Publications

April 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Governing Sustainability in a Shifting Context (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

In early 2025, boards of directors had to rethink corporate responsibility and sustainability efforts amid rapidly-shifting social, legal, regulatory, and economic forces. While just a few years earlier, calls to address racial justice and climate change reached into... View Details

October 2015 (Revised September 2016)
Technical Note

Flight: Now without Humans Aboard

By: Mitchell Weiss, Karim Lakhani, HT Kung and Kerry Herman

This note provides an overview of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) industry in September 2015. UAVs offered many potential applications in industries as diverse as aerial imaging and photography, agriculture, construction, infrastructure inspection and... View Details

Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Drones; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Product Design; Research and Development; Technological Innovation; Rights; Ethics; Strategy; Transportation Networks; Market Entry and Exit; Innovation and Management; European Union; Asia; United States

July 2019 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Backstage at Boston Ballet

By: David G. Fubini, Ryan Raffaelli, Begum Agca Okutgen and Julia Kelley

This case asks students to consider how to prioritize goals when placed in a new leadership role. In August 2014, Meredith “Max” Hodges became the youngest Executive Director (ED) in the Boston Ballet’s 51-year history. In her first year, she was able to claim several... View Details

13 Jan 2009
First Look

First Look: January 13, 2009

Working PapersCPC/CPA Hybrid Bidding in a Second Price Auction Authors:Benjamin Edelman and Hoan Soo Lee Abstract We develop a model of online advertising in which each advertiser chooses from multiple... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Apr 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 10, 2018

Has Entered the Mainstream By: Chatterji, Aaron K., and Michael W. Toffel Abstract—Leaders in all sectors, from business to sports to education, are increasingly wading into controversial political and social issues. Based on interviews... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 17

of intermediaries create safe "money-like" claims, they go about this in different ways. Traditional banks create money-like claims by holding illiquid fixed-income assets to maturity, and they rely View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

07 May 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Online Retailers Should Hide Their Best Discounts

On the most basic level, if retailers are losing money because they are competing in price wars, they are more likely to go out of business, decreasing the variety View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail

21 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

HBS Faculty Debate Financial Reform Legislation

their perspectives on the bill and its key provisions. Their opinions range from calling it a major step forward to concern that it will actually raise the risk to the system. Robert Steven Kaplan, Professor View Details

Keywords: by Staff

17 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 17

Working PapersThe First Deal: The Division of Founder Equity in New Ventures Authors:Thomas F. Hellmann and Noam Wasserman Abstract This paper examines the division of founder shares in entrepreneurial... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

24 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 24

to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

January 1985 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Turner Construction Co.

By: Frank V. Cespedes

In June, 1984, a vice president at Turner Construction Co. must decide whether to approve a construction project being considered by one of Turner's territorial offices and how to manage that territory general manager's apparent reluctance to pursue another account... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Projects; Market Entry and Exit; Integration; Contracts; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Business or Company Management; Business Offices; Geographic Location; Construction Industry

09 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 9

Working PapersSocial Influence Given (Partially) Deliberate Matching: Career Imprints in the Creation of Academic Entrepreneurs Authors:Pierre Azoulay, Christopher C. Liu, and Toby E. Stuart Abstract Actors often match with associates... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October 2021
Case

Unshrinking the Pie: Desirée Stolar's Negotiation Saga (A)

By: James K. Sebenius and Alex Green

When Desirée (“Des”) Stolar’s wool sweater shrank two sizes, the Harvard Business School student worked with classmates to develop a solution that both fixed her problem and launched Unshrinkit, a successful consumer goods company with a widely-available product for... View Details

Keywords: Bargaining; Startups; Negotiation; Contracts; Negotiation Tactics; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Strategy; Consumer Products Industry