Business Model Design - Publications - Faculty & Research

2024
Book

The Everything Token: How NFTs and Web3 Will Transform the Way We Buy, Sell, and Create

By: Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers

We demystify the coming digital revolution, showing how NFTs will transform our online and offline interactions.

NFTs aren’t just pictures on the internet, or a fad that has come and gone. Rather, they’re a new technology for creating digital assets and... View Details

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May 2024 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Hakluyt: From Corporate Intelligence to Trusted Advisors

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Lena Duchene

Established in 1995 by a group of ex-British intelligence officers, Hakluyt & Company (Hakluyt) was a corporate advisory firm that generated insights by leveraging a unique blend of internal expertise and a global network of well-connected individuals. Since 2019, the... View Details

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January 2021
Supplement

Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Cash Flow; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; United States; California

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08 Jul 2014
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First Look: July 8

same approach they do! Based on extensive research and interviews, Own Your Future shows how to apply the simple model they use-Act. Learn. Build. Repeat-to reinvent the way you maneuver in an unpredictable job market. Here's how it... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

January 2025
Case

Negotiating a Legacy at Sustainable Harvest (A)

By: Jillian Jordan, Julian Zlatev, Alicia Dadlani and Martha Hostetter

The specialty coffee importer Sustainable Harvest was the first certified B Corp in the coffee industry due to its investments in building coffee farmers’ capacity and livelihood. But in 2022, after coffee prices plummeted and the company’s bank declined to extend its... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Trust; Ethics; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Volatility; Futures and Commodity Futures; Social Enterprise; Valuation; Business Model; Credit; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Europe

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January 2025
Supplement

Negotiating a Legacy at Sustainable Harvest (B)

By: Jillian Jordan, Julian Zlatev, Alicia Dadlani and Martha Hostetter

The specialty coffee importer Sustainable Harvest was the first certified B Corp in the coffee industry due to its investments in building coffee farmers’ capacity and livelihood. But in 2022, after coffee prices plummeted and the company’s bank declined to extend its... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Trust; Ethics; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Volatility; Futures and Commodity Futures; Social Enterprise; Valuation; Business Model; Credit; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Europe

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01 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 1

Jeremy C. Stein Abstract—We study optimal government debt maturity in a model where investors derive monetary services from holding riskless short-term securities. In a setting where the government is the only issuer of such riskless... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

19 Jun 2007
First Look

First Look: June 19, 2007

Human beings are critical to the functioning of the vast majority of operating systems, influencing both the way these systems work and how they perform. Yet most formal analytical models of operations assume that the people who... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Leadership and Leadership Development: An Ontological Approach

This summarizes my research program over the last twelve years (with my co-investigators Werner Erhard, Steve Zaffron, and more recently Kari Granger) in which the objective has been to rigorously distinguish leader and leadership and to create a technology for... View Details

16 Sep 2008
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First Look: September 16, 2008

platform and its evolution. We describe three ways of representing platform architectures: network graphs, design structure matrices, and layer maps. We conclude by addressing a number of fundamental strategic questions suggested by a... View Details

24 Oct 2006
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First Look: October 24, 2006

Course MaterialsCellular Service Harvard Business School Case 707-424 Background on cellular service technology and "friends and family" plans as foundation for discussing network effects. Purchase this case:... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Aug 2011
Research & Ideas

Immigrant Innovators: Job Stealers or Job Creators?

specifically for beneficiaries who have received advanced degrees in the United States.) "It's a lightning rod for a very heated debate," says William Kerr, a professor at Harvard Business School who studies how immigration affects... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Technology

June 2011 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Patagonia Sur: For-Profit Land Conservation in Chile

By: Arthur I Segel, Nicolas Ibanez and Jay Verjee

Warren Adams founded Patagonia Sur in 2007 as one of the world's first for-profit land conservation businesses. His goal was to purchase over 100,000 acres of land in southern Chile and to run a variety of sustainable businesses to generate annual returns for... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Environmental Sustainability; Profit; Investment; For-Profit Firms; Entrepreneurship; Investment Return; Revenue; Risk and Uncertainty; Capital; SWOT Analysis; Real Estate Industry; Chile

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25 Jan 2011
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First Look: Jan. 25

historically important and increasingly popular mechanism for encouraging innovation. A central concern in designing innovation contests is how many competitors to admit. Using a unique data set of 9,661 software contests, we provide... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Jun 2007
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First Look: June 5, 2007

Working PapersNone this week. Cases & Course MaterialsArtisan Entertainment Inc. Harvard Business School Case 207-067 Geoff Rehnert and Marc Wolpow have left Bain Capital to launch Audax Group. As part of their separation, they... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

14 Jun 2016
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June 14, 2016

forthcoming Harvard Business Review Press Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless Questions for Resolving Your Toughest Problems at Work By: Badaracco, Joseph L. Abstract—Part of a manager's job is making tough calls, and the hardest... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Feb 2009
News

Last Look - March 2009

Our thanks to HRPBA ’60-ers Sandy Krickovic Self and Nancy Needham Merrill, who recognized themselves as the second and third models in the photo. Self wrote: “In Malcolm McNair’s Marketing class, we were studying the women’s retail... View Details

Keywords: Keith Larson; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training

18 Feb 2014
First Look

First Look: February 18

level of maturity where scaling the business model was the next logical step. With two greenhouses already in Canada, he was looking into other locations in the U.S. Though Lufa Farms' advanced cultivation... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

18 Nov 2008
First Look

First Look: November 18, 2008

which fueled a financial crisis in the U.S. and beyond. The case study examines New Century's business model and accounting practices and focuses on the role of management, audit committee, and external... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October 2018
Case

Zenefits Board of Directors (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

In early 2018, the time seemed right for Zenefits investor and director Lars Dalgaard to reflect on whether Zenefits had the right board of directors to shepherd the company through its next stages of growth. For the company whose name combined the words “benefits,”... View Details