Publications

May 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Together for Sustainability

By: Ranjay Gulati, David Shin and Emily Tedards

This case documents the origin and development of Together for Sustainability (TfS), a chemical industry initiative dedicated to raising sustainability standards throughout the industry’s supply chains. In 2011, six Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) from some of the... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Standards; Supply Chain Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Partners and Partnerships; Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Accountability; Chemical Industry

September 2021 (Revised November 2021)
Case

Kwame Owusu-Kesse at the Harlem Children's Zone

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz

Do you—as leader, an individual within an organization, or running your own business—know when to say yes and when to say no? How do you make decisions about your own career and life? How do you counsel others who ask you for career and life insights?... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Decisions; Nonprofit Organizations; Personal Development and Career; Growth and Development Strategy; Race; Social Issues; New York (city, NY)

04 May 2021
Cold Call Podcast

Reversing Brain Drain: Moving Talent to Middle America

June 2023 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Collaboration Wars: Slack vs. Microsoft Teams 2023

By: David B. Yoffie, Kriti Gupta, Mehek Punatar, Poonam Sacheti and Poorvi Vijay

What's the future of corporate communications? Email? Corporate messaging? The battle for corporate messaging in 2023 was stacking up as a fight between Slack, which had been recently acquired by Salesforce, and Microsoft Teams. This case explores a classic judo... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Product Positioning; Marketing Strategy; Acquisition; Technology Industry; Communications Industry

January 2021
Case

Andela: Africa's AWS for Talent

By: Caroline M. Elkins, Tarun Khanna and Joyce J. Kim

Five years after the company’s founding, Andela, a company that built and trained remote engineering teams, became arguably Africa’s greatest technology unicorn. By January 2019, Andela raised $100 million in Series D funding. As Andela looked to scale in an... View Details

Keywords: Education In Africa; Entrepreneur; Remote Work; Software Engineering; Edtech; Entrepreneurship; Education; Applications and Software; Engineering; Growth and Development Strategy; Africa

April 2009
Case

The First Global Financial Crisis of the 21st Century

By: Laura Alfaro and Renee Kim

The global economy was expected to suffer from negative growth for the full year in 2009, a phenomenon not seen since World War II. While the U.S. subprime mortgage disaster was blamed as the original instigator, it was noted that the "global imbalances" of the U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Mortgages; Globalized Economies and Regions; Policy; International Relations; Business and Government Relations; Conflict and Resolution

January 2006 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Capitalism and Democracy in a New World

By: Bruce R. Scott, Sarah Potvin and Alison Adams

Focuses on the formulation of the Northwestern Ordinance as the core of a development strategy for capitalism and democracy in the United States. A precursor to the Constitution, the Northwestern Ordinance was based on the New England Model to achieve a broad and... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Economic Systems; Income; Laws and Statutes; Government and Politics; Growth and Development Strategy; Power and Influence; United States

2007
Working Paper

Fair (and Not So Fair) Division

By: John W. Pratt

Drawbacks of existing procedures are illustrated and a method of efficient fair division is proposed that avoids them. Given additive participants' utilities, each item is priced at the geometric mean (or some other function) of its two highest valuations. The... View Details

Keywords: Fairness; Price

Read Now

16 Jul 2020
News

Too Fast, Too Furious: Is U.S. Vaccine Development Headed in the Wrong Direction?

February 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Johnson Security Bureau: Building Multigenerational Success

By: Henry McGee, Annelena Lobb and David Muoser

Jessica Johnson-Cope, CEO of Johnson Security Bureau (JSB), pondered options for scaling the firm. JSB was the oldest Black-owned security firm in New York, and among the oldest Black-owned security firms in the United States. It provided mostly unarmed security guards... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Gender; Race; Cybersecurity; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; New York (state, US)

October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Fantuan

By: Feng Zhu and David Lane

In 2023, CEO Randy Wu was considering the optimal growth strategy for Fantuan, a restaurant food delivery platform that had expanded from its 2014 founding in Vancouver, Canada to serve the Chinese demand for Asian cuisine in urban markets across Australia, Canada, the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Customer Focus and Relationships; Diasporas; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Growth Management; Business Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Canada; United Kingdom; Australia

January 2023 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Peloton Interactive (A)

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Lynn S. Paine and David Lane

Early in February 2022, the board of Peloton Interactive faced some knotty challenges. Immense pandemic demand for its stationary exercise bicycles and treadmills had prompted the firm to scale up production rapidly. But as gyms reopened and the virulence of the virus... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Growth Management; Investment Activism; Leadership; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Sports Industry; United States

Winter 2022
Article

Leading Disruption in a Legacy Business: A Compelling Growth Ambition Is a Critical Enabler for New Ventures

By: Andy Binns, Michael Tushman and Charles O'Reilly

Leading innovation in established corporations is difficult. Active inertia and dynamic conservatism are real. Still, leaders can drive disruptive ventures from inside large corporations. These leaders ideate, incubate, and scale innovations, much as an entrepreneur... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Management; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Model

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

February 2020 (Revised June 2020)
Case

From Cradle to Heaven: Taikang Insurance Group

By: William C. Kirby, Shu Lin, John P. McHugh and Yuanzhuo Wang

Taikang Insurance Group was a leading Chinese insurance and financial services institution. It operated in the insurance, asset management, and health and senior care industries. Due to China’s underdeveloped social welfare state, Taikang saw an opportunity for the... View Details

Keywords: Health; Insurance; Strategy; Insurance Industry; China

Jeffrey F Rayport is a faculty member in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the School’s MBA and Executive Education Programs and on HBS Online. His primary focus in teaching and research is growth-stage technology... View Details

October 2016
Case

Supercell

By: William R. Kerr, Benjamin F. Jones and Alexis Brownell

Supercell is a young Finnish smartphone game company with an unusual team structure and company philosophy. It is already one of Finland’s most valuable companies, and despite being only six years old, it has put up some impressive numbers: as of 2016, it has released... View Details

Keywords: Supercell; Finland; Video Games; Firm Structure; Startups; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Groups and Teams; Video Game Industry; Finland