Publications

May 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

Cotopaxi: Managing Growth for Good

By: Andy Wu and Laura Huang

Cotopaxi, an innovative outdoor gear business targeting millennials, focuses on profit and social impact. This registered benefit corporation was formed by Davis Smith who coalesced his experiences as a Wharton MBA student along with professional knowledge from an... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Social Venture; Benefit Corporation; B-Corp; Retail; Consumer Products; Apparel; Social Impact; Social Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Product Positioning; Social Enterprise; Mission and Purpose; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry

March, 2023
Article

Academic Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial Advisors and Their Advisees' Outcomes

By: Maria P. Roche

The transfer of complex knowledge and skills is difficult, often requiring intensive interaction and extensive periods of co-working between a mentor and mentee, which is particularly true in apprenticeship-like settings and on-the-job training. This paper studies a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Higher Education; Training; Personal Development and Career; Knowledge Dissemination

December 2022 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Akooda: Charging Toward Operational Intelligence

By: Christopher Stanton and Mel Martin

The Akooda case describes the challenges confronting founder and CEO Yuval Gonczarowski (MBA ‘17) in 2022 as he attempts to boost sales. Launched in November 2020, Akooda was an AI company that mined 20 different sources of digital data, from tools like Slack, Google... View Details

Keywords: Data Mining; Productivity; Monitoring; Data Analysis; AI and Machine Learning; Knowledge Management; Operations; Problems and Challenges; Employee Relationship Management; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Information Industry; Boston; Israel

2017
Other Teaching and Training Material

Financial Accounting Reading: Fair Value Measurement in Accounting

By: David F. Hawkins

The objective of this reading is to enhance student understanding of the concept of fair value as used in accounting. It is not intended to expand a student's knowledge of specific accounting applications of fair value at the transaction level. This Reading includes an... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Fair Value Accounting

2017
Other Teaching and Training Material

Organizational Behavior Reading: Leading Organizational Change

By: Ryan Raffaelli

This reading combines conceptual frameworks and research-based knowledge to provide practical guidance about how to lead organization change. The essential reading outlines key choices leaders must make when managing a change and the common traps that can cause a... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management

29 Dec 2014
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles and Research Papers of 2014

2014 is simple but powerful—maybe the best way to improve your work performance is to devote time to reflecting on your actions. Now is also your chance to tell Working Knowledge readers in more than 200 countries around the world what... View Details

2004
Chapter

Building the Microeconomic Foundations of Prosperity: Findings from the Business Competitiveness Index

By: Michael E. Porter

In The Global Competitiveness Report 2003-2004
Competitiveness has become a central preoccupation of both advanced and developing countries in an increasingly open and integrated world economy. Despite its acknowledged importance, the concept of competitiveness... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Growth and Development

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Research Summary

THEME #2: BUILDING CAPABILITIES THROUGH VARIATION

Prior work has yet to establish definitively the role that variation (e.g. in individuals' activities or organizational processes) plays in the development of capabilities. Variation is usually either not considered (e.g., the learning curve examines... View Details

2023
Working Paper

Networking Frictions: Evidence from Entrepreneurial Networking Events in Lomé

By: Stefan Dimitiadis and Rembrand Koning

Spatial proximity between firms plays a crucial role in entrepreneurship by creating knowledge spillovers, enabling resource sharing, and sparking productivity gains. Building on these insights, research has explored whether institutions and organizations can engineer... View Details

Keywords: Local Range; Knowledge Sharing; Performance Productivity; Togo

SSRN

11 May 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Targeting High Ability Entrepreneurs Using Community Information: Mechanism Design in the Field

Keywords: by Reshmaan Hussam, Natalia Rigol, and Benjamin N. Roth

10 Apr 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Trade Secrets Protection and Antitakeover Provisions

Keywords: by Aiyesha Dey and Joshua White

28 Sep 2010
First Look

First Look: September 28, 2010

individuals and groups in organizations. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-024.pdf Using What We Know: Turning Organizational Knowledge into Team Performance Authors:Bradley R. Staats, Melissa A. Valentine, and Amy C.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Management Accounting and Control: Lessons for and from the World's Tiniest Businesses

By: Srikant M. Datar, Marc J. Epstein and Kristi Yuthas

The article discusses skills microentrepreneurs need to manage and expand their businesses. After interviewing hundreds of microfinance clients around the globe, the authors were able to identify five tools drawn from management accounting where improved knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Governance Controls; Expansion; Business or Company Management; Microfinance; Cost Management; Risk Management; Budgets and Budgeting; Accounting; Opportunities

Find at Harvard

11 May 2009
Research & Ideas

The IT Leader’s Hero Quest

with a diverse set of companies. "In this way, we could pool all this knowledge and distill it down to the essential principles that CIOs can generally apply, regardless of industry or size of firm, while describing 'realistic' and... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2012
Book

Judgment Calls: Twelve Stories of Big Decisions and the Teams That Got Them Right

By: Thomas H. Davenport and Brook Manville

This book includes twelve detailed stories of organizations that have successfully tapped their data assets, diverse perspectives, and deep knowledge to build an organizational decision-making capability. The book introduces a model that utilizes the collective... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Judgment; Decision-making; Decisions; Organizational Structure; Business Processes

March 2004 (Revised February 2006)
Case

Salt Lake Organizing Committee, The: 2002 Olympics

By: H. Kent Bowen, Bryce LaPierre and Courtney Purrington

After two and a half years of effort, Fraser Bullock, COO of the 2002 Winter Olympics, faced projected deficits and post-9/11 security requirements only five months before the opening ceremony. Summarizes the organizational structure and processes put in place by... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Knowledge Dissemination; Business or Company Management; Managerial Roles; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Planning; Practice; Risk and Uncertainty; Safety; Sports; System

25 Jun 2001
Lessons from the Classroom

Machiavelli, Morals, and You

Stevens — we never learn his first name—set out early in life to become a great butler, one of the very best. He didn't want to get rich at it. He didn't care for fancy clothes. What Stevens wanted more than anything, according to HBS professor Joseph L. Badaracco,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2015
Published Proceedings

Academic Engagement in Public and Political Discourse: Proceedings of the Michigan Meeting, May 2015

By: Andrew J. Hoffman, Kirsti Ashworth, Chase Dwelle, Peter Goldberg, Andrew Henderson, Louis Merlin, Yulia Muzyrya, Norma-Jean Simon, Veronica Taylor, Corinne Weisheit and Sarah Wilson

What is the role of the academic scholar within the discussions of the global challenges that are relevant to society, such as sustainability, health care, gun control, fiscal policy, and international affairs? How do scholars engage in a world in which knowledge is... View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Social Issues; Knowledge Sharing; Communication Strategy

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July 2018
Article

Does Copyright Affect Reuse? Evidence from Google Books and Wikipedia

By: Abhishek Nagaraj

While digitization has greatly increased the reuse of knowledge, this study shows how these benefits might be mitigated by copyright restrictions. I use the digitization of in-copyright and out-of-copyright issues of Baseball Digest magazine by Google Books to... View Details

Keywords: Digitization; Economics Of Innovation; Wikipedia; Intellectual Property; Copyright