Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(8,244)
- Faculty Publications (2,177)
- August 2019
- Case
Subscription Lines Dilemma
By: Victoria Ivashina and Terrence Shu
This case follows a fictional managing partner of a private equity firm, as she contemplates whether to utilize subscription lines of credit in her firm’s funds. Subscription lines are revolving lines of credit secured by commitments from a fund’s investors. Private... View Details
- August 2019 (Revised April 2020)
- Case
Transforming Hindustan Unilever
By: Krishna G. Palepu and Rachna Tahilyani
In October 2013, when Sanjiv Mehta had taken over the reins of Unilever’s business in India and the larger South Asia region, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) had been going through a difficult time. Caught in the midst of a weakening economy, falling consumer spending, and... View Details
- July 2019
- Case
Bjarke Ingels Group
By: Boris Groysberg and Aldo Sesia
Danish-born Bjarke Ingels is regarded as a giant in the field of architecture. He started his firm—the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)—in 2005 in Copenhagen. Fourteen years later, the firm has additional offices in New York City, London, and Barcelona and employs over 500... View Details
Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Design; Growth Management; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Talent and Talent Management; Urban Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Construction Industry; Service Industry; Real Estate Industry; Denmark; Spain; United Kingdom; United States; New York (city, NY)
- July 2019
- Case
Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2019)
By: John Gourville
One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance,... View Details
- Article
People Make It So Hard to Ditch Plastic Straws
Rarely has a minor consumer product received more vilification than the plastic straw. As a symbol of human wastefulness and our careless disregard for the environment, straws are the near-perfect villain. You use a plastic straw once and toss it, but it stays with us... View Details
- Article
Frame Flexibility: The Role of Cognitive and Emotional Framing in Innovation Adoption by Incumbent Firms
By: Ryan Raffaelli, Mary Ann Glynn and Michael Tushman
Why do incumbent firms frequently reject nonincremental innovations? Beyond technical, structural, or economic factors, we propose an additional factor: the degree of the top management team's (TMT) frame flexibility, i.e., their capability to cognitively expand an... View Details
- July 2019
- Article
Market Reaction to Mandatory Nonfinancial Disclosure
By: Jody Grewal, Edward J. Riedl and George Serafeim
We examine the equity market reaction to events associated with the passage of a directive in the European Union (EU) mandating increased nonfinancial disclosure. These disclosures relate to firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and would be... View Details
Keywords: Nonfinancial Information; Nonfinancial Performance; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Investor Behavior; Disclosure; Disclosure Regulation; Regulation; Sustainability; Corporate Performance; Information; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Performance; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance; Outcome or Result
- June 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)
By: Tsedal Neeley, Paul Leonardi and Michael Norris
Eric Hawkins, director of engineering at AppFolio—a digital technology firm that offered cloud-based business software to small and medium sized companies—was shocked by an unusual request from his senior leadership team. Could Hawkins and one of his agile teams build... View Details
- June 18, 2019
- Article
Research: Investors Reward Companies That Talk Up Their Digital Initiatives
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Wilbur Chen
A study of how companies disclose their digital initiatives on earnings calls and written communications finds that more firms are using these technologies, that financial markets reward companies that disclose such initiatives, but that financial performance... View Details
- June 2019 (Revised November 2019)
- Technical Note
Sustaining Corporate Culture in a Growing Organization
By: Dennis Campbell and Tatiana Sandino
An organization’s culture can be a significant source of sustainable competitive advantage. For the organization, it can attract job candidates who fit and align employees working in different teams around common goals. For employees, a strong culture can generate... View Details
- May 2019 (Revised April 2021)
- Background Note
Managing Talent Pipelines in the Future of Work
By: William R. Kerr, Joseph B. Fuller, Manjari Raman and Carl Kreitzberg
In the face of a rapidly-changing economy, organizations that wish to compete in the future of work must develop strategies for acquiring, retaining, and developing talent for their organizations. This primer reviews the major trends shaping jobs, workplaces, and... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
The Gift of Global Talent: Innovation Policy and the Economy
By: William R. Kerr
Talent is the most precious resource for today’s knowledge-based economy, and a significant share of the U.S. skilled workforce in technology fields is foreign born. The United States has long held a leading position in attracting global talent, but the gap to other... View Details
- May–June 2019
- Article
Your Workforce Is More Adaptable Than You Think
By: Joseph B. Fuller, Manjari Raman, Judith K. Wallenstein and Alice de Chalendar
In 2018 the Project on Managing the Future of Work at HBS teamed up with the BCG Henderson Institute to survey 6,500 business leaders and 11,000 workers about the various forces reshaping the nature of work. The responses revealed a surprising gap: While the executives... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Bank Boards: What Has Changed Since the Financial Crisis?
By: Shiva Rajgopal, Suraj Srinivasan and Forester Wong
Several government-mandated committees investigating the financial crisis highlighted four key deficiencies in the composition of bank boards before the crisis: (i) group think among bank board members; (ii) absence of prior banking experience of board members; (iii)... View Details
- April 2019 (Revised July 2019)
- Case
Aperture Investors
By: Krishna G. Palepu, George Serafeim and David Lane
Aperture Investors is a startup investment firm that seeks to disrupt the asset management industry through competitive differentiation by charging investors primarily when its portfolio managers outperform the marketplace. Headed by Wall Street veteran Peter Kraus and... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Rehabilitating Corporate Purpose
In this paper, I address how the ascendance of the theory of shareholder value maximization into the central consciousness of public corporations and its canonization as the only legitimate expression of corporate purpose has contributed to both a widening breach... View Details
- April 2019
- Case
Afterpay U.S.: The Omnichannel Dilemma
By: Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and George Gonzalez
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 purchases through four interest-free... View Details
Keywords: Omnichannel Retail; Multi-sided Platforms; Value Creation; Business Model Innovation; Fintech; Digital Marketing; Disruptive Innovation; 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 Channels; Brands and Branding; 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; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Australia
- 2019
- Chapter
Location Fundamentals, Agglomeration Economies, and the Geography of Multinational Firms
By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Xiaoyang Chen
Multinationals exhibit distinct agglomeration patterns, which have transformed the global landscape of industrial production (Alfaro and Chen, 2014). Using a unique worldwide plant-level dataset that reports detailed location, ownership, and operation information for... View Details
- March 2019
- Teaching Note
Zespri Grows
By: David E. Bell and John Masko
Teaching Note for HBS No. 519-047. View Details
Keywords: Agribusiness; Kiwi; Kiwifruit; Agriculture; Global Supply Chain; Branding; Produce; Coordinated Industry Structure; Industry Coordination; Countercyclical Supply; New Product Development; Product Strategy; Differentiation; Food; Quality; Trade; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Strategy; Global Strategy; Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Globalization; Globalized Firms and Management; Competitive Strategy; Resource Allocation; Product Development; New Zealand
- March 2019 (Revised May 2019)
- Case
Fetchr: A New Way of Last Mile Delivery
By: V.G. Narayanan and Eren Kuzucu
By mid-2016, five years of aggressive growth had transformed Fetchr from a small logistics startup to a 1,000-employee, full-fledged last-mile delivery company operating across four countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Already beneficiaries of the... View Details
Keywords: Startup; Decision; Financial Strategy; UAE; KSA; MENA; Cost Accounting; Business Model; Business Startups; Transformation; Cost Management; Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Logistics; Service Delivery; Supply Chain Management; Performance Evaluation; Mathematical Methods; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Transportation Networks; Middle East; United Arab Emirates; Dubai; Bahrain; Egypt; Saudi Arabia; North Africa