Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,240)
- Faculty Publications (472)
- May 2024
- Case
Naked Wines: The Profit vs. Growth Decision
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer
Nick Devlin faced a difficult strategic decision in October 2022. As the CEO of a UK-based subscription business connecting wine drinkers in the US, UK, and Australia with winemakers from around the world (which one journalist called the “Netflix of Wine”), he had to... View Details
Keywords: Profit Vs. Growth; Platform Business; Economies Of Scale; Subscription Business; Wine; Scaling; Racing; Value Creation; Network Effects; Business Startups; Small Business; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Growth Management; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Profit; E-commerce; Growth and Development Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Australia; United Kingdom
- 2024
- Working Paper
Private Equity and Digital Transformation
By: Brian K. Baik, Wilbur Chen and Suraj Srinivasan
We study the role which private equity (PE) plays in digital transformation. We find that PE investment is associated with greater investments into portfolio firm’s digital technologies, as measured by IT expenditures and the hiring demand for AI skills. This... View Details
- April 2024
- Case
Michelin in Motion: Putting Purpose to Work
By: Hubert Joly, Nitin Nohria and Emilie Billaud
When he became CEO, facing limited growth prospects, a low valuation, and therefore a stagnating share price, Menegaux and his team launched a set of initiatives to reposition Michelin. These included (1) articulating a clear purpose (“We care about giving people a... View Details
Keywords: Transformation; Talent and Talent Management; Innovation Strategy; Leading Change; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Identity; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Value Creation; Mission and Purpose; Valuation; Manufacturing Industry; Rubber Industry; Transportation Industry; Europe; France
- April 2024 (Revised February 2025)
- Teaching Note
eBee: Affordable Mobility for Africa
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Gamze Yucaoglu and Jordan Mitchell
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 724-360.The case opens in March 2023, as Sten van der Ham and Jaap Maljers, CEO and co-founder of eBee, an electric bike (e-bike) company in Africa, are contemplating the different avenues for growth and path to profitability for the... View Details
- March 2024
- Case
Negotiating the Gift of Life (A)
By: Alex Chan
Describes a negotiation where lives are truly at stake, where key lessons on persuasion and the role that identity might play in a negotiation are on display through an effort by a frontline negotiator from OneLegacy, the US's largest organ procurement organization. As... View Details
Keywords: Economics; Negotiation; Communication; Diversity; Nonprofit Organizations; Emotions; Health Industry
- March 2024
- Supplement
Negotiating the Gift of Life (B)
By: Alex Chan
Describes a negotiation where lives are truly at stake, where key lessons on persuasion and the role that identity might play in a negotiation are on display through an effort by a frontline negotiator from OneLegacy, the US's largest organ procurement organization. As... View Details
- March 2024
- Case
From 'BIG' Ideas to Sustainable Impact at ICL Group (A)
By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag
In the summer of 2023, Eduard (“Eddie”) Croitoru, Vice President (VP) of ICL Group (“ICL”) Corporate Initiatives, was reflecting on ICL’s internal ideation program, the Business Innovation for Growth (BIG) Accelerator. When Raviv Zoller became the CEO of ICL in 2018,... View Details
Keywords: Change Management; Agribusiness; Accounting; Communication; Renewable Energy; Chemicals; Machinery and Machining; Metals and Minerals; Mining; Social Entrepreneurship; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Values and Beliefs; Environmental Sustainability; Natural Resources; Globalization; Information Technology; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Personal Development and Career; Talent and Talent Management; Manufacturing Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Chemical Industry; Israel; China; United States
- 2021
- Working Paper
Quantifying the Value of Iterative Experimentation
By: Iavor I Bojinov and Jialiang Mao
Over the past decade, most technology companies and a growing number of conventional firms have adopted online experimentation (or A/B testing) into their product development process. Initially, A/B testing was deployed as a static procedure in which an experiment was... View Details
- February 2024
- Case
Oak Street Health: From Start-up to Strategic Acquisition
By: Leemore S. Dafny and Thomas H. Lee
Oak Street Health opened its first primary care center for seniors in underserved communities in 2013. By 2022 the company had 169 centers and a market valuation exceeding $10 billion. Oak Street created value by accepting risk-adjusted, capitated payments for Medicare... View Details
