Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(31,983)
- Faculty Publications (6,970)
- April 2025
- Case
Netflix in 2024
By: Jan Rivkin and David Allen
In 2024, Netflix appeared to emerge victorious from the “streaming wars” that it had waged in recent years with the likes of Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Apple, and Amazon. What had allowed Netflix not only to succeed in the streaming wars but also to thrive for... View Details
- April 2025
- Case
Setting a CEO Agenda: Ole Rosgaard at Greif
By: Krishna Palepu and Kerry Herman
Since taking over as CEO of industrial packaging giant Greif, Ole Rosgaard has focused on growing the company and improving the perception of its value by the capital markets. He and his senior leadership team have made inroads to this end, including adjusting the... View Details
- April 2025
- Case
Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters: Vickers Oils and Resolving Family Conflict over Generations
By: Lauren Cohen, Octavian Graf Pilati and Sophia Pan
Will Vickers, a seventh-generation (G7) member of the Vickers Family, grappled with a pressing challenge: how to re-integrate family members into the firm to recover lost talent. His father, Peter Vickers, was the lone leader of the Vickers Oils—despite having stepped... View Details
Keywords: Shareholder; Involvement; Family Office; Family Firms; Family Business; Business Growth and Maturation; Experience and Expertise; Retention; Leadership Development; Business or Company Management; Management Succession; Organizational Structure; Family Ownership; Family and Family Relationships; Diversification; Conflict and Resolution; Consumer Products Industry; United Kingdom
- 2025
- Working Paper
Navigating Choppy Waters: How U.S. Trade Policy Uncertainty Affects Small Businesses
By: David Atkin, Zoë Cullen and Ebehi Iyoha
This paper explores the impact of recent changes in the US trade policy environment
on small businesses. Drawing on a survey of more than 4,000 small businesses conducted
between March 22 and 31, 2025, we examine firms’ knowledge, expectations, and
decisions during... View Details
- April 2025
- Case
Breezm: Innovative 3D-Printed Eyewear (A)
By: Juan Alcácer, Brian Mao Fu and Adina Wong
In 2023, Breezm, a South Korean startup, faced a strategic decision about how to grow its innovative 3D-printed, custom-fit eyewear business. Co-founded in 2017 by Zenma Park and Wooseok Sung, Breezm combined facial scanning, AI, and in-house production to solve the... View Details
- April 2025 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Paul Weiss: Fighting or Negotiating with POTUS
By: Eugene Soltes and Anthea Brady
In early 2025, Paul Weiss Chairman Brad Karp weighed how to respond to an Executive Order from President Trump that could threaten the financial livelihood of his law firm. Paul Weiss and Karp had to decide to mount a legal fight or negotiate with the White House. The... View Details
- April 2025
- Article
Gender and Preferences for Performance Feedback
By: Katherine Baldiga Coffman and David Klinowski
Across multiple studies, we investigate whether there are gender differences in preferences for receiving performance feedback. We vary many features of the feedback context: whether the performance task is a cognitive test or a mock interview, whether the feedback is... View Details
- April 2025
- Article
Serving with a Smile on Airbnb: Analyzing the Economic Returns and Behavioral Underpinnings of the Host’s Smile
By: Shunyuan Zhang, Elizabeth Friedman, Kannan Srinivasan, Ravi Dhar and Xupin Zhang
Non-informational cues, such as facial expressions, can significantly influence judgments and interpersonal impressions. While past research has explored how smiling affects business outcomes in offline or in-store contexts, relatively less is known about how smiling... View Details
- 2025
- Book
The Experimentation Machine: Finding Product–Market Fit in the Age of AI
Leverage AI to be a 10x Founder
Today’s most successful founders know that the startups that learn the fastest will win. In The Experimentation Machine, I reveal how AI is transforming the way startups find product-market fit and scale.... View Details
Today’s most successful founders know that the startups that learn the fastest will win. In The Experimentation Machine, I reveal how AI is transforming the way startups find product-market fit and scale.... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
The Invention of Corporate Governance
By: Yueran Ma and Andrei Shleifer
The analysis of corporate governance begins with a central feature of modern capitalism—the separation of ownership and control in large corporations—first empirically documented by Berle and Means (1932). Such separation entails several agency problems reflecting... View Details
- 2025
- Book
The World Is Your Office: How Work from Anywhere Boosts Talent, Productivity, and Innovation
A research-based look at a growing phenomenon—companies allowing their employees to work from anywhere in the world—and how those who adopt this model can boost talent, innovation, and productivity.
