Publications

November 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

CMR Enterprises

By: Das Narayandas and Mary N. Caravella

Sam Marcus recently purchased a small cabinet-making company, and is looking for dramatic growth. The company competes in commercial and residential construction markets; shortly after the acquisition, the company gains a large new residential customer. The case traces... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Customer Relationship Management; Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Marketing Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Relationships; Segmentation; Construction Industry

23 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

Strategy for Small Fish

The art of business today seems to be the ability to influence resources your company doesn't own—resources such as the production scheduling of manufacturing partners, the packaging requirements of distribution partners, and the... View Details

Keywords: by Marco Iansiti & Roy Levien

31 Oct 2017
News

Predictions for the Future of Small Business Lending and Fintech

July 16, 2015
Article

How Small Businesses Can Fend Off Hackers

By: Lou Shipley

If you wanted to hack a business, which one would you pick: A Fortune 500 company with a large digital-security budget and a team dedicated to protecting its cyberassets? Or a small enterprise that doesn’t employ a single IT security specialist? Security breaches at... View Details

Keywords: Hack; Data Security; Small Business; Analytics and Data Science; Safety; Information Technology; Cybersecurity

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August 2019 (Revised July 2023)
Course Overview Note

Demystifying the Family Enterprise

By: Christina R. Wing and Madeline Keulen

90% of the GDP in the world is created through family-owned businesses. Family businesses are frequently thought to be exclusively mom-and-pop, small businesses. Most fail to realize that Walmart, Fidelity, Cargill, Koch Industries, and Ford, to name a few, are all... View Details

Keywords: Family Office; Family Business; Family Ownership

December 2012 (Revised May 2014)
Case

Hotel Ivory

By: Arthur I Segel, Nicolas P. Retsinas and Jonathan Lo

Cheick Sanankoua is an MBA student who believes that he has found the perfect investment property, a small, independently owned hotel, on the Ivory Coast. However, he has had trouble raising money for the investment beyond friends and family. Through contacts in the... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Emergent Countries; Investing; Entrepreneurial Finance; Debts; Cash Flow; Quantitative Analysis; Financing; Development Stage Enterprises; Small ＆ Medium-sized Enterprises; Africa; Ivory Coast; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Property; Investment; Accommodations Industry; Real Estate Industry; Africa

Web

Social Enterprise & Nonprofits Programs

December 2001 (Revised June 2002)
Case

Monsanto: Technology Cooperation and Small Holder Farmer Projects

By: James E. Austin, Diana Barrett and Stephanie Oestreich

As the leading plant technology company in the global food system, how can Monsanto share this technology with small-sale producers and not-for-profit researchers and institutions? View Details

Keywords: Food; Globalized Markets and Industries; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Nonprofit Organizations; Society; Technology; Biotechnology Industry

01 Feb 2012
What Do You Think?

Is Support for Small Business Misplaced?

small business. (Because of outsourcing) It is big networks made up of small partners. And the way to make this type of enterprise thrive does... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

03 Apr 2019
Book

Fintech's Game-Changing Opportunities for Small Business

will dramatically change the options for small businesses.” Her new book, Fintech, Small Business, & the American Dream: How Technology is Transforming Lending and Shaping... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Banking; Financial Services

15 Sep 2008
Research & Ideas

The Coming Transformation of Social Enterprise

Professor Kash Rangan is one of the pioneers of Harvard Business School's Social Enterprise Initiative, now 15 years old. Back in 1993, most people took a "spray and pray" approach to... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

GUINNANE, T.; MARTÍNEZ-RODRÍGUEZ, S. (2018) “Choice of Enterprise Form: Spain, 1886-1936.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 34(1), 1-26.

Every new firm selects a legal form. Organizing as a corporation, a limited company, or a partnership shapes the firm’s access to capital markets, its governance arrangements and tax liabilities, and its treatment in bankruptcy. We use multinomial choice models... View Details

20 Mar 2019
Working Paper Summaries

In the Shadows? Informal Enterprise in Non-Democracies

Keywords: by Kristin Fabbe, Allison Spencer Hartnett, and Steve L. Monroe

March 2022
Case

The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program: 2009-2021

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Julia Kelley

In December 2021, more than a decade after its founding, Goldman Sachs’s 10,000 Small Businesses program was still going strong — and the firm now needed to evaluate potential program modifications to reach a wider group of small business owners. Launched in the... View Details

Web

Social Enterprise - Faculty & Research

Social Enterprise Social Enterprise April 2013 Article Who Is Governing Whom? Executives, Governance, and the Structure of Generosity in Large U.S. Firms By: Christopher... View Details

22 Feb 2022
News

An Rx for Small Business Recovery

COVID-19’s impact on the sector makes 2009 look like a teeny blip.” There are over 30 million small businesses in the United States, accounting for half of the nation’s private sector employment and the... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg

29 Jul 2020

Industry Spotlight Series: Social Enterprise

Wonder what an MBA could do to help with your professional growth in the social enterprise sector? Hear from current students and alumni in the social enterprise industry as... View Details

November 2007 (Revised August 2014)
Case

D2Hawkeye: Growing the Medical IT Enterprise

By: Robert F. Higgins, Rosie O'Donnell, Sophie LaMontagne and Brent Kazan

In mid-March 2007, Chris Kryder sat in his office and thought about how to best finance his company's growth. Over the previous five years as founder and CEO of D2Hawkeye, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based healthcare analytics company, Kryder had grown the firm from a... View Details

Keywords: Strategy Development; Strategic Positioning; Strategic Vision; Venture Capital; Small Business; Investment; Growth Management; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financing and Loans; Business Startups; Financial Strategy; Business Strategy; Service Industry; Health Industry; Waltham

November 2018
Case

Attijariwafa Bank: Egypt Expansion

By: Victoria Ivashina and Alpana Thapar

This case follows Attijariwafa Bank, a leading Morocco-based commercial bank, giving insight into its risk management practices and its international expansion over time. In particular, the case focuses on its planned acquisition of Barclays Bank Egypt in 2017. At this... View Details

Keywords: Commercial Banking; Risk Management; Small And Medium Enterprises; Acquisitions; International Expansion; Emerging Markets; Africa; SMEs