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- March 2024 (Revised February 2025)
- Case
Doing Business in Buenos Aires, Argentina
By: Joseph B. Fuller, Alan D. MacCormack, Nori Gerardo Lietz, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Karina Souza and Zeke Gillman
This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Argentina. It highlights Argentina's economic and political transformation in the decades leading up to 2024. The case gives an overview of some of the main obstacles faced by businesses operating... View Details
- March 2024 (Revised February 2025)
- Case
Doing Business in São Paulo, Brazil
The case gives readers an overview of key factors of doing business in Brazil, including Brazil’s economic transformation since its colonial years until 2023, when leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in for his third term, after the most polarized... View Details
- March 2024
- Article
Human Capital Affects Religious Identity: Causal Evidence from Kenya
By: Livia Alfonsi, Michal Bauer, Julie Chytilová and Edward Miguel
We study how human capital and economic conditions causally affect the choice of religious denomination. We utilize a longitudinal dataset monitoring the religious history of more than 5,000 Kenyans over 20 years, in tandem with a randomized experiment (deworming) that... View Details
- 2024
- Chapter
The U.S. Secession Crisis as a Breakdown of Democracy
By: Dean Grodzins and David Moss
This chapter examines the U.S. secession crisis of 1860–1861 as a case of democratic breakdown. From December 1860 to early June 1861, eleven of the fifteen slaveholding states in the U.S. South declared secession from the Union. The trigger for the crisis was Abraham... View Details
- 2024
- Book
When Democracy Breaks: Studies in Democratic Erosion and Collapse, from Ancient Athens to the Present Day
By: Archon Fung, David Moss and Odd Arne Westad
Democracy is often described in two opposite ways, as either wonderfully resilient or dangerously fragile. Curiously, both characterizations can be correct, depending on the context. When Democracy Breaks aims to deepen our understanding of what separates democratic... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Cicely Saunders and Modern Hospices—A Brother’s View: Case Histories of Transformational Advances
By: Amar Bhide and Srikant M. Datar
This case history describes the role of Dame Cicely Saunders (1918-2005) in shaping the
modern hospice movement. View Details
- February 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
AGENTS.inc: Pathways to Growth at an AI Startup
By: Frank Nagle, Manuel Hoffmann, Karoline Ströhlein and Susan Pinckney
The case describes the history of AGENTS.inc. Despite being a small startup, with only four employees, that had never had a funding round, the company boasted an impressive client portfolio including multiple Fortune 500 companies. While AGENTS.inc had been an early... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Startups; Small Business; Transformation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Financial Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Digital Platforms; Technological Innovation; Copyright; Management; Growth and Development; Market Timing; Ownership; Risk and Uncertainty; Competition; Open Source Distribution; Entrepreneurial Finance; Computer Industry; Europe; Germany
- February 2024 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
Doing Business in Medellín, Colombia
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Karina Souza
This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Colombia. It highlights Colombia's economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2024 in the context of its history, culture, and politics. The case gives an overview of some of the main... View Details
- February 2024
- Article
Archetypes of Product Launch by Insiders, Outsiders, and Visionaries
By: Shane Greenstein
What archetypes emerge from prominent episodes of product launches? This essay examines a set of episodes in information technology history that led to significant changes in industry leadership. It highlights that, in all of these instances, there is an example of a... View Details
- February 2024
- Article
Diversification as an Adaptive Learning Process: An Empirical Study of General-Purpose and Market-Specific Technological Know-How in New Market Entry
By: Dominika Kinga Randle and Gary P. Pisano
An enduring trait of modern corporations is their propensity to diversify into multiple lines of business. Penrosian theories conceptualize diversification as a strategy to exploit a firm’s fungible, yet “untradeable”, resources and point to redeployment of... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
- Case
Equal Justice Initiative: Mercy, Truth and Dignity
By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Gerald Chertavian and Brittany Logan
In 1989, the Equal Justice Initiative was established as a non-profit, public interest law firm by Harvard Law School graduate, Bryan Stevenson.
