Publications

Teaching Interest

Overview

Lena teaches the required first year MBA course on Leadership and Corporate Accountability, an elective second year MBA course on Law, Management and Entrepreurship, and an elective second year MBA course on Challenges and Opportunities in the Restaurant Industry. View Details

August 2010 (Revised December 2016)
Case

Kaweyan: Female Entrepreneurship and the Past and Future of Afghanistan

By: Geoffrey Jones and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Explores the challenges of female entrepreneurship in Afghanistan through the case of Kemeli Sediqi, who built a business under the Taliban, and founded a consultancy in 2004. The case positions Sediqi's experiences against the background of Afghanistan's turbulent... View Details

Keywords: Opportunities; Social Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Welfare; Gender; Afghanistan

August 2018
Article

Growth Through Heterogeneous Innovations

By: Ufuk Akcigit and William R. Kerr

We build a tractable growth model where multi-product incumbents invest in internal innovations to improve their existing products, while new entrants and incumbents invest in external innovations to acquire new product lines. External and internal innovations generate... View Details

Keywords: Endogenous Growth; Innovation; Citations; Scientists; Entrepreneurs; External; Internal; Patents; Innovation Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Economic Growth; Research and Development; Science

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03 Jan 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Banking Deregulation, Financing Constraints and Entrepreneurship

Keywords: by William Kerr & Ramana Nanda; Banking

Research Summary

2. Acquisitions of Industrial Units and the Evolution of Operational Performance across the Firm

Abstract: Manufacturing firms frequently expand their production capacity through the acquisition of industrial units. How are the existing units in the acquirer company affected by the acquisition of another facility? I argue that two important... View Details

March 1998
Case

Bumper Acquisition (A2), A: Confidential Information for Medallion Capital, Inc.

By: James K. Sebenius and David T. Kotchen

Located in Mundelein, IL, Thermo-Impact, Inc. is a rapidly growing, private firm that manufactures automotive bumpers. In 1995, a number of large automotive supply companies and a private equity investment firm offer to buy Thermo-Impact. The cases in this series focus... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Valuation; Negotiation Participants; Decision Making; Negotiation Process; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Offer; Acquisition; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Illinois

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March 2021 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Hotwire.com: Navigating Through Turbulence

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Manny de Zarraga and Eric Levine

On September 10, 2001, after speaking at an industry conference at New York’s World Trade Center, Hotwire co-founder Spencer Rascoff boarded a flight from Newark to San Francisco. After returning home, Rascoff awoke the next morning to a phone call informing him that... View Details

Keywords: September 11; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Disruption; Decisions; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Growth Management; Digital Platforms; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Air Transportation Industry; Tourism Industry; San Francisco

23 Feb 2009
Research & Ideas

Creative Entrepreneurship in a Downturn

tempered with great caution," says Chakravorti. "The entrepreneurs who can capture the limited resources have the potential to do well. Shortage and adversity are powerful stimuli for focusing the mind." At HBS, Chakravorti teaches and writes on View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2015
Other Teaching and Training Material

Entrepreneurship Reading: Partnering with Venture Capitalists

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Michael J. Roberts

This reading takes a deep look at the venture capital (VC) industry in the United States. VCs have a unique perspective on opportunity evaluation, deal structure, new venture support, and exit strategy. Their work at all stages of the entrepreneurial life cycle offers... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship

2021
Chapter

Generating Social Entrepreneurship Knowledge: International Research Collaboration on a Hemispheric Level

By: James E. Austin, Gabriel Berger, Rosa Amelia González, Roberto Gutiérrez, Iván D. Lobo and Alfred Vernis

Provide insights on how social entrepreneurship (SE) knowledge can be more effectively generated by universities through the entrepreneurial creation and effective management of a knowledge network centered on international collaborative research; illuminate how one... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Knowledge; Networks; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Global Range

October 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Eastern Bank: Innovating Through Eastern Labs

By: Karen Mills, Dennis Campbell and Aaron Mukerjee

Eastern Bank is a 200-year-old New England mutual bank with a community focus. Eastern specializes in small business lending, having made strategic investments to become the top SBA lender in New England in the midst of the Great Recession, when other banks were... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Management

Article

Entrepreneurial Creativity Through Motivational Synergy

By: T. M. Amabile

This paper defines and describes entrepreneurial creativity, which is the generation and implementation of novel, appropriate ideas to establish a new venture. Entrepreneurial creativity can be exhibited in established organizations as well as in start-up firms. The... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Culture; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

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Research Summary

International Financial Integration and Entrepreneurship (joint with Andrew Charlton)

By: Laura Alfaro

We explore the relation between international financial integration and the level of entrepreneurial activity in a country. Researchers have stressed the role of new firm activity and economic dynamism on growth. Yet, the empirical effects of international capital... View Details

2022
Article

Science-based Entrepreneurship in India: A Policy Glass (as yet) Quarter-Full

By: Tarun Khanna

India is celebrated for a resurgence of de novo entrepreneurship in recent decades. Entrants have engaged in creative risk-taking to provide market-based solutions for private or social needs despite not being scions of wealthy industrial or business families. In this... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Science; Policy; Investment

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13 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

Corporate Venturing: Entrepreneurship on the Inside

Can big companies ride the entrepreneurial tiger to transformation and renewal? Yes, said participants in the panel discussion "Corporate Venturing: Entrepreneurship on the Inside" at the HBS View Details

Keywords: by Kenneth Liss

October 2019
Case

Street Symphony: Making Human Connections Through Music

By: Rohit Deshpandé

To Vijay Gupta, music was sacred. A highly accomplished and renowned violinist with The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gupta believed the act of making and performing music was a deeply spiritual practice — one that had the power to heal audiences and musicians... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Issues; Business and Community Relations; Music Entertainment; Human Needs; Music Industry; Los Angeles; California; United States

September 2020
Teaching Plan

Harlem Capital: Changing the Face of Entrepreneurship

By: George Serafeim

Jarrid Tingle and Henri Pierre-Jacques had spent the summer between their first and second years of their MBA program fund raising for their start-up venture capital (VC) firm, Harlem Capital Partners. Harlem Capital was founded upon the principle that addressing the... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital Firm Compensation; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurial Financing; Black Entrepreneurs; Black Leadership; Black Inventors; Inclusion; Minority-owned Businesses; Race And Ethnicity; Race Characteristics; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Diversity; Race; Gender; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Financial Services Industry; United States

07 Dec 2009
Research & Ideas

Government’s Positive Role in Kick-Starting Entrepreneurship

Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed—and What to Do about It. Government has played similar catalytic roles in creating hubs of innovation is places such as Tel Aviv and Singapore. Such success stories... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

November 2023
Case

Tata Group in 2021: Pursuing Profits through Purpose

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Vidhya Muthuram

October 8, 2021: Tata Sons won a bid to acquire India’s national carrier Air India, marking the airline's return to its original owners after 68 long years. The winning bid of $2.4 billion gave Tata Sons full ownership of the airline and its coveted network of 6,200... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Emerging Markets; Mergers and Acquisitions; Ownership; Air Transportation; Air Transportation Industry; India