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- All HBS Web
(2,297)
- Faculty Publications (467)
- November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Infarm: Betting the (Indoor) Farm on Food Security
By: Elie Ofek
In the summer of 2023, the co-founders of Infarm, a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company, were contemplating a major pivot going forward. While Infarm had successfully shown it could grow over 75 products—mainly herbs, leafy greens and mushrooms—in modular... View Details
Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Model; Market Entry and Exit; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Transition; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Europe; North America; Toronto; Northeastern United States
Ofek, Elie. "Infarm: Betting the (Indoor) Farm on Food Security." Harvard Business School Case 524-043, November 2023. (Revised March 2024.)
- October 2023
- Case
Hey Jane: Delivering Abortion Pills to the Doorstep
By: Rembrand Koning, Geraldine Pena-Galea and Sarah Mehta
This case tells the story of Hey Jane, a telehealth clinic founded in 2020 that provides virtual medication abortion services to eligible patients in nine U.S. states. By January 2023, the company had served more than 20,000 patients and raised nearly $10 million in... View Details
Keywords: Operations; Business Startups; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; Technology Industry; United States
Koning, Rembrand, Geraldine Pena-Galea, and Sarah Mehta. "Hey Jane: Delivering Abortion Pills to the Doorstep." Harvard Business School Case 724-408, October 2023.
- 2022
- Working Paper
Why Do Index Funds Have Market Power? Quantifying Frictions in the Index Fund Market
By: Zach Y. Brown, Mark Egan, Jihye Jeon, Chuqing Jin and Alex A. Wu
Index funds are one of the most common ways investors access financial markets and are perceived to be a transparent and low-cost alternative to active investment management. Despite these purported virtues of index fund investing and the introduction of new products... View Details
Keywords: Mutual Funds; Passive Investing; Asset Management; Financial Markets; Investment Funds; Financial Management; Financial Services Industry; United States
Brown, Zach Y., Mark Egan, Jihye Jeon, Chuqing Jin, and Alex A. Wu. "Why Do Index Funds Have Market Power? Quantifying Frictions in the Index Fund Market." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 24-019, October 2023. (NBER Working Paper Series, No. 31778, October 2023.)
- October 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
Loris
By: Shunyuan Zhang, Das Narayandas, Stacy Straaberg and David Lane
In December 2022, Loris’s executive team considered their go-to-market strategy. Loris was an artificial intelligence (AI) software startup for the customer service industry with two products on the market: 1) Agent Assist which provided customer service agents (CSAs)... View Details
- October 2023 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Recycle & Re-Match: The Future of Soccer Turfs
By: George Serafeim, Lena Duchene and Carlota Moniz
By August 2023, Re-Match, an artificial turf waste-to-value company, had operations in Denmark and the Netherlands and had recycled over 160,000 tons of waste and plastic fiber. With recent capital injection from the VC firm Verdane and a dual revenue business model,... View Details
Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Carbon Abatement; Sustainability; Recycling; Waste Management; Technology; Entrepreneurial Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Decisions; Energy Conservation; Investment Return; Profit; Technological Innovation; Patents; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Wastes and Waste Processing; Business Strategy; Competition; Expansion; Technology Adoption; Sports; Environmental Sustainability; Entrepreneurship; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Denmark; Netherlands; France; United States; Pennsylvania; Europe
Serafeim, George, Lena Duchene, and Carlota Moniz. "Recycle & Re-Match: The Future of Soccer Turfs." Harvard Business School Case 124-032, October 2023. (Revised November 2023.)
- October 2023
- Article
Improving Regulatory Effectiveness Through Better Targeting: Evidence from OSHA
By: Matthew S. Johnson, David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
We study how a regulator can best target inspections. Our case study is a U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) program that randomly allocated some inspections. On average, each inspection averted 2.4 serious injuries (9%) over the next five years.... View Details
Keywords: Safety Regulations; Regulations; Regulatory Enforcement; Machine Learning Models; Safety; Operations; Service Operations; Production; Forecasting and Prediction; Decisions; United States
Johnson, Matthew S., David I. Levine, and Michael W. Toffel. "Improving Regulatory Effectiveness Through Better Targeting: Evidence from OSHA." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 15, no. 4 (October 2023): 30–67. (Profiled in the Regulatory Review.)
