Publications

September 2003 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Charles River Partnership XI

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes a situation confronting the management of a highly successful venture capital firm in April 2002. The industry has changed materially since it raised a $1.2 billion dollar fund, and the partners must decide whether to scale back the size of the fund. View Details

Keywords: Management; Venture Capital; Partners and Partnerships

March 2020
Case

Maven Clinic: Women's Health in the Digital Age

By: Ariel D. Stern and Sarah Mehta

In late 2017, Kate Ryder, the founder and CEO of digital women’s health telemedicine company Maven Clinic, faced an important decision. Maven offered both a direct to consumer (D2C) product that anyone could use to book virtual appointments with health practitioners... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Strategy; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Health Industry; Technology Industry; United States

April 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

BlackRock (D): Organizing for the Future (with video links)

By: Ranjay Gulati, Jan W. Rivkin and Aldo Sesia

By the end of 2015, BlackRock had succeeded beyond any of the early dreams of its founders. The firm remained the world’s largest asset manager, with more than $4.6 trillion under management, and other financial services companies used BlackRock’s Aladdin platform to... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Competition; Information Technology; Asset Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; United States

25 Jan 2022
Cold Call Podcast

How Footwear Startup Allbirds is Decarbonizing Fashion

Keywords: Re: Michael W. Toffel

January–February 2019
Article

Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don't

By: Feng Zhu and Marco Iansiti

In the digital economy, scale is no guarantee of continued success. After all, the same factors that help an online platform expand quickly—such as the low cost of adding new customers—work for challengers too. What, then, allows platforms to fight off rivals and grow... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competition; Network Effects; Competitive Strategy

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April 2009
Case

Young Presidents' Organization

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, John D. Macomber and David Chen

The board of Young Presidents' Organization needs to decide on the future of its Networks Initiative, designed to connect its geographically dispersed membership base through 60 different interest-based networks. So far, one half of these networks have been considered... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizations; Social and Collaborative Networks

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September 2019
Case

Netflix: A Creative Approach to Culture and Agility

By: Ranjay Gulati, Allison Ciechanover and Jeff Huizinga

By 2018, Netflix had been credited for revolutionizing how viewers consumed entertainment—shifting from ad-fueled linear network programming to a highly personalized, on-demand, all-you-can-consume, ad-free model. The company was riding a long wave of revenue and... View Details

Keywords: Digital Technologies; Streaming; Video On Demand; International Expansion; Leadership; Information Technology; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Leadership Style; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Entertainment; Media; Change Management; Expansion; Technology Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States

20 May 2014
News

Collective Genius

04 Feb 2020
Video

Francis Okomo-Okello

Francis Okomo-Okello, Chair of the leading Kenyan luxury hotel group Serena and of the subsidiary of a major foreign bank, discusses the need for regional integration in Africa as it would create larger markets... View Details

26 Sep 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Technological Leadership (de)Concentration: Causes in ICTE

Keywords: by Yasin Ozcan and Shane Greenstein; Telecommunications

Article

Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage

By: Robert D. Austin and Gary P. Pisano

Many people with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder and dyslexia have extraordinary skills, including those in pattern recognition, memory, and mathematics. Yet they often struggle to fit the profiles sought by employers. A growing number of... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Diversity; Competency and Skills

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30 Mar 2021
Working Paper Summaries

Whose Job Is It Anyway? Co-Ethnic Hiring in New US Ventures

Keywords: by Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr

17 Jan 2019
News

Caregiving Crisis

10 Jan 2022
Video

Professor Kash Rangan: Enlightening

2023
Working Paper

The Optimal Stock Valuation Ratio

By: Sebastian Hillenbrand and Odhrain McCarthy

Trailing price ratios, such as the price-dividend and the price-earnings ratio, scale prices by trailing cash flow measures. They theoretically contain expected returns, yet, their performance in predicting stock market returns is poor. This is because of an omitted... View Details

Keywords: Price; Investment Return; AI and Machine Learning; Valuation; Cash Flow; Forecasting and Prediction

SSRN

February 2013
Case

New Enterprise Associates

By: Felda Hardymon and Tom Nicholas

NEA was established in 1977 and it subsequently morphed into one of the largest venture capital firms in the world. Despite its size and significance, some other firms established during the same era such as Kleiner-Perkins and Sequoia (both were established in 1972),... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Venture Capital; Organizational Structure; Innovation and Invention; Financial Services Industry; United States

02 Oct 2015
News

The Harvard Contest That’s Trying to Improve Health Care Delivery

November 2015
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Beatriz Cardoso and Education in Brazil

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Daniella Suarez and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Beatriz Cardoso, founder of Laboratório de Educação (Education Laboratory) had a dream to propel Brazilian education. However challenges in fundraising made it difficult to scale up her project, based on helping adults help children improve their literacy skills. To... View Details