EJI provides legal assistance to condemned prisoners, people wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced, children in... View Details
EJI provides legal assistance to condemned prisoners, people wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced, children in... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Generation Investment Management: Sustainable Investing in a Warming World
By: Vikram S. Gandhi, Michael Norris and David Allen
In September 2021, the sustainable investment firm Generation Investment Management (Generation) considered whether to add Schneider Electric to the focus list of companies in which it was prepared to invest. Dedicated to promoting a sustainable world through its... View Details
Keywords: Sustainable Investing; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Governance; Private Equity; Public Equity; Financial Markets; Investment Return; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Institutional Investing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom; England; London
- January 2024 (Revised October 2024)
- Case
DO & CO: Crafting Luxury in the Fast Lane (A)
By: Juan Alcácer, Esel Cekin, Michael Lee and Noah Roberson
In July 2023, Attila Dogudan, the chairman of DO & CO, a renowned international catering firm, found himself in a deep conversation with his two sons about a potential new venture: catering for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a significant step beyond their 31-year history... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Private Regulation, Institutional Entrepreneurship and Climate Change: A Business History Perspective
By: Ann-Kristin Bergquist and Geoffrey Jones
Private regulatory systems, including voluntary efforts by firms to restrain their own behavior are the primary form of global climate change governance. However, when environmental challenges first rose up on the scientific and political agendas during the 1970s, the... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
OpenAI: Idealism Meets Capitalism
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
In November 2023, the board of OpenAI, one of the most successful companies in the history of technology, decided to fire Sam Altman, its charismatic and influential CEO. Their decision shocked the corporate world and had people wondering why OpenAI had designed a... View Details
- January 2024
- Case
Sprouts Farmers Market
By: Rajiv Lal, Forest L. Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred
Sprouts Farmers Markets (Sprouts) is a Phoenix, Arizona-based chain of 400-plus natural foods stores in 23 U.S. states and $6.4 billion in sales as of 2022. In its product assortment, brand image, and store environment, Sprouts emphasizes freshness, health, innovation,... View Details
- November 2023 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Norse Atlantic Airways
By: Willy Shih
Bjørn Tore Larsen, Norse Atlantic Airways' founder and CEO, hadn't planned to get into the airline business. But when the COVID-19 pandemic depressed the global demand for air travel and the lease rates for jetliners, he realized if ever he was going to get into the... View Details
- November 2023 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
Aviva plc: Examining Net Zero
By: Peter Tufano, Brian Trelstad and Matteo Gasparini
The board of Aviva Plc, one of the world’s largest insurers, must review its climate risk exposures and evaluate next steps. Risk experts at the firm have conducted a robust set of analyses prepared for its regulator, the Bank of England, simulating how various climate... View Details
- 2023
- Book
How the Harvard Business School Changed the Way We View Organizations
By: Jay W. Lorsch
The story of the field of organizational behavior (which overlaps considerably with the origin story of Harvard Business School) and how it created the “medical model” of systems thinking—anchored in the practices of listening, observing, testing, and only then... View Details
Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Systems Thinking; Medical Model; Organizations; Behavior; System; History
- October 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Ball: EVA Driving the World's Leading Can Manufacturer (A)
By: Jonas Heese and Susan Pinckney
The case describes Ball’s multi decade history of using Economic Value Added to drive decision making and workforce compensation. In 2016, the company acquired Rexam PLC and became the world’s leading metal beverage container company. Consumer demand for varied... View Details
Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Cost Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Buildings and Facilities; Green Building; Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Satisfaction; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Machinery and Machining; Asset Pricing; Corporate Finance; Capital; Cost; Financial Management; Goods and Commodities; Compensation and Benefits; Executive Compensation; Employee Relationship Management; Goals and Objectives; Resource Allocation; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Arizona; California; Texas