Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(8,592)
- Faculty Publications (2,564)
- April 2021
- Case
Codecademy: Where to Next?
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Max Mailman and Sarah Ascherman
In March 2020, Zach Sims, co-founder and CEO of online education platform Codecademy, prepared for a meeting with his Chief of Staff Kunal Ahuja to discuss the company’s goals. Codecademy billed itself as the largest online resource for computer science literacy and... View Details
Keywords: Monetization Strategy; Business Model; Change Management; Venture Capital; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Teams; Marketing Channels; Product Marketing; Network Effects; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; United States
- Spring 2021
- Article
Corporate Resilience and Response During COVID-19
By: Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim and Hui (Stacie) Wang
The coronavirus pandemic caused a sharp market decline while raising heterogeneous responses across companies related to their employees, supply chain, and repurposing of operations to provide needed products and services. We study whether during the 2020 COVID-19... View Details
Keywords: ESG; COVID-19; Coronavirus; Crisis Response Plans; Crisis; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Ratings; Leadership & Corporate Accountability; Big Data; Machine Learning; Investor Behavior; Institutional Investors; Corporate Performance; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Human Capital; Supply Chain; Operations; Leadership; Corporate Accountability; Institutional Investing; Performance
- April 2021
- Article
Evaluating Firm-Level Expected-Return Proxies: Implications for Estimating Treatment Effects
By: Charles M.C. Lee, Eric C. So and Charles C.Y. Wang
We introduce a parsimonious framework for choosing among alternative expected-return proxies (ERPs) when estimating treatment effects. By comparing ERPs’ measurement-error variances in the cross section and in time series, we provide new evidence on the relative... View Details
- April–May 2021
- Article
Labor Mobility and Antitakeover Provisions
By: Aiyesha Dey and Joshua White
How do firms protect their human capital? We test whether firms facing an increased threat of being acquired strengthen their antitakeover provisions (ATPs) in order to bond with their employees. We use the adoption of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (IDD) by U.S.... View Details
- Article
Ten Year Sunset Rule for Healthcare Regulation Is a Nonstarter and Discouragement to Post-COVID-19 Investment
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Eugene Schneller
U.S. healthcare delivery has not benefitted from the same productivity growth as many other service industries, such as bricks and mortar retailing, a loss that has gravely diminished cost control and access. Regulatory capture, which creates barriers to venture... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Venture Capital's 'Me Too' Moment
By: Sophie Calder-Wang, Paul A. Gompers and Patrick Sweeney
In this paper, we document the historically low rate of hiring of women in the venture capital sector. We find that the high-profile Ellen Pao v. Kleiner Perkins gender discrimination trial had dramatic treatment effects. In difference-in-differences regressions, we... View Details
- March 2021
- Case
P.F. Chang's
By: Ashish Nanda, Nitin Nohria and Margaret Cross
Excited yet apprehensive after being named CEO of P.F. Chang’s beginning July 1st, 2020, Damola Adamolekun was well aware of the extraordinary challenges facing the firm. The closure of businesses deemed “nonessential” owing to the COVID-19 pandemic had devastated the... View Details
- March 2021 (Revised October 2021)
- Case
Aligning Mission and Margin at Southern Bancorp
By: Rebecca M. Henderson, Brian Trelstad and Eren Kuzucu
In October 2020, after spending almost a decade to turnaround Southern Bancorp, an Arkansan bank founded with the mission to provide financial services to rural, underserved communities, CEO Darrin Williams is wondering how Southern Bancorp should continue to grow.... View Details
- March 2021
- Case
CashDrop (A)
By: Rembrand Koning, Paul A. Gompers and Sarah Gulick
In July 2020, Ruben Flores-Martinez had launched a startup, CashDrop, which provided easy and cheap sales options for small businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic helped CashDrop quickly grow. Flores-Martinez, who had previously sought and been denied venture capital... View Details
- March 2021
- Supplement
CashDrop (B1)
By: Rembrand Koning, Paul A. Gompers and Sarah Gulick
After the events in CashDrop A, Flores-Martinez received two concrete offers from VC funds for his startup business, CashDrop. This case describes the tensions between the two funds: a traditional VC fund who would offer Flores-Martinez a prestigious platform, and a... View Details
- March 2021
- Supplement
CashDrop (B2)
By: Rembrand Koning, Paul A. Gompers and Sarah Gulick
After the events in CashDrop A, Jarrid Tingle and Henri Pierre-Jacques, the founders of Harlem Capital partners, worried that Ruben Flores-Martinez, CashDrop’s founder, would take another offer while he waited for them to officially make an offer. HCP traditionally... View Details