In recent years, companies in a wide range of industries have... View Details
In recent years, companies in a wide range of industries have... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
With a Little Help from My Family: Informal Startup Financing
By: Brian K. Baik, Johan Ludvig S. Karlsen and Katja Kisseleva
Using Norwegian administrative data, we identify family equity investments in startups
and examine their effects on investor returns and firm behavior. Informal investors
earn lower returns than external individuals, and the firms they back are less
likely to secure... View Details
- March 2025
- Case
Mobvoi's Path Through Market Challenges and Business Reinvention
By: Paul A. Gompers and Shu Lin
Founded in 2012, Mobvoi evolved through multiple transformations—from AI-driven voice technology to smart wearables and later AI-generated content. Backed by major investors, the company navigated shifts in strategy while facing two failed IPO attempts. As market... View Details
- March 27, 2025
- Article
How One Company Used AI to Broaden Its Customer Base
By: Sunil Gupta and Frank V. Cespedes
The software company SAP successfully leveraged AI tools to begin selling to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) market, which had previously been uneconomical for its in-person sales approach. By mapping the customer journey and deploying over 40 AI tools, SAP... View Details
- March 2025
- Case
Calyx Global: Rating Carbon Credits
By: Michael W. Toffel and Adam Chen
This case describes how rating agencies and other organizations are seeking to improve the quality of carbon credits sold in the voluntary carbon market to organizations seeking to use them to supplement their internal decarbonization efforts to meet their net zero... View Details
- March 2025 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Perplexity: Redefining Search
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Michelle Hu, Sriraghav Srinivasan and Radhika Kak
By early 2025, Perplexity had rapidly evolved from a modest startup into a popular "answer engine" valued at $9 billion. The company had boldly positioned itself as the disruptor to Google aiming to redefine search for the AI age. Through novel AI... View Details
- March 2025
- Case
Taylor Guitars: Making Employee Ownership Work The Taylor Way
By: Dennis Campbell, Petros Kusmu and Stacy Straaberg
In 2013, guitar manufacturer Taylor Guitars’ co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug were considering several exit options including selling to a competitor or to a private equity firm. The co-founders decided, instead, to embark on a seven-year process to transfer 100%... View Details
Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Communication Strategy; Strategy; Announcements; Decisions; Music Entertainment; Values and Beliefs; Borrowing and Debt; Geographic Location; Global Range; Governance; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Private Ownership; Business Strategy; Management Succession; Manufacturing Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States; California; San Diego; Mexico; Netherlands
- March 2025
- Supplement
Wasabi Technologies (B)
By: Lou Shipley and Stacy Straaberg
Set in 2019, the “Wasabi Technologies (A)” case centers on Wasabi Technologies (Wasabi), a successful hot cloud storage company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founder and CEO David Friend is ready to scale the four-year-old venture rapidly. Wasabi had so far focused... View Details
- March 2025 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News
The case examines the Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News defamation settlement based upon statements made on air in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. View Details
Keywords: (General) Management; Business Earnings; Financial Statements; Change Management; Disruption; Volatility; Transition; Crime and Corruption; Cost vs Benefits; Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Demographics; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Finance; Cost; Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Policy; Political Elections; Business History; Information; Law; Legal Liability; Laws and Statutes; Management; Marketing; Advertising; Media; Performance; Problems and Challenges; Society; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States
- March 2025 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
Xfund and Sam Altman: Finding Harvard's Best Generative AI Founders
By: Suraj Srinivasan
On May 1, 2024, Xfund Managing Partners Patrick Chung and Brandon Farwell, hosted a high-stakes venture pitch session designed to select one startup for a minimum $100,000 investment. This “Xperiment Stake” competition, dedicated to startups in the Generative AI... View Details