- February 21, 2024
- Article
The NFT Staircase: How Digital Ownership Benefits Brands and Consumers
By: Scott Duke Kominers and Steve Kaczynski
One of our goals with our new book, The Everything Token: How NFTs and Web3 Will Transform the Way We Buy, Sell, and Create, is to unlock the power of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, for business. National and international brands are already using NFTs in some of... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised April 2024)
- Teaching Note
Somatus: Value-Based Kidney Care (A) & (B)
By: Ariel D. Stern, Robert S. Huckman and Sarah Mehta
This teaching note accompanies case no. 622-009 and 622-045 (Somatus: Value-Based Kidney Care, A and B). View Details
- January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Pioneer Natural Resources: Enhancing the Capital Return Strategy with Variable Dividends
In February 2021, Scott Sheffield, the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources (an independent oil and gas company based in Texas), was considering the possibility of enhancing the firm’s capital return strategy by introducing a variable dividend tied to cash flows in... View Details
- December 2023 (Revised November 2024)
- Case
Generative AI and the Future of Work
By: Christopher Stanton, Matt Higgins, Shira Aronson and Meg Shriber
Generative AI seemed poised to reshape the world of work, including the higher-wage, white-collar jobs typically pursued by MBA graduates. Informed by the latest research, this case explores generative AI's potential impacts on work, productivity, value creation, and... View Details
- December 22, 2023
- Article
How NFTs Will Make a Comeback in 2024
By: Scott Duke Kominers and Steve Kaczynski
NFTs are poised to be a major driver of Web3 adoption in 2024 – but the successful projects will look very different from what’s come before. View Details
- 2023
- Book
Beyond AI: ChatGPT, Web3, and the Business Landscape of Tomorrow
By: Ken Huang, Yang Wang, Feng Zhu, Xi Chen and Chunxiao Xing
This book explores the transformative potential of ChatGPT, Web3, and their impact on productivity and various industries. It delves into Generative AI (GenAI) and its representative platform ChatGPT, their synergy with Web3, and how they can revolutionize business... View Details
- 2023
- Chapter
The Platform Organization
By: Annabelle Gawer, Michael A. Cusumano and David B. Yoffie
The industry platform is a distinct organizational form that has grown into importance over the past 20 years. We focus on the digital platform, which, along with its associated ecosystem, is uniquely positioned to create and capture value in the digital economy. View Details
- November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Infarm: Betting the (Indoor) Farm on Food Security
By: Elie Ofek
In the summer of 2023, the co-founders of Infarm, a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company, were contemplating a major pivot going forward. While Infarm had successfully shown it could grow over 75 products—mainly herbs, leafy greens and mushrooms—in modular... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Coordinated R&D Programs and the Creation of New Industries
By: Daniel P. Gross and Maria P. Roche
Complex systems technologies—including “deep tech”—are prone to numerous frictions that stymie commercial development. Yet technologies with these features underpin some of the most valuable industries of the past century. We examine how large, mission-oriented... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Bringing Science to Market: Knowledge Foundations, Inventor-Founders, and Performance
By: Justine Boudou and Maria Roche
In this paper, we examine how a startup’s knowledge foundations—embedded in its
core technology—influence its performance in the exit market. Using a dataset of 1,006
biomedicine startups founded between 2005 and 2015, we focus on two key factors: (1)
the degree of... View Details
- September 2023
- Teaching Note
Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'
By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 323-057. Patagonia’s change of ownership from a privately held company to a perpetual purpose trust and 501(c)(4) nonprofit in order to use the company’s profit to fight the environmental crisis and be a model for future businesses. View Details
Keywords: Trusts; Business Ventures; Business Organization; Family Business; Restructuring; Change; Disruption; Transition; Decision Making; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Finance; Financial Management; Governance; Corporate Governance; Investment Activism; Innovation Leadership; Labor; Law; Common Law; Management; Goals and Objectives; Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Ownership; Ownership Type; Family Ownership; Private Ownership; Social Enterprise; Nonprofit Organizations; Society; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Value; Value Creation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States