Publications

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Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

to address is clear and the business model is likely to make a substantial contribution toward the solution of the issue it seeks to address and can be sustained for a period of time consistent with... View Details

2014
Working Paper

Waste, Recycling and Entrepreneurship in Central and Northern Europe, 1870–1940

By: Geoffrey Jones and Andrew Spadafora

This working paper examines the role of entrepreneurs in the municipal solid waste industry in industrialized central and northern Europe from the late nineteenth century to the 1940s. It explores the emergence of numerous German, Danish, and other European... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Entrepreneurship; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Health; History; Green Technology Industry; Germany; Denmark; Hungary; United Kingdom

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August 2019 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Family Matters: Governance at the Zamil Group

By: Christina R. Wing, Suraj Srinivasan and Esel Çekin

This case focuses on a large Saudi Arabian industrial conglomerate and family business Zamil Group’s corporate and family governance journey. The 12 sons of the founder led and grew the group successfully after taking over from their father in 1961. The secret to their... View Details

Keywords: Middle East; Family Ownership; Family-owned Business; Saudi Arabia; Family Business; Governance; Organizational Structure; Values and Beliefs; Steel Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Middle East; Saudi Arabia; Bahrain

Teaching Interest

Overview

Since coming to HBS, my teaching interests have centered around the intersection of science and business: entrepreneurship, management, and strategy. More recently, i have become more engaged in considering the emergence of new university models for the translation... View Details

Keywords: Science Business; Biotechnology; Pharmaceuticals; Innovation

January 2017 (Revised January 2019)
Case

The Rise and Fall of Lehman Brothers

By: Stuart C. Gilson, Kristin Mugford and Sarah L. Abbott

With nearly $700 billion in assets, Lehman was the largest U.S. bankruptcy in history. In 2007, Lehman achieved record earnings of over $4 billion on revenues of $60 billion. By September 2008 the fourth largest investment bank in the world was bankrupt. How had a... View Details

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An Emerging Entrepreneur | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

validating the model before closing the initial investment round, after which he hopes to scale quickly, with the goal of serving 10,000 students in five years. Reflecting on his time at HBS, Bichara cites the case method’s impact in... View Details

January 2020 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Governing PG&E

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

The five commissioners of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) listened intently at a public forum in April 2019 as PG&E Corporation’s out-going chairman Richard Kelly described the company’s proposed new board. PG&E, which provided electricity and natural... View Details

November, 2022
Article

Role of Context in Knowledge Flows: Host Country versus Headquarters as Sources of MNC Subsidiary Knowledge Inheritance

By: Mike Horia Teodorescu, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna

We respond to calls in the strategy and international business literature for elucidating how multinational subsidiaries develop contextual intelligence in host countries and how they use the local context as a source of valuable opportunities for learning. Applying... View Details

Keywords: MNCs; Knowledge Flows; Innovation; Gravity Model; Absorptive Capacity; Multinational Firms and Management; Business Subsidiaries; Knowledge Management; Business Headquarters; Innovation and Invention

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February 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Course Overview Note

Competing through Business Models: Introductory Note for Students (Half-Course Version)

By: Hanna Halaburda and Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Keywords: Business Model; Competitive Strategy

March 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Background Note

Physical Climate Risk

By: Michael W. Toffel, Spencer Glendon and Alison Smart

This note describes how managers can identify and manage their company’s physical climate risks, which can increase their operations and supply chain costs and risks, and affect demand for their goods and services. Can be paired with the video “Preparing business... View Details

Keywords: Resilience; Maps; Climate Risk; Climate Impact; Modeling And Analysis; Climate Change; Risk Management; Demand and Consumers; Supply Chain; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Disruption

December 2020 (Revised December 2021)
Case

Komatsu and Smart Construction

By: Rajiv Lal, David J. Collis and Akiko Saito

Komatsu, Japan's leading construction equipment manufacturer, is considering investing in a digital platform "Smart Construction" that will digitise the entire work process on a construction site, allowing for substantial reductions in cost and time while improving... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Digital Business; Construction; Business Model; Strategy; Technology Adoption; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Construction Industry; Japan

January 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Teaching Note

Jumia Nigeria: from Retail to Marketplace (A) and (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

Founded in 2012, Jumia Nigeria, a startup effort by Germany-based Rocket Internet, aimed to become an African Amazon. The company entered the nascent market and immediately enjoyed an uptick in consumer spending fueled by the strength of Nigeria’s oil-based economy. By... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Marketplace; Inventory; Ecommerce; Funding; Business Ecosystems; Competition; Business Model; Globalization; Emerging Markets; Expansion; Logistics; E-commerce; Retail Industry; India; Nigeria; Africa

14 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Ethics Bots and Other Ways to Move Your Code of Business Conduct Beyond Puffery

wrote. “They are too general to cause a reasonable investor to rely upon them.” That’s typical of the way that many people and even employees view codes of conduct, says Eugene F. Soltes, Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

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The Ownership Project | Institute for Business in Global Society

co-founder of The Ownership Project Nien-hê Hsieh takes a comprehensive look at ownership structures beyond conventional private equity and public markets, exploring innovative models that could reshape View Details

Article

Pattern Detection in the Activation Space for Identifying Synthesized Content

By: Celia Cintas, Skyler Speakman, Girmaw Abebe Tadesse, Victor Akinwande, Edward McFowland III and Komminist Weldemariam

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have recently achieved unprecedented success in photo-realistic image synthesis from low-dimensional random noise. The ability to synthesize high-quality content at a large scale brings potential risks as the generated samples may... View Details

Keywords: Subset Scanning; Generative Models; Synthetic Content Detection

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Business at the Base of the Pyramid - Course Catalog

HBS Course Catalog Business at the Base of the Pyramid Course Number 1908 Associate Professor Benjamin N. Roth Associate Professor Natalia Rigol Spring; Q3Q4; 3.0 credits 27 Sessions Exam Overview Between a well-served top of the... View Details

Article

Making 'Green Giants': Environment Sustainability in the German Chemical Industry, 1950s–1980s

By: Geoffrey Jones and Christina Lubinski

This article examines the evolution of corporate environmentalism in the West German chemical industry between the 1950s and the 1980s. It focuses on two companies, Bayer and Henkel, that have been identified as "green giants," and traces the evolution of their... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Green Business; Regional Strategy; Pollution; Henkel; Bayer; Globalization; History; Chemical Industry; Germany; United States