Publications

September 2004 (Revised September 2006)
Case

Harley-Davidson, Inc.: Motorcycle Manufacturer or Financing Company?

Harley-Davidson manufactures and sells motorcycles. It also provides financing for retail purchases and dealer stock. Although Harley's performance has been very strong, analysts and the press have questioned its use of a special-purpose entity to sell securities... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business or Company Management; Corporate Disclosure; Financial Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Financial Services Industry; Motorcycle Industry; Retail Industry

26 Jun 2000
Research & Ideas

What’s an Internet Business Model? Ask a Health Care Professional

Though the Internet has woven itself into most aspects of life, few fields have adopted it more actively, and at times controversially, than health care. What new business models in health care, based on the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

05 Mar 2007
Research & Ideas

Risky Business? Protecting Foreign Investments

resulting contract disputes were not supposed to happen. The 1980s saw the growth of protections for foreign investors. Official insurance agencies, such as the U.S.'s OPIC, provided political risk coverage that would View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Energy; Utilities

Forthcoming
Article

FinTech Lending and Cashless Payments

By: Pulak Ghosh, Boris Vallée and Yao Zeng

Borrower's use of cashless payments both improves their access to capital from FinTech lenders and predicts a lower probability of default. These relationships are stronger for cashless technologies providing more precise information, and for outflows. Cashless payment... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Lending; Payments; Data Sharing; Financing and Loans; Information Technology; Banks and Banking; Business Model

19 Apr 2019
Blog Post

Instagram Takeover - The MBA Oath

The MBA Oath is a voluntary pledge MBAs take to create value in the business world responsibly and ethically. Founded at HBS in 2009, it was modeled after the Hippocratic Oath in medicine to "do no harm". In this instagram... View Details

Web

How to Apply | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

questions or concerns regarding the materials needed to meet a deadline should contact the Social Enterprise Initiative (se@hbs.edu) in advance of the deadline. Please note: It can take 6 weeks or more from the date you submit your... View Details

April 1999 (Revised August 2004)
Case

Women's Professional Basketball and the American Basketball League

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Natalie Zakarian

Chronicles the growth and development of women's professional basketball. Particular emphasis is on the impact of Title IX, the 1996 women's gold medal Olympic team, and the advent of the American Basketball League (ABL). The structure and "basic business model" of the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Problems and Challenges; Sports; Gender; Planning; Growth and Development; Sports Industry

Find at Harvard

17 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 17

and Matthew C. Weinzierl Abstract This paper examines the optimal response of monetary and fiscal policy to a decline in aggregate demand. The theoretical framework is a two-period general equilibrium model... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

28 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 28

field and the central research questions that it sought to answer. However, the commitment to engage with the complexities of business and the disinclination to rely on models with simplistic assumptions... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 1988 (Revised November 1996)
Case

Roy Rogers Restaurants

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

Roy Rogers Restaurants is a subsidiary of Marriott Corp. which sells franchises to own and operate standardized fast food restaurants. Many franchise owners operate more than one restaurant. One of these, presently operating 16 restaurants and committed to develop 30... View Details

Keywords: Franchise Ownership; Business Model; Cost Management; Quality; Transformation; Food and Beverage Industry

20 Jan 2015
First Look

First Look: January 20

of AUGMENT and the impact the underlying technology could have on millions of infertility cases around the world. How fast might Dipp and her team grow OvaScience? Would they have the resources? Dipp... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 13, 2022
Article

6 Ways Companies Fail to Help Workers Grow

By: Joseph Fuller, Matthew Sigelman and Nik Dawson

The authors recently studied Fortune 250 companies and ranked them based on the lived experience of three million of their U.S. workers. One of their key findings was that even top-ranked firms fail to deliver consistently on worker advancement. To understand why this... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Training; Business Model; Outcome or Result; Performance Evaluation; Opportunities

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July 2018 (Revised January 2021)
Case

RunKeeper

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

The case examines the focus of an early stage company and how venture capital can distort a founder’s view. It encompasses issues such as financing, understanding the founders’ definition of success/failure, defining and pivoting a business model, and determining the... View Details

Keywords: Early Stage Funding; Pivot; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Model; Health Industry

March 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

The Guardian: Transition to the Online World

By: David J. Collis, Peter W. Olson and Mary Furey

The Guardian had been an early innovator in online newspapers and had not only become the leading U.K. newspaper web site, but was making strides with audiences outside of the U.K. However, The Guardian had been losing money since 2000, and, in spite of the relative... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Revenue; Newspapers; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Strategy; Online Technology; Journalism and News Industry; Publishing Industry; United Kingdom