Publications

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2025
Book

After the Idea: What It Really Takes to Create and Scale a Startup

By: Julia Austin

A lot of entrepreneurs are great at the idea part but do not anticipate the details required to actually run and scale a new venture. Drawing on my experience at renowned startups like Akamai Technologies, VMware, and DigitalOcean and the hundreds of founders and... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Plan; Growth and Development Strategy; Business or Company Management

TeachingInterests

Venture Capital and Private Equity (MBA)

By: Archie L. Jones

The growth of private equity internationally has been dramatic, to the point that the asset class has been both lauded as the savior and vilified as the cause of our current economic malaise. Over the past two decades, private equity- ranging from venture... View Details

Web

HBS - The year in Review

2022 Annual Report From The Dean Key Metrics Financials PDF Downloads The Year in Review After a tumultuous two years of figuring out how to adapt and thrive in the face of COVID-19, fiscal year 2022 brought a steady return to normalcy at Harvard View Details

June 2020 (Revised October 2020)
Case

What Went Wrong with Boeing's 737 Max?

By: William W. George and Amram Migdal

This case describes the development of the Boeing 737 Max airplane model and the events leading up to two tragic plane crashes, in which a total of 346 people died: the crash of Lion Air flight 610 on October 29, 2018, in Indonesia, and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Communication Intention and Meaning; Communication Strategy; Forms of Communication; Announcements; Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Globalization; Global Strategy; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Governance Controls; Human Resources; Resignation and Termination; Leadership; Leadership Style; Management; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Style; Management Systems; Risk Management; Time Management; Markets; Demand and Consumers; Digital Platforms; Supply and Industry; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Industry Structures; Operations; Product Development; Organizations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Outcome or Result; Failure; Success; Planning; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Relationships; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Safety; Strategy; Transportation; Air Transportation; Aerospace Industry; Air Transportation Industry; Africa; Ethiopia; Asia; Indonesia; North and Central America; United States; Seattle; Chicago

04 Mar 2014
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Innovation

"innovation is everyone's job." Dozens of faculty at Harvard Business School are focused on the subject of managing innovation. Some look at it by examining processes while others view through the lens of history. For example, Clay... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

01 Apr 2014
First Look

First Look: April 1

market, we induce a theoretical framework to explain how firms win the race to find a viable business model. As the new market emerged, high-performing firms enacted three strategies in sequence that helped... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

16 Feb 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Platform Competition Under Partial Belief Advantage

Keywords: by Hanna Halaburda & Yaron Yehezkel; Consumer Products

April 1986 (Revised May 1989)
Case

Alloy Rods Corp.

By: Frank V. Cespedes

In July of 1985 the managers of Alloy Rods (who recently purchased the company through a leveraged buyout arrangement) find that their chief competitor (a company more than 6 times as large as Alloy Rods) has introduced a new product clearly aimed at Alloy's most... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Business Strategy; Business or Company Management; Financial Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Product Development

February 2008 (Revised March 2011)
Case

Sandhar Technologies Group, Ltd.

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

Jayant Davar, CEO and founder of Sandhar Technologies Group, a privately held auto components maker in India, is trying to decide how best to grow the company. He recently took a $22 million investment from Actis Capital, a major emerging markets private equity firm,... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Business Growth and Maturation; Competitive Advantage; Entrepreneurship; Mergers and Acquisitions; Emerging Markets; Growth and Development Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; India

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July 1999 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Shanghai Volkswagen: Facing a New Era

Explores the development of the Chinese auto industry and of Shanghai Volkswagen (SVW), a successful joint venture in China. Established in 1984, SVW is a joint venture between Volkswagen of Germany and the Shanghai Automobile Industry Corp. (SAIC). One key element of... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Joint Ventures; Supply Chain; Auto Industry; Shanghai; Germany

January 2019
Case

Arrow Electronics—The Apollo Integration

By: Stephen P. Kaufman

Having already made 10 acquisitions of competitors in the last decade, the CEO and Senior Vice President of Arrow are evaluating the acquisition of another small competitor to boost sales, become #1 in a niche market segment, and achieve economies of scale. They are... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Integration; Valuation; Performance Evaluation; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Strategic Planning; Growth and Development Strategy; Electronics Industry; United States

April 2014
Case

Ford Motor Company: Blueprint for Mobility

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Marco Iansiti and Noah Fisher

Mark Fields, Ford Motor Company's COO, had to ensure the company's current business model of building cars and trucks remained strong, while concurrently navigating the company into the rapidly expanding industry of personal mobility. Personal mobility required new... View Details

Keywords: Automobiles; Automobile Manufacturing; Ford Motor Company; Mark Fields; Blueprint For Mobility; Dearborn; Michigan; Car Sharing; Parking; On-demand Ride Sharing; Strategy; Business Model; Auto Industry; Michigan; United States

10 May 2020
News

The Brilliant Success of Shackleton’s Failure

March 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Designing the Future of Work: Atlassian's Distributed Work Practices

By: Ashley Whillans and Gabriel Rondón Ichikawa

In early 2020, the software company Atlassian made a bold commitment: employees could work from anywhere—forever. While many tech peers reversed course on remote work, Atlassian worked to optimize their fully distributed model across 13 countries. This case follows... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Working Conditions; Management Practices and Processes; Product Development; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Employees; Technology Industry