- March 2021 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Scale and Scope at Drake Real Estate Partners
By: Christina R. Wing and David Lane
Realizing in early 2021 that their pending real estate investment fund would likely be oversubscribed, Drake Real Estate Partners co-founders Nicolás Ibáñez and David Cotterman were considering how best to continue to diversify their investor base and how to optimize... View Details
- March 2021 (Revised August 2024)
- Case
Hotwire.com: Navigating Through Turbulence
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Manny de Zarraga and Eric Levine
On September 10, 2001, after speaking at an industry conference at New York’s World Trade Center, Hotwire co-founder Spencer Rascoff boarded a flight from Newark to San Francisco. After returning home, Rascoff awoke the next morning to a phone call informing him that... View Details
Keywords: September 11; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Disruption; Decisions; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Growth Management; Digital Platforms; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Air Transportation Industry; Tourism Industry; San Francisco
- March 2021
- Teaching Note
Capitalizing Development Costs at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Volkswagen
By: Paul M. Healy
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 121-018. View Details
- March 2021 (Revised February 2025)
- Teaching Note
Afterpay U.S.: The Omnichannel Dilemma
By: Antonio Moreno and Anibha Singh
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-086. In 2018, Nick Molnar, the founder of the Australia-based online payment service Afterpay began its expansion to the U.S. market. The service had gained a loyal following in Australia by enabling customers to pay for online... View Details
Keywords: Omnichannel Retail; Digital Marketing; Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Change Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Financing and Loans; Microfinance; Global Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Product Development; Supply Chain Management; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Networks; Network Effects; Internet and the Web; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Australia
- March 2021 (Revised November 2022)
- Case
Blue Meridian Partners (A): Scaling for Impact
In 2018, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation in a bold move transferred all its assets to a fund pooled with other General Partners and Limited Partners, called Blue Meridian Partners, to focus substantial long range investments in a few carefully chosen nonprofits.The... View Details
- March 2021 (Revised May 2021)
- Supplement
Blue Meridian Partners (B): Pivoting in a Crisis
The (B) case situated in 2020 describes the many quick decisions taken by the fund in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the calls for social justice, and raises the question of whether and how these decisions are aligned with the long range strategy of the fund. View Details
- March 2021
- Teaching Plan
The Black New Venture Competition
By: Karen G. Mills, Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Martin A. Sinozich and Gabriella Elanbeck
Black entrepreneurs encounter many unique obstacles when raising capital to start and grow a business, some stemming from deep systemic discrimination. During their second year at Harvard Business School (HBS), MBA students Kimberly Foster and Tyler Simpson decided to... View Details
Keywords: Analytics; Startup; Start-up; Startup Financing; Financing; Startups; Start-ups; Business And Community; Business And Society; Business Growth; Discrimination; Women; Women-owned Businesses; African Americans; African-american Entrepreneurs; African-american Investors; African-American Protagonist; African-American Women; Early Stage Funding; Early Stage; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Innovation Competitions; Entrepreneurial Financing; Business Plan; Business Startups; Diversity; Gender; Race; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Small Business; Leadership; Information Technology; Competition
- March 2021
- Case
Yale Investments Office: November 2020
By: Josh Lerner, Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
David Swensen and the Investments Office staff must decide whether to continue to allocate the bulk of the university's endowment to illiquid investments—hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, real estate, natural resources—given the impact of the COVID-19... View Details
Keywords: University Endowment; Asset Allocation; Real Estate; Equities; Fixed Income; COVID-19; Asset Management; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Natural Resources; Resource Allocation; Investment; Investment Portfolio; Health Pandemics; Financial Crisis; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry; Energy Industry; Connecticut
- March 2021 (Revised December 2023)
- Case
Capitalism and the Party-State: The People's Republic of China at 70
By: Meg Rithmire and Courtney Han
In 2019, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) turned seventy-years-old and became the longest active authoritarian regime in recent history. By then, China was the world’s second largest economy by GDP (after the United States), and a high-technology industrial... View Details