Publications

Article

Tread Lightly Through These Accounting Minefields

By: H. David Sherman and S. David Young

In the current economic climate, there is tremendous pressure—and personal incentive for managers—to report sales growth and meet investors' revenue expectations. As a result, more companies have been issuing misleading financial reports, according to the SEC,... View Details

Keywords: Derivatives; Benchmarking Performance; Accounting; Revenue Recognition; Assets

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July–August 2013
Article

Building Sustainable Cities

By: John D. Macomber

By 2050 the number of people living in cities will have nearly doubled, to 6 billion, and the problems created by this rampant urbanization are among the most important challenges of our time. Of all resource-management issues, the author argues, water, electricity,... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Urban Development; Entrepreneurship; Infrastructure; City

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January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
Case

Jumia's Path to Profitability

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in September 2019 as Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, co-founders and co-CEOs of Jumia, the leading Pan-African e-commerce platform, are contemplating the company’s path to profitability in the aftermath of a fragile investor sentiment, as the company... View Details

Educators

05 Jun 2019
Blog Post

Exploring the Beauty Industry through an Independent Project

consumers assume that influencers are being compensated in some form, most value transparency – both in disclosing whether they are paid to review products and with respect to whether they actually use the... View Details

Web

Global Opportunity Fellowship GO: AFRICA - Alumni

Director, HBS Career & Professional Development, 617-495-6390, kpiemonte@hbs.edu . GO Fellowship applicants and recipients agree to abide by the HBS Community Values and the... View Details

The Fading Light of Democratic Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 2024)

What are we to do about declining public trust and confidence in democratic capitalism, which many citizens consider a cornerstone of our national ideology and identity? In this short book, I address how we can rekindle the fading light of democratic capitalism as... View Details

08 Mar 2019
Research & Ideas

Seven Negotiation Lessons from Amazon's HQ Disaster in Queens

negotiating too narrowly with those who have formal power and authority. Negotiation experts have a patriarchal name for a version of this classic—and avoidable—mistake: Decide-Announce-Defend or DAD. Along with gaining the full-throated... View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius; Real Estate; Construction

30 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

How to Recover Gracefully After Shutting Down Your Startup

When Munchery announced in January that it would join the compost heap of food delivery startups, the San Francisco company burned customers, suppliers, and investors that included Oscar-winning actors Jared Leto View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

Riding the Passion Wave or Fighting to Stay Afloat? A Theory of Differentiated Passion Contagion

Prior research suggests employees benefit from highly passionate teammates because passion spreads easily from one employee to the next. We develop theory to propose that life in high-passion teams may not be as uniformly advantageous as previously assumed. More... View Details

Managing Know-How

For many firms, the ability to create, organize, and disseminate know-how is a key factor in their ability to succeed. But should all companies engage in formal knowledge management? If not, which companies derive most value from a formal knowledge system?... View Details

04 Feb 2022
Blog Post

Learning from the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence as a Harvard MS/MBA Student

glorified) life of an entrepreneur. Here are three of my favorite lessons from these conversations: When speaking with Katia Beauchamp, I learned about the importance of value systems within teams. She explained how vital it is for... View Details

13 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

Science: The Unlikely Frontier for New Business Ideas

“Fail fast” has become the corporate innovation mantra, but new research suggests that inventions that build on science, with its systematic observation and methodical experiments, may deliver more value to... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

January–February 2024
Article

Shared Service Delivery Can Increase Client Engagement: A Study of Shared Medical Appointments

By: Ryan W. Buell, Kamalini Ramdas, Nazlı Sönmez, Kavitha Srinivasan and Rengaraj Venkatesh

Problem Definition: Clients and service providers alike often consider one-on-one service delivery to be ideal, assuming – perhaps unquestioningly – that devoting individualized attention best improves client outcomes. In contrast, in shared service delivery, clients... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Customer Satisfaction; Outcome or Result; Performance Improvement

Article

Ignore June 30: Time is on the Side of a Better Iran Deal

By: James K. Sebenius

Prior to the "interim deal" reached in November 2013, Iranian nuclear negotiators could—and did—play for time while the regime rapidly added more centrifuges and increased production of enriched uranium. That is no longer the case. For the first time in years, the... View Details

Keywords: International Relations; Negotiation Tactics; Negotiation Deal; Iran; United States; Iran; United States

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Web

Life at Harvard - Doctoral

Life at Harvard Life at Harvard Tour the Campus Our vibrant residential campus is designed to develop skills and build relationships that last a lifetime. Quality of life is a priority here. Doctoral students enjoy the many benefits of... View Details

Research Summary

Managing Networked Businesses

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Platform-based businesses that leverage network effects face a distinctive set of management challenges. A platform encompasses components and rules that facilitate interactions between the platform's users. A platform-based product or service exhibits a network... View Details

May 2013
Article

How to Negotiate with VCs

By: Deepak Malhotra

VC-entrepreneur partnership agreements often contain flaws that become highly damaging as the parties come up against issues of power, trust, and much more. Yet many of the flaws are systematic and predictable—and hence preventable. The author, a longtime consultant to... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Negotiation Tactics; Entrepreneurship