Publications

March 2017
Case

From mHealth Hackathon to Reality: Diabetes Care

By: Kevin Schulman and Curry Cheek

This case explores the development of a business plan for a mobile health application for diabetes care. The case depicts a student team excited about the opportunity to improve the care of patients with diabetes by contracting an app. They go through a rigorous... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Mobile Health Technologies; Health Care; Health Care Industry; Behavioral Economics; Applications and Software; Health Care and Treatment; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Innovation and Invention; Health Industry; Telecommunications Industry

June 2014 (Revised March 2016)
Teaching Note

Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal

By: Nancy F. Koehn

April 2012
Case

Pret A Manger

By: Frances X. Frei, Rick Goldberg and Stephanie van Sice

Pret A Manger, a London-based chain of sandwich shops, was known for its fast, genuine service and pre-packaged sandwiches prepared on-site daily. Instructed by its board to grow at 15 percent per year, Pret considered opening "twin" shops in locations too small to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Service Excellence; Growth Planning And Management; Employee Performance Management; Information Management; Production Planning; Employee Attitude Development And Empowerment; Employee Retention; Leadership Development And Career Planning; Service Delivery; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Employees; Performance; London

September – October 2009
Article

Critical Decisions in Software Development: Updating the State of the Practice

By: Alan MacCormack, Michael A. Cusumano, Chris Kemerer and Bill Crandall

This article focuses on how to choose the "right" software development process, how to structure global software design chains, how to manage the interaction of project structure and software design, and how to balance innovation and efficiency in a software business. View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Product Development; Projects; Innovation and Management; Performance Efficiency; Information Technology Industry

Read Now

April 2004 (Revised June 2004)
Case

Entrepreneurship Goes Global: ResMed's Gamble

By: Christopher A. Bartlett, Andrew N. McLean and Meg Glinska

On the basis of its innovative medical device for treating sleep apnea, CEO Peter Farrell has made Australian-born ResMed a successful global company. But the company is struggling to implement a strategy to expand the device from its focused core market to a much... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Globalization; Innovation and Management; Management; Marketing Channels; Production; Expansion; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

February 1996
Background Note

Managing for Creativity

By: Teresa M. Amabile

Organizational stimulants and obstacles to creativity are summarized. The management tasks of supporting creativity and encouraging innovation are described as a delicate balance between over-control and chaos. A technology used to assess the climate for creativity is... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Technology

summer 2003
Article

Patents, Invalidity, and the Strategic Transmission of Enabling Information

By: James J. Anton and Dennis A. Yao

The patent system encourages innovation and knowledge disclosure by providing exclusivity to inventors. Exclusivity is limited, however, because a substantial fraction of patents have some probability of being ruled invalid when challenged in court. The possibility of... View Details

Keywords: System; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Dissemination; Courts and Trials; Competition; Patents; Corporate Disclosure

Find at Harvard

01 Jul 2021
News

Quantum Computing and Cybersecurity

Keywords: Quantum computing

21 Jan 2021
News

New Menu

In 2018, Andrew D. Ive (MBA 1997) launched Big Ideas Ventures to find and support the entrepreneurs positioned to mitigate the effects of climate change and help the world adapt to the realities of a warming planet. The firm’s first fund is the New Protein Fund,... View Details

01 Jun 2008
News

Toy Story

In 2005, a year after the venerable toy retailer FAO Schwartz emerged from bankruptcy, Ed Schmults (MBA ’89) became its CEO. “The company was relying on its glorious past but was without a clear brand direction,” Schmults explained to the New York Times (March 9,... View Details

Keywords: toys; Retail Trade

26 Jul 2016
News

Alumni Capture the Essence of Pokemon GO Craze

The Pokemon GO craze swept across the HBS campus in the last few weeks and it’s also gotten the attention of HBS alumni around the world. Beyond sharing the fun of capturing the game’s many little monsters, alumni also are taking note of its rapid spread and... View Details

Keywords: Arts, Entertainment

01 Oct 2000
News

Laura Scher of Working Assets

Laura S. Scher (MBA '85) is something of a modern-day Robin Hood, an entrepreneurial activist who redistributes the wealth of the marketplace to those in need. Through her company, San Francisco based Working Assets Funding Service, this CEO and crusader for social... View Details

Keywords: Marguerite Rigoglioso

01 Sep 2013
News

The New Tech Meccas

When author and start-up vet Chris Schroeder (MBA 1992) attended a regional entrepreneurship conference in Dubai in 2010, the energy of the crowd was a revelation. "I could not get my head around the idea that this was coming from places like Mubarak's Egypt—places... View Details

Keywords: Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

01 Jan 2013
News

Five Receive 2013 HBS Alumni Achievement Award

Video Embed The mission of Harvard Business School is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. Every day more than 78,000 HBS graduates strive to make these words a reality in a wide array of organizations that affect the lives of millions of people... View Details

Keywords: awards; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices; Management; Finance; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services; Retail Trade

04 Feb 2011
News

Using Crowdcasting To Find Treatments

Keywords: crowdcasting; contests; Health, Social Assistance

27 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Gen AI Marketing: How Some 'Gibberish' Code Can Give Products an Edge

It’s the new way of comparison shopping in the age of large language models (LLM): Tapping into AI-driven search engines for research and advice on which products to buy. But can consumers trust the recommendations to be impartial? New research finds that companies can... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Technology

July 2023
Technical Note

Agricultural Innovation and Sustainability in the Netherlands

By: Willy C. Shih, Michael W. Toffel, Kelsey Carter, Jennifer Godfrey, Rafaella Mazza and Katrina Yeh

This note describes some of the most significant agricultural innovations in the Netherlands, their drivers, environmental performance implications, some challenges facing the sector, and the potential replicability of these innovations to other contexts. View Details

Keywords: Agricultural; Decarbonization; Farming; Agribusiness; Science; Research and Development; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Innovation and Invention; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Netherlands

August 2023
Article

Can Security Design Foster Household Risk-Taking?

By: Laurent Calvet, Claire Célérier, Paolo Sodini and Boris Vallée

This paper shows that securities with a non-linear payoff design can foster household risk-taking. We demonstrate this effect empirically by exploiting the introduction of capital guarantee products in Sweden from 2002 to 2007. The fast and broad adoption of these... View Details

Keywords: Financial Innovation; Household Finance; Structured Products; Stock Market Participation; Finance; Innovation and Invention; Household; Personal Finance; Risk and Uncertainty; Behavior; Market Participation

August 2019 (Revised April 2020)
Case

BlueVine Capital: Growth Factors

By: Marco Di Maggio and Nathaniel Schwalb

The start-up, BlueVine Capital Inc. (BlueVine), used data and technology to help finance small businesses via factoring and lines of credit. The case explains the small business financing market in mid-2010s, how CEO Eyal Lifshitz identified the opportunity for... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Business Startups; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Innovation Leadership; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry