Publications

29 Aug 2016
Blog Post

First Year at HBS: A Foundation for Business

top ten business stories for the past year. 1. China: industrial-goods slowdown and market turmoil 2. Yahoo: Marissa Myers and activist investors 3. Uber: valuation and growth of the gig economy 4.... View Details

13 Dec 2018
Blog Post

Working at the Intersection of Business and Environment

supply chain, for business strategy, and for the ways in which firms work with stakeholders. In fact, economic prosperity and growth depend to a large degree on the health of our ecosystem, and our goal is... View Details

October 2010 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Shenzhen Capital Group

By: Paul A. Gompers, Shaohui Chen, Jessie Lin and Shelley Ling

Haitao Jin, chairman of Shenzhen Capital Group Co., Ltd. (SCGC), and Wanshou Li, president of SCGC, must decide how to continue to grow their venture capital/private equity firm in China. SCGC is a premier VC/PE fund in China and a pioneer of the Government Sponsored... View Details

Keywords: Government And Business; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Investment Funds; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Financial Services Industry; China

June 2011 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Home Essentials: Building a Global Service Business with Local Operations

By: Lynda M. Applegate, William R. Kerr and David Lane

Chris Exline founded Home Essentials, a furniture rental business targeted toward expatriates, in Singapore but rapidly moved the base of operations to Hong Kong. The company was highly successful in Singapore and Hong Kong and then pursued rapid global expansion.... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Renting or Rental; Corporate Governance; Global Strategy; Failure; Singapore; Hong Kong

June 2019
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Expanding from One to Many Millions of Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira

By 2019, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were among the highest-growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products, or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable... View Details

Keywords: Airbnb; Etsy; Uber; Growth Hacking; Two-Sided Markets; Digital Marketing; Customer Acquisition; Two-Sided Platforms; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Customers; Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation

The demise of state-owned enterprises, the transformation of collectives into shareholding cooperatives, and the creation of investment opportunities through stock markets indicate China’s movement from a socialist, state-controlled economy... View Details

February 2007 (Revised November 2011)
Case

Esquel Group: Integrating Business Strategy and Corporate Social Responsibility

By: F. Warren McFarlan, William C. Kirby and Tracy Manty

Focuses on the experience of China's largest shirt manufacturer in managing various aspects of government relations in China. Identifies a wide variety of social initiatives it has undertaken. View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Manufacturing Industry; China

23 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Businesses Need a 'Catalyst' to Make CSR Practices Stick

of Inclusive Growth Strategies, written with George Serafeim, Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and Eduardo Tugendhat,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

March 1999 (Revised August 2005)
Case

Pandesic: The Challenges of a New Business Venture (A)

By: Joseph L. Bower and Clark Gilbert

Pandesic is a joint venture of SAP and Intel designed to develop turnkey information architectures for marketspace companies. The case explores the problems of developing the joint venture from the perspective of its general management. Describes the development of its... View Details

Keywords: Joint Ventures; Design; Information; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Marketing Communications; Performance

2013
Tool

Harvard Business Review's Go to Market Tools: Customer Lifetime Value

By: Thomas Steenburgh and Jill Avery

How much are your customers worth? Has your marketing budget been slashed? Need to figure out the best place to invest your time and effort to reach your growth target? HBR's Go to Market Tool helps calculate your customer's lifetime value, allowing you to prioritize... View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Analysis; Tools; Customer Lifetime Value; Customer Defection; CRM; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships

02 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

Food Stamp Entrepreneurs: How Public Assistance Enables Business Bootstrapping

of employment growth potential," Olds says. "What I found was that the largest area of growth was newly incorporated firms. Eligible households were 31 percent more likely to have an incorporated... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

Article

The Future of Economic, Business, and Social History

By: G. Jones, Marco H.D. van Leeuwen and Stephen Broadberry

Three leading scholars in the fields of business, economic, and social history review the current state of these disciplines and reflect on their future trajectory. Geoffrey Jones reviews the development of business history since its birth at the Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: Economic History; Business History; History; Asia; Africa; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America

Find at Harvard

2013
Working Paper

Historical Origins of Environmental Sustainability in the German Chemical Industry, 1950s-1980s

By: Geoffrey Jones and Christina Lubinski

This working paper examines the growth of corporate environmentalism in the West German chemical industry between the 1950s and the 1980s. German business has been regarded as pioneering corporate environmentalism after World War II. In contrast, this study reveals... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Green Business; Pollution; Environmental Sustainability; Business History; Chemical Industry; Germany; United States

SSRN

Read Now

Web

Past Projects | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

leadership among the business community by founding the Ebola Private Sector Mobilization Group (EPSMG). Our project evaluated the role that AM and EPSMG played during the Ebola crisis in Liberia. Measuring the "Impact" in Impact... View Details

December 2017
Teaching Note

Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data

By: William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

Teaching Note for HBS No. 817-095. View Details

Keywords: Turkey; Internet; Online Ordering; Restaurants; Big Data; Entrepreneurship; Analytics and Data Science; Internet and the Web; Growth and Development Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Turkey

June 2022
Teaching Plan

Lifebank Nigeria

By: Brian Trelstad, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal

The aspiration of addressing maternal deaths in Nigeria, which were mostly caused by blood shortages, led Temie Giwa-Tubosun to found LifeBank in 2015. LifeBank developed an online platform that enabled hospitals to connect and purchase blood from local blood banks and... View Details

Keywords: Systems Design; Social Business; Business At The Base Of The Pyramid; Health Care; Blood; Social Enterprise; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Finance; Health Industry; Transportation Industry; Africa; Nigeria