Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,551)
- Faculty Publications (182)
- September–October 2017
- Article
Managing Our Hub Economy: Strategy, Ethics, and Network Competition in the Age of Digital Superpowers
By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani
A small number of digital superpowers—Alibaba, Amazon, Microsoft, and others—have become “hub firms” because they control access to billions of mobile customers coveted by all kinds of product and service providers. These hubs drive increasing returns to scale and... View Details
- March 2017 (Revised November 2017)
- Case
BlackRock (A): Selling the Systems? (with video links)
By: Ranjay Gulati, Jan W. Rivkin and Kelly McNamara
As the case opens in 1999, several key leaders at BlackRock, Inc., then a relatively small asset management firm, are trying to convince CEO Larry Fink and others that the firm should begin to offer Aladdin—its proprietary analytics and trading platform—to other asset... View Details
- 2017
- Book
HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company
By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
Find, acquire, and run your own business. Are you looking for an alternative to a career path at a big firm? Does founding your own start-up seem too risky? There is a radical third path open to you: you can buy a small business and run it as CEO. Purchasing a small... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurs; Small Companies; Small Business Finance; Negotiation; Due Diligence; Sourcing; Search Funds; Search; Deal Sourcing; Deal Structuring; Funnel; Debt Financing; Small And Medium Enterprises; Small Business; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Deal; Ownership; Equity; Borrowing and Debt
- November–December 2016
- Article
The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Industry
By: Yongwook Paik and Feng Zhu
Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... 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
- October 2016 (Revised January 2018)
- Case
BlackRock (A): Selling the Systems?
By: Ranjay Gulati, Jan W. Rivkin and Kelly McNamara
As the case opens in 1999, several key leaders at BlackRock, Inc., then a relatively small asset management firm, are trying to convince CEO Larry Fink and others that the firm should begin to offer Aladdin—its proprietary analytics and trading platform—to other asset... View Details
- July 2016
- Article
Do Prices Determine Vertical Integration?
By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Harald Fadinger and Andrew F. Newman
What is the relationship between product prices and vertical integration? While the literature has focused on how integration affects prices, this paper provides evidence that prices can affect integration. Many theories in organizational economics and industrial... View Details
- June 2016
- Case
Duff & Phelps: Scaling an Entrepreneurial Venture (A)
By: Lynda M. Applegate and David Lane
Having teamed up to launch their own financial services business, Noah Gottdiener and Jacob Silverman soon discover a venerable brand and viable business in an established bank subsidiary. They then work for many months to acquire the business as a platform for... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market
By: Feng Zhu
Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... View Details
- 2016
- Book
Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator's Dilemma
By: Charles A. O'Reilly and Michael Tushman
In the past few years, a number of well-known firms have failed—think of Blockbuster, Kodak, and RadioShack. When we read about their demise, it often seems inevitable—a natural part of "creative destruction." But closer examination reveals a disturbing truth:... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
Mohamed Azab and Seha Capital
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Sarah McAra
In January 2011, Mohamed Azab, founder and CEO of health care investment firm Seha Capital, made his first health care investment in Hassab Labs, a diagnostic lab in Alexandria, Egypt. Weeks later, a revolution erupted across the country as the Arab Spring swept... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Replicating Private Equity with Value Investing, Homemade Leverage, and Hold-to-Maturity Accounting
By: Erik Stafford
Private equity funds tend to select relatively small firms with low EBITDA multiples. Publicly traded equities with these characteristics have high risk-adjusted returns after controlling for common factors typically associated with value stocks. Hold-to-maturity... View Details
- November 2015 (Revised November 2016)
- Case
Huaxia: Building a U.S.-Style Dairy in China
By: Tarun Khanna, Nancy Hua Dai and Juan Ma
In 2015, Charles Shao, chairman of Huaxia, considered the alternatives to ensure sustainable growth of Huaxia and rebuild the overall health of China's dairy industry. He came to China in 2004 and set up Huaxia dairy farm with the goal to build a world-class dairy farm... View Details
- 2015
- Chapter
Innovation and Business Growth
By: William R. Kerr
Innovation and the pursuit of new business opportunities are essential for growth at the firm level; moreover, they provide the foundation for an economy to achieve new levels of technological prowess, productivity, and ultimately prosperity. This chapter describes... View Details
- March 2015
- Case
BOLT: Seed Venture Capital Firm
By: William A. Sahlman and Robert F. White
BOLT is a different kind of seed venture capital firm built to serve the needs of early-stage startups at the intersection of hardware and software.
In the past decade, the cost of entrepreneurial experimentation has dropped dramatically, particularly in web... View Details
In the past decade, the cost of entrepreneurial experimentation has dropped dramatically, particularly in web... View Details
- Article
Deregulation, Misallocation, and Size: Evidence from India
By: Laura Alfaro and Anusha Chari
This paper examines the impact of the deregulation of compulsory industrial licensing in India on firm size dynamics and reallocation of resources within industries. Following deregulation, resource misallocation declines, and the left-hand tail of the firm size... View Details
- 2014
- Report
An Economy Doing Half Its Job: Findings of Harvard Business School's 2013–14 Survey on U.S. Competitiveness
By: Michael E. Porter and Jan Rivkin
In 2013–14, Harvard Business School (HBS) conducted its third alumni survey on U.S. competitiveness. Our report on the findings focuses on a troubling divergence in the American economy: large and midsize firms have rallied strongly from the Great Recession, and highly... View Details
- July 2014
- Case
Thompson Asset Management
By: William Fruhan and John Banko
Thompson Asset Management (TAM) is a small investment advisory and asset management firm in Jacksonville, Florida, with about $100 million in assets under management in two different funds. Since starting the firm in 2009, the CEO and founder Allison Thompson has had a... View Details
- June 2014
- Simulation
Balanced Scorecard Simulation
By: V.G. Narayanan
In this multi-player simulation, students experience the benefits and challenges of using a scorecard to implement strategic initiatives and monitor firm performance. Small teams of students work together to choose a strategy for their company, create a strategy map,... View Details
- May 2014
- Article
Right Up the Middle: How Israeli Firms Go Global
By: Jonathan Friedrich, Amit Noam and Elie Ofek
The article considers international business enterprises based in Israel and how they successfully expanded from their origins as small businesses. A common technique of those companies in which they focused on market entry in other countries whose markets were too... View Details