriate role of government entities in restructurings. Purchase this case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/210022-PDF-ENG TeamLease: Putting India to Work (Il) Legally Tarun View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

September 2023
Article

Judging Foreign Startups

By: Nataliya Langburd Wright, Rembrand Koning and Tarun Khanna

Can accelerators pick the most promising startup ideas no matter their provenance? Using unique data from a global accelerator where judges are randomly assigned to evaluate startups headquartered across the globe, we show that judges are less likely to recommend... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship And Strategy; Global Strategy; Entrepreneurial Financing; Innovation; International; Entrepreneurship; Judgments; Business Startups; Geographic Location; Growth and Development Strategy

05 Nov 2013
First Look

First Look: November 5

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/download.aspx?name=14-033.pdf Independent Directors' Dissent on Boards: Evidence from Listed Companies in China By: Ma, Juan, and Tarun Khanna Abstract—In this paper, we... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

10 Oct 2007
First Look

First Look: First Look: October 10

Working PapersTesting Limits to Policy Reversal: Evidence from Indian Privatizations Authors:Siddhartha G. Dastidar, Raymond Fisman, and Tarun Khanna Abstract We examine the effect of regime change on... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 2012
Article

A 'Core Periphery' Framework to Navigate Emerging Market Governments—Qualitative Evidence from a Biotechnology Multinational

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, James Geraghty and Tarun Khanna

We build on the emerging literature of influence-based models to study how multinational firms can navigate host governments. Our "core-periphery" framework posits that the actions that an MNC takes with actors in what we call the "periphery"—comprised of state,... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Multinational Firms and Management; Business and Government Relations; Power and Influence; Framework; Biotechnology Industry; Massachusetts; Brazil; China; Costa Rica; France; India

Read Now

Article

Applying Human-Centered Design Principles to Digital Syndromic Surveillance at a Mass Gathering in India: Viewpoint

By: Ahmed Shaikh, Abhishek Bhatia, Ghanshyam Yadav, Shashwat Hora, Chung Won, Mark Shankar, Aaron Heerboth, Prakash Vemulapalli, Paresh Navalkar, Kunal Oswal, Clay Heaton, Sujata Saunik, Tarun Khanna and Satchit Balsari

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital health tools have been deployed by governments around the world to advance clinical and population health objectives. Few interventions have been successful or have achieved sustainability or scale. In India, government... View Details

Keywords: Digital Health Tools; Human-centered Design; Health Care and Treatment; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Design; Technology Adoption

Read Now

01 Jun 2001
News

Group Therapy: The Role of Business Groups in Emerging Economies

developing nations will provide a greater service in the long run, Khanna argues, by focusing instead on building the infrastructure required to compete in a global economy. Adapted from Working Knowledge: A... View Details

Keywords: Peter K. Jacobs; Market Research, Photo, Translation, Veterinary and Other Services; Professional Services

15 Jul 2025
Blog Post

Outrage at the Death of a Tree

Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School, reflects on creativity, innovation, and inclusive economic systems. You can subscribe to his newsletter here: https://tarunkhanna.substack.com/ During a recent... View Details

December 2006 (Revised January 2009)
Case

METRO Cash & Carry

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu, Carin-Isabel Knoop and David Lane

Analyzes the globalization of Metro Case & Carry, a German wholesaler, which has flourished in many foreign markets but struggled to gain traction in India. Considers Metro's experience in Russia and China to put the company's challenges in India in comparative... View Details

Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; China; India; Russia; Germany

01 Sep 2024
News

The Exchange: Lessons from the Edge

Image by John Ritter Professors Geoff Jones and Tarun Khanna had been toiling away from their respective HBS offices for many years, each of them interested in emerging markets but expressed through different disciplines: Jones, a historian, was studying how the world... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Educational Support Services; Educational Services

February 2002 (Revised February 2002)
Case

Morgan Stanley Japan, 2002

By: Tarun Khanna and Louis P. DiLorenzo, Jr

Thierry Porte, president of Morgan Stanley Japan, had spent the brisk November day in Tokyo with Eric Best, Morgan Stanley's head of scenario planning, outlining the exercise that all of the managing directors in Japan would participate in shortly. Japan remained mired... View Details

Keywords: Planning; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Investment Banking; Multinational Firms and Management; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Japan; United States

01 Jun 2010
News

Faculty Books

more adventurous approach and have struck a chord with even the most jaded consumers. In fact, almost every success story of the past two decades has been an exception to the rule. Winning in Emerging Markets: A Road Map for Strategy and Execution View Details

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

April 2017
Case

The Future of Patent Examination at the USPTO

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna and Sarah Mehta

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the federal government agency responsible for evaluating and granting patents and trademarks. In 2015, the USPTO employed approximately 8,000 patent examiners who granted nearly 300,000 patents to inventors. As of April... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Telework; Collaborating With Unions; Human Resources; Recruitment; Retention; Intellectual Property; Copyright; Patents; Trademarks; Knowledge Sharing; Technology Adoption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Productivity; Performance Improvement; District of Columbia