Publications

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September 1985
Background Note

Pre-Start Analysis: A Framework for Thinking About Business Ventures

By: Howard H. Stevenson and John R. Van Slyke

Describes the thought process an entrepreneur should undergo before committing to a course of action. Covers understanding the opportunity--assessing the critical skills, resources, relationships, and approvals--developing an action plan; forming a business entity;... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Framework; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Skills; Resource Allocation

September 2000 (Revised March 2006)
Case

ZOOTS--The Cleaner Cleaner

By: Myra M. Hart and Sharon Peyus

A successful entrepreneur (retailing) starts a new venture in dry cleaning. The case focuses on transferable models, skills, and knowledge from one venture to the next. Areas of emphasis are: managing growth, challenges of operations, financing, and competitive moves. View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Competitive Strategy; Operations; Knowledge Dissemination; Business Startups; Corporate Finance; Service Industry; Retail Industry

November 1997 (Revised May 2002)
Case

MicroAge, Inc.: Orchestrating the Information Technology Value Chain

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Kirk A. Goldman

MicroAge, Inc. started as a storefront in Tempe, AZ in 1976 selling personal computer kits to hobbyists. During their first year of operation, founders Jeff McKeever and Alan Hald sold $1.5 million worth of computer kits, priced at under $1,000 each. Twenty years... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Growth Management; Risk Management; Product; Opportunities; Horizontal Integration; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Technology Industry; Arizona

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17 Nov 2015
Lessons from the Classroom

How Activist Investors Became Respectable

online well before any regulatory filing disclosed his holdings in the company. These tactics may have been designed for drama, but the investment strategy and its scale are nothing unusual today. Activist... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph Fuller; Financial Services; Banking

11 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 11

ambitious 20-year growth plan to transform her family's one-branch community bank into an institution with a substantial presence in southeastern Alabama. Harris Johnson was pleased, so far, with the results. Strategically they had... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

11 Dec 2012
First Look

First Look: Dec. 11

and Efficiency in the Market for IP Addresses Authors:Edelman, Benjamin, and Michael Schwarz Abstract We consider market rules for the transfer of IP addresses, numeric identifiers required by all computers... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2021 (Revised November 2021)
Case

Equity Bank: Charting the Future

By: Lauren Cohen, Michael Chitavi and Spencer C. N. Hagist

After climbing the ranks among Kenya's financial institutions from 66th to 1st, and toppling a quarter of the market share held by mobile money giant Safaricom, CEO James Mwangi must now guide Equity Bank into its next stage of development beyond "Equity 3.0." Should... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Leadership; Decision Making; Market Entry and Exit; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Institutions; Economics; Kenya

May 2008 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Intel NBI: MXP Digital Media Processor

By: Willy C. Shih and Thomas Thurston

"Gila" was a high-performance image processor project housed in Intel's New Business Initiatives (NBI) group. NBI was an incubator for corporate entrepreneurs, and it had an established methodology for ensuring a degree of autonomy while these ventures got started. But... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Change Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Integration; Semiconductor Industry; United States

26 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

The Power of the Noncompete Clause

Marx—who holds six patents—spent ten years as an inventor and executive in the field of speech recognition. In this e-mail interview, he discusses the impact of noncompetes for inventors View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

24 Jul 2007
First Look

First Look: July 24, 2007

particular, the ability to collaborate with partners to achieve superior innovation performance. Yet despite this need, there is little guidance on how to develop or deploy this ability. This article describes the results of a study to understand the View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

September 2010 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Sherritt Goes to Cuba (A): Political Risk in Unchartered Territory

By: Aldo Musacchio and Jonathan Schlefer

Ian Delaney, CEO of Sherritt, a primarily a mining company, visited Cuba in the early 1990s to negotiate a deal to export nickel for their Canadian refineries. The case describes the difficulties of doing business in Cuba and the challenges Delaney overcame to turn... View Details

Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Joint Ventures; Multinational Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk Management; Emerging Markets; Business and Government Relations; Mining Industry; Canada; Cuba; United States

06 Feb 2007
First Look

First Look: February 6, 2007

thinking. How Managers' Everyday Decisions Create—or Destroy—Your Company's Strategy Authors:Joseph L. Bower and Clark Gilbert Periodical:Harvard Business Review 85, no. 2 (February 2007) Abstract Senior... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

05 Jun 2012
First Look

First Look: June 5

ability of a firm to transfer its capabilities across markets: no learning, local learning, and global learning. Three equilibrium strategies arise: accommodate, marginalize, View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 5, 2007

Indian scientists to U.S. technology formation increased dramatically in the 1990s, before noticeably leveling off after 2000 and declining in the case of India. Growth in ethnic innovation is concentrated... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Person Page

Media

This lists media reports covering my firm dollarDEX Investments or me (or my colleagues), or columns written by me (or my colleagues). There are all... View Details

January 2002
Case

Global Business Council on HIV/AIDS on World AIDS Day 2001, The

Explores the motivation for businesses to be concerned with the global AIDS epidemic. The formation of the council serves as an example of how business leaders are building a network of companies to develop an effective business response to AIDS-both through workforce... View Details

Keywords: Health; Social Issues; Global Strategy; Business and Community Relations; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Health Industry

08 Oct 2019
Blog Post

Balancing Act: Kate Eberle Walker’s Action Plan for C-suite Diversity

career—until, that is, she took a job as senior vice president for strategy and corporate development at Tutor.com under the leadership of CEO Mandy Ginsberg. “I watched her do her work View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship

26 Feb 2018
Research & Ideas

The Airbnb Effect: Cheaper Rooms for Travelers, Less Revenue for Hotels

lobbying efforts in local and federal circles for stricter regulations governing Airbnb. The study focused on data from 2014, and the impact on hotels could be even greater today given Airbnb's strong View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Travel

March 2011 (Revised October 2011)
Case

If We Ran the World

By: Hanna Halaburda, Radka Dohnalova and Aldo Sesia

Cindy Gallop launched IfWeRanTheWorld (IWRTW) in February 2010, as what the tech world called minimum viable product, in order to real-world test Gallop's "business of the future" concept while development was ongoing. IWRTW was conceived to bring together human good... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Outcome or Result; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Network Effects