- September 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Icahn Enterprises: Ponzi Scheme or Sound Investment
By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and James Weber
Icahn Enterprises, a publicly traded limited partnership founded and operated by famed activist investor Carl Icahn, had earned above market returns for over a decade. Between 2018 and early 2023, it had a compound annual return of 31%. Icahn invested in undervalued... View Details
Dey, Aiyesha, Jonas Heese, and James Weber. "Icahn Enterprises: Ponzi Scheme or Sound Investment." Harvard Business School Case 124-013, September 2023. (Revised January 2024.)
- September 2023 (Revised September 2024)
- Case
IBJ, Inc. (A): Seeking Matrimony in Japan
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Akiko Saito
In March 2020, Shigeru Ishizaka, founder and CEO of IBJ, Inc., Japan's largest marriage matching service provider, faced a critical decision regarding the company’s planned ¥3.5 billion (US$32.8 million) acquisition of competitor ZWEI Co., Ltd. IBJ, founded in 2006,... View Details
Casadesus-Masanell, Ramon, and Akiko Saito. "IBJ, Inc. (A): Seeking Matrimony in Japan." Harvard Business School Case 724-356, September 2023. (Revised September 2024.)
- July 2023 (Revised October 2024)
- Case
Revenue Recognition at Stride Funding: Making Sense of Revenues for a Fintech Startup
By: Paul M. Healy and Jung Koo Kang
The case explores the challenges of revenue recognition and financial reporting for Stride Funding (Stride), a fintech startup that has disrupted the student loan market. Stride leveraged proprietary machine learning and financial models to underwrite alternative... View Details
Keywords: Revenue Recognition; Financial Reporting; Entrepreneurial Finance; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Governance Compliance; Accrual Accounting; Financial Services Industry; United States
Healy, Paul M., and Jung Koo Kang. "Revenue Recognition at Stride Funding: Making Sense of Revenues for a Fintech Startup." Harvard Business School Case 124-015, July 2023. (Revised October 2024.)
- July 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
Clair
By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Marcos Quirno
Clair was founded with a simple mission: to expedite America’s workers access to their hard-earned wages. In the headwinds of the COVID-19 pandemic, the startup had successfully raised a seed round of $4.5 million, and within two years the earned wage access (EWA)... View Details
- July 2023 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Vytal: Packaging-as-a-Service
By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel, Lena Duchene and Daniela Beyersdorfer
The Germany-based startup Vytal operated the largest digital-native reusable packaging-as-a-service network globally, having raised nearly €15 million, established a large network of restaurant partners, and prevented the use of millions of single-use take-out food... View Details
Keywords: Climate Risk; Digital; Platform Strategies; Data; Packaging; Sustainability; Start-up; Startup; Entrepreneur; Impact; Circular; Growth Strategy; Innovation; Environmental Sustainability; Innovation and Invention; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Startups; Resource Allocation; Risk Management; Adoption; Strategy; Performance Productivity; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Supply Chain; Distribution; Entrepreneurship; Climate Change; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Germany; Europe
Serafeim, George, Michael W. Toffel, Lena Duchene, and Daniela Beyersdorfer. "Vytal: Packaging-as-a-Service." Harvard Business School Case 124-007, July 2023. (Revised May 2024.)
- July 2023
- Case
HealthVerity: Real World Data and Evidence
By: Satish Tadikonda
Andrew Kress (CEO and founder) and his team had built a promising marketplace business at HealthVerity serving its core market in healthcare, with a focus on pharmaceutical R&D and services. Thus far, HealthVerity’s products had been unique to the pharma and pharma... View Details
Tadikonda, Satish. "HealthVerity: Real World Data and Evidence." Harvard Business School Case 824-019, July 2023.
