Publications

May 2014
Article

Right Up the Middle: How Israeli Firms Go Global

By: Jonathan Friedrich, Amit Noam and Elie Ofek

The article considers international business enterprises based in Israel and how they successfully expanded from their origins as small businesses. A common technique of those companies in which they focused on market entry in other countries whose markets were too... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Israel

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November 2022 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Hugging Face (A): Serving AI on a Platform

By: Shane Greenstein, Daniel Yue, Sarah Gulick and Kerry Herman

It is fall 2022, and open-source AI model company Hugging Face is considering its three areas of priorities: platform development, supporting the open-source community, and pursuing cutting-edge scientific research. As it expands services for enterprise clients, which... View Details

Keywords: Community; Open-source; AI and Machine Learning; Product Development; Networks; Service Delivery; Research; Governance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Information Industry; Technology Industry; United States

April 2001 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Verge Software (A)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Elizabeth Kind

Scott Rozic, CEO of start-up Verge Software, has just told his board that he is taking the company in a totally new direction, moving from enterprise knowledge management software to Internet direct marketing. This case covers the start-up of the business, and Rozic's... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Business Strategy; Technological Innovation; Applications and Software; Management Teams; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Product Development; Information Technology Industry; United States

02 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

Disruptors Sell What Customers Want and Let Competitors Sell What They Don’t

is any indication, however, few companies or industries are immune from decoupling by enterprising entrepreneurs able to find ways to extract value from others' established infrastructure. Established companies would do well to brace... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2020
Book

Business, Ethics and Institutions: The Evolution of Turkish Capitalism in Global Perspectives

By: Asli M. Colpan and Geoffrey Jones

This book is the first systematic scholarly study on the business history of Turkey and its predecessor the Ottoman Empire from the nineteenth century until the present. It places the distinctive characteristics of capitalism in Turkey within a global and comparative... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Corruption; Business History; Ethics; Economic Systems; Crime and Corruption; Middle East; Central Asia; Turkey

February 1989
Background Note

Note on Attracting Stakeholders

By: Amar Bhide and Howard H. Stevenson

Acquiring resources--or to put it more broadly, attracting stakeholders--is a basic entrepreneurial task. While every enterprise needs employees, customers, suppliers, and financiers who are willing to risk their time and money, attracting these "stakeholders" to an... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Customers; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Human Resources; Organizational Design; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty

05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Improving Corporate Governance with the Balanced Scorecard

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & Michael E. Nagel

February 2008 (Revised February 2009)
Case

The International Finance Corporation's Grassroots Business Initiative

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee

Grassroots Business Initiative was set up to financially assist small enterprises engaged in creating social value. Three years later, Harold Rosen, its creator, wished to explore an alternative funding model to provide it with scale and sustainability. View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Microfinance; Investment Funds; Social Enterprise

09 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

Education, Technology, and Business: What’s the Catch?

Enterprise held on campus on February 22nd. The panel, moderated by Lumry Family Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Alan MacCormack, examined the $50 billion education industry, discussing the business opportunities and... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler; Education

October 2022 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Lyra Health: Transforming Mental Health

By: Rembrand Koning and Nicole Keller

In January 2022, Lyra Health was deciding between several different alternatives to grow the business. Founded in 2015, Lyra Health, was a digital mental health platform that combined technology with human therapists and coaches to deliver high quality mental health... View Details

Keywords: Mental Health; Health Care and Treatment; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Customer Value and Value Chain; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Health Industry; Technology Industry; San Francisco

13 Oct 2015
Research & Ideas

Does Business Get Done the Same Way in Emerging and Developed Countries?

On September 12, 1980, the military launched a coup on the government in Turkey. For many executives, such instability is the worst nightmare of doing business in a developing country. But for Turkish entrepreneur Hamdi Akin, usually on the outside looking in, suddenly... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Teaching Interest

Governing for Nonprofit Excellence

By: John Jong-Hyun Kim

Nonprofit organizations require strong, innovative leadership. In this unique HBS Social Enterprise Initiative program, participants gain an in-depth look at four core nonprofit governance competencies: board leadership, strategic stewardship, performance measurement,... View Details

Teaching Interest

Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management (SPNM)

This Executive Education course is an HBS Social Enterprise Initiative program that provides the opportunity for senior executives to examine their missions and develop new strategies for the new global economy. View Details

2012
Teaching Note

ChemChina (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Donghong Li, Lei Li and Hong Zhang

ChemChina is China's largest basic chemical manufacturing firm. It was included in Fortune Global 500 in 2011 and 2012, ranked No. 475 and 402. Its sales revenue in 2011 was 179 billion yuan, and profit was 600 million yuan. The year-end total assets were 254.2 billion... View Details

Keywords: Reorganization; Strategy; China; China

2009
Report

Breakthroughs in Shared Measurement

By: Mark R. Kramer, Marcie Parkhurst and Lalitha Vaidyanathan

The traditional approach to measuring each individual grant and nonprofit initiative separately prevents learning and improvement, because no 2 efforts can be compared on a consistent basis. This research highlights 20 social enterprises that developed innovative... View Details

Keywords: Impact Evaluation; Impact Measurement; Social Enterprise; Organizations; Performance Effectiveness; Measurement and Metrics

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July 2004 (Revised March 2006)
Case

RosettaNet and ebXML: Betting on the Right eBusiness Standard

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Veronika Belokhvostova

A major enterprise software company must select which technologies to support, based on their long-term and short-term viability and benefits. The protagonist is involved in the release of the B2B integration component of major enterprise software whose purpose is to... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Customer Focus and Relationships; Markets; Standards; Science-Based Business; Situation or Environment; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Information Technology Industry

May 2003 (Revised October 2003)
Case

BEA Systems, Inc.: Constant Reinvention to Cope with Market Waves

Developed in 1995 as a specialist software vendor, BEA Systems, Inc. had already transformed itself twice from a transaction processing product company to a server application provider. By July 2002, it had become the fastest company in history to reach $1 billion in... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Business Growth and Maturation; Management Practices and Processes; Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Organizational Culture; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry

17 Mar 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Conceptual Foundations of the Balanced Scorecard

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan

Article

Caste and Entrepreneurship in India

By: Lakshmi Iyer, Tarun Khanna and Ashutosh Varshney

It is now widely accepted that the lower castes have risen in Indian politics. Has there been a corresponding change in the economy? Using comprehensive data on enterprise ownership from the Economic Censuses of 1990, 1998, and 2005, we document substantial caste... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Income; Entrepreneurship; Rank and Position; India