Publications

13 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Your Company Wants to be a 'Cognitive Referent' (Hint: SpaceX)

to think the firm has failed rather than evolved. GETTING THE LABEL RIGHT How the firms dealt with labels, which often were attached to them by external sources like analysts or the media, also factored into a company’s success. As... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Aerospace; Food & Beverage; Retail

02 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Coronavirus Careers: Cloud Kitchens Are Now Serving

The restaurant industry is one of those most devastated by COVID-19, and social distancing will continue to make many small restaurants unviable. Reduced revenue flows will never cover the rent. But not all is lost. In our research, one... View Details

Keywords: by Lena Ye and Geoffrey Jones; Food & Beverage

08 Jun 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Twenty-first Century Skill: Trading Carbon Credits

reinforces the role of uncertain prices in a cap-and-trade mechanism," Coles says. "It contrasts with a simple command-and-control approach to regulation that specifies maximum pollution levels allowed by industry, or a carbon... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

17 Dec 2001
Research & Ideas

Becoming the Next Real Estate Mogul

saw—that's a ton of fun," he said. There was general agreement on this point, but land and buildings aren't always part of the equation when it comes to calculating the industry's appeal, added Vincent J. Constantini, founder and... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Construction; Real Estate

12 Feb 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

‘UpTick’ Brings Wall Street Pressure to Students

conjectured they would get a much more natural and powerful way of reaching a conclusion by creating a setting where the students actually go through some kind of competitive process to reach the same outcomes they would otherwise be... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Financial Services; Education

29 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

Pride Goeth Before a Profit

"A" awarded by the company auditor in his thirty years at Unocal. Now a production foreman, Thompson still lives and works in Van, just like always. "We are all blue-collar guys, we all like what we do, and we all feel... View Details

Keywords: by Theodore Kinni

07 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

The Case for Combating Climate Change with Nuclear Power and Fracking

If you ask any given environmentalist to identify the biggest threat to the planet, you may expect to hear about man-made climate change, consumerism, or overpopulation. But if you ask Harvard Business School's Joseph B. Lassiter, he'll toss in another: single-issue... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities

05 Dec 2017
Research & Ideas

What We've Learned from 101 Entrepreneurs in Emerging Markets

not just relying on the printed word—why can we not do research by referring to video, sound, and the like? There is so much mathematics devoted today to extraction of quantitative data from all sorts of data sources that a move in this... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

September 2023 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Seeds of Innovation: GALY's Quest to Cultivate the Future of Agriculture in the Lab

By: George Serafeim and Michael Norris

In 2023, Luciano Bueno, CEO and founder of plant cell culture agriculture company GALY, was considering the best path forward for his company as he planned to pitch Series B investors. GALY, founded in 2019, aimed to produce cotton and other crops from cells grown in... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Green Technology; Goods and Commodities; Growth and Development Strategy; Science-Based Business; Entrepreneurship; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Startups; Decisions; Technological Innovation; Production; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Technology Industry; Boston; Sao Paulo

November 2019 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Indigo Agriculture: Harnessing Nature

By: Marco Iansiti, Michael W. Toffel and James Barnett

Indigo Agriculture used a digital-enabled research and development (R&D) process to launch its initial product, microbial coatings for agricultural seeds, which increase crop yields while reducing the need for fertilizers. In doing so, the company developed direct... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Sequestration; Operations; Supply Chain; Social Enterprise; Product Development; Distribution Channels; Business Strategy; Digital Platforms; Environmental Sustainability; Science-Based Business; Climate Change; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States; Massachusetts

22 Feb 2022
News

Breaking News

part of what’s driving consolidation across the country,” Hansen Shapiro observes. The National Trust used a leveraged buyout to acquire the titles, which will continue with their mission under a new public benefit corporation that is owned and operated jointly View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; illustration by Dana Smith; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

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

30 Nov 2020
Research & Ideas

COVID Not Slowing VC Investment

The COVID-19 pandemic has battered industries around the world, but one sector's prospects aren’t so bleak: venture capital. Startup backers—and private-equity managers in general—say that half of their portfolio companies haven’t been harmed View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services; Banking

February 2020
Supplement

Indigo Agriculture: Harnessing Nature

By: Michael W. Toffel and James Barnett

Indigo Agriculture used a digital-enabled research and development (R&D) process to launch its initial product, microbial coatings for agricultural seeds, which increase crop yields while reducing the need for fertilizers. In doing so, the company developed direct... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Supply Chain; Social Enterprise; Product Development; Distribution Channels; Business Strategy; Digital Platforms; Environmental Sustainability; Science-Based Business; Climate Change; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States; Massachusetts

October 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

TetraScience: Unlocking the Power of Scientific Data

By: Satish Tadikonda and William Marks

After pivoting from a focus on hardware to a focus on scientific data, TetraScience, led by veteran SaaS executive, Patrick Grady and Founder Spin Wang, has embarked on a journey from nearly cash-out to a player in the scientific data management space. This case... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Information Management; Business Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Information Technology Industry

2023
Working Paper

Cost-Efficient Decarbonization of Portland Cement Production

By: Gunther Glenk, Anton Kelnhofer, Rebecca Meier and Stefan Reichelstein

Accounting for nearly 8% of global annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the cement industry is considered difficult to decarbonize. While a sizeable number of abatement levers for Portland cement production is becoming technologically ready for deployment, many are... View Details