- July 2023 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
'Bugs' Burger Bug Killers
By: Ryan W. Buell and William Fulmer
In the height of its success, Bugs Burger Bug Killers (BBBK; Burger has a soft 'g' - it rhymes with merger) was the largest independent extermination company in America, growing at more than 20% per year. BBBK built its business on the promise of pest eradication,... View Details
Buell, Ryan W., and William Fulmer. "'Bugs' Burger Bug Killers." Harvard Business School Case 624-004, July 2023. (Revised April 2025.)
- June 2023
- Case
Launching Egypt’s First Digital Banking Platform: QNB Bebasata
By: Mark Egan, Billy Chan and Ahmed Dahawy
The leadership team at QNB Alahli, Egypt's second biggest private bank, looked back on their efforts to create a brand-new, fully digital banking platform since 2019. A digital-only banking service was unprecedented in Egypt, a country where over 90% of financial... View Details
Keywords: Digital Transformation; Banks and Banking; Innovation and Invention; Competitive Strategy; Business Model; Product Launch; Finance; Banking Industry; Egypt
Egan, Mark, Billy Chan, and Ahmed Dahawy. "Launching Egypt’s First Digital Banking Platform: QNB Bebasata." Harvard Business School Case 223-091, June 2023.
- June 2023
- Case
Block: Creating an Ecosystem of Ecosystems
By: Lauren Cohen, Richard Ryffel, Grace Headinger and Ruoshi Qi
At Investor Day 2022, Block announced a new vision for its businesses: creating an ecosystem of ecosystems. Outside the norm for many public growth companies, Block had recently acquired a variety of new business streams in the creator economy and Bitcoin despite a... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth; Fintech; Company Management; Growth Strategy; Innovation And Strategy; Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Change; Finance; Growth Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Communication Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Business Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States; California; San Francisco
Cohen, Lauren, Richard Ryffel, Grace Headinger, and Ruoshi Qi. "Block: Creating an Ecosystem of Ecosystems." Harvard Business School Case 223-055, June 2023.
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Politics of Philanthropy in China
By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu
This working paper looks historically at business philanthropy in China. In the West, the literature has distinguished between entrepreneurial and customary philanthropy, while the phenomenon of spiritual philanthropy has been identified in many emerging markets. This... View Details
Keywords: China; Philanthropy; Ethics; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Moral Sensibility; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Economic Systems; Economic Sectors; China
Jones, Geoffrey, and Yuhai Wu. "The Politics of Philanthropy in China." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-067, May 2023.
- April 18, 2023
- Article
The Rebirth of Software as a Service
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Jacco van der Kooij
Traditional sales models focus on customer acquisition and the “funnel” or “pipeline” metrics that dominate talk about sales. But this approach falls short when applied to a recurring revenue business, where the customer life cycle looks more like a bowtie, not a... View Details
Cespedes, Frank V., and Jacco van der Kooij. "The Rebirth of Software as a Service." Harvard Business Review (website) (April 18, 2023).
- March 2023
- Teaching Note
VideaHealth: Building the AI Factory
By: Karim R. Lakhani
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 621-021. The case “VideaHealth: Building the AI Factory” examines the creation of dental startup VideaHealth (Videa) and the development of its artificial intelligence (AI)-led business strategy through the eyes of founder and CEO Florian... View Details
- March 2023
- Case
Interior Collab
By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn
After venture capital-funded online interior design agency Homepolish collapsed, its former freelance designers met to discuss next steps. The bitter experience led some of them to create a workers’ collaborative called Interior Collab. The founding members needed to... View Details
- March 2023 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
Close Concerns: Diabetes Research and Advocacy
By: Regina Herzlinger and Brian L. Walker
Diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 18, Kelly Close understood the importance of balancing consistency and iteration. This principle had also informed her professional work, which started with a rapid promotion from financial analyst at Goldman Sachs to an analyst... View Details