Publications

2017
Working Paper

The Need for Speed: Effects of Uncertainty Reduction in Patenting

By: Mike Horia Teodorescu

Patents are essential in commerce to establish property rights for ideas and to give equal protection to firms that develop new technologies. Young firms especially depend on the protection of intellectual property to bring a product from concept to market. However,... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Natural Language Processing; Machine Learning; Patents; Business Startups; Risk and Uncertainty; Outcome or Result; Green Technology Industry

04 May 2021
Book

Best Buy: How Human Connection Saved a Failing Retailer

we were colleagues, yes, but we were also human beings, and most of us were aligned on this idea of doing something good in the world. So we said, ‘Let’s use Best Buy as a platform for that.’” Instead of seeing the company as a consumer... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail

Andreessen Horowitz

This teaching case profiles Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm launched in 2009 that quickly broke into the VC industry's top ranks. The case recounts the firm's history; describes its co-founders' motivations and their strategy for disrupting an... View Details

05 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

How Hormones Foretell Whether People Will Cheat

in the August 2015 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, the paper was co-authored by a team of behavioral economists and psychologists: Jooa Julia Lee, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

August 2024 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Mercado Bitcoin: M&A, IPO, or Series B?

By: Raymond Kluender, Emanuele Colonnelli, Sabrina T. Howell and Karina Souza

In April 2021, Brazilian cryptocurrency platform Mercado Bitcoin had to decide how to scale: go public, M&A with a bank, or take a VC big check. In a highly volatile market, Roberto Dagnoni, chairman of the board, viewed the unprecedent crypto momentum as a window of... View Details

12 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

When Experts Play It Too Safe: Innovation Lessons from a NASA Experiment

Evolutionary Nature of Breakthrough Innovation: Re-Evaluating the Exploration vs. Exploitation Dichotomy Science: The Unlikely Frontier for New Business Ideas Engineering Serendipity: The Role of Cognitive Similarity in Knowledge Sharing View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Aerospace

September 2013
Article

Great Leaders Who Make the Mix Work

By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly

Business leaders send a powerful message when they make a commitment to diversity that goes beyond rhetoric. But what motivates them to do so, and how do they actually create inclusive cultures? To find out, the authors interviewed 24 CEOs whose firms were known for... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Working Conditions; Leading Change; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Diversity; Gender

Find at Harvard

Research Summary

"How Social Networks Moderate Loss Aversion"

The literature on consumers’ relationships with their brands emphasizes that, when people form relationships with brands that mirror their social relationships, the norms of social relationships are used as guiding principles in their interactions with... View Details

24 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

When Tech Platforms Identify Black-Owned Businesses, White Customers Buy

Vaccinated When Design Enables Discrimination: Learning from Anti-Asian Bias on Airbnb Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments Feedback or ideas to share? Email the Working Knowledge team at hbswk@hbs.edu. Image:... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Food & Beverage

February 2023 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Moleskine Foundation: Can Creativity Change the World?

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Alexandra C. Feldberg and Sarah Gulick

The Italy-based Moleskine Foundation worked with young adults in Africa and Europe to inspire social change through art and creative projects. Adama Sanneh, the newly appointed CEO of the Moleskine Foundation, faced several challenges: First, he had to make his own... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Social Enterprise; Leadership; Identity; Strategy; Education Industry; Italy; Africa; Europe; United States

March 2020
Teaching Note

onefinestay: Building a Luxury Experience in the Sharing Economy

By: Jill Avery and Anat Keinan

onefinestay was a two-sided marketplace that offered high-end home rentals to travelers who sought a more authentic and local experience than a typical upscale hotel might provide. After five years of rapid growth, it was time to do a comprehensive analysis of the... View Details

November 2014 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Disrupting the Meat Industry: Tissue Culture Beef

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Matthew G. Preble

Dr. Mark Post and his team at Maastricht University were perfecting their tissue culture beef product—made entirely from muscle grown in his lab—to give it the same taste, texture and appearance of a traditional beef hamburger. A previous iteration of this product had... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Beef Production; Environmental Impacts Of Food Production; Agribusiness; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Invention; Environmental Sustainability; Food; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Netherlands; United States; United Kingdom

08 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Decision Rights: Who Gives the Green Light?

sure to involve all the key stakeholders. To address these concerns, GM's Pudar employs an innovative approach to consensus building. Prior to making major decisions about a new initiative, he says, "I meet individually with each View Details

Keywords: by Peter Jacobs

01 Sep 2006
What Do You Think?

Are We Ready for Self-Management?

may work well when team sizes are small and there are limited personality conflicts." Ashutosh Tiwari, while questioning whether self-management could "prove its effectiveness in the long... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2009
Article

India Transformed: Insights from the Firm Level 1988–2007

By: Laura Alfaro and Anusha Chari

Using firm-level data, this paper analyzes the transformation of India's economic structure following the implementation of economic reforms. The focus of the study is on publicly listed and unlisted firms from across a wide spectrum of manufacturing and services... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Transformation; Economics; Ownership; Assets; Sales; Profit; Stock Shares; Private Sector; Investment Return; Manufacturing Industry; Service Industry; India

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21 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Sure Thing to Increase Productivity

prior art existed. Half of the students were assigned randomly to use the Boolean search tool and half to use the machine learning tool. Furthermore, they gave half of each group access to expert advice to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology; Information

21 Nov 2019
Research & Ideas

Do TV Debates Sway Voters?

the election don’t do it following TV debates. "We find that debates don’t have any effect on any group of voters." “There’s this perception that debates are this great democratic tool, where voters can find out what candidates... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

Article

Gross National Happiness As an Answer to the Easterlin Paradox?

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch

The Easterlin Paradox refers to the fact that happiness data are typically stationary in spite of considerable increases in income. This amounts to a rejection of the hypothesis that current income is the only argument in the utility function. We find that the... View Details

Keywords: Wealth and Poverty; Happiness; Employment; Income; Mathematical Methods; Welfare