Publications

20 Aug 2020
Blog Post

“Business as Usual, In a Different Way” – Creating an Impactful Remote Internship at Actis

For Nikki Mason, Rachael Henley, and their team at Actis, it was never a matter of if they should continue their Global Summer Associate Programme in 2020, but how they would do it well. The Actis Internship Program Actis is a global emerging View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital / Private Equity; Other Financial Services

February 2011 (Revised May 2011)
Case

Utilis: Designing, Producing, and Selling Rapid Deployment Shelters for a Troubled World

By: Herman B. Leonard, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Simon Harrow

How can a company that supplies disaster response and humanitarian agencies best handle the intrinsically unpredictable and highly volatile demand for its products? Utilis is a French supplier of rapid-deploy high-end tent solutions for civilian and military uses (such... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Strategic Planning; Natural Disasters; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; France

August 2024 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Commonwealth Fusion Systems: Born at Scale

By: Joshua Lev Krieger, Jim Matheson, Kyle Myers, Gunnar Trumbull and Richard Vietor

This case study chronicles the journey of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) on its ambitious mission to commercialize fusion energy and become the world’s leading provider of fusion power plants. Emerging from a “special arrangement” with MIT's Plasma Science and... View Details

Keywords: Nuclear Energy; Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurial Finance; Energy Generation; Commercialization; Science-Based Business; Technological Innovation; Market Entry and Exit; Energy Industry

October 2018 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Sidewalk Labs: Privacy in a City Built from the Internet Up

By: Leslie K. John, Mitchell Weiss and Julia Kelley

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

By the time Dan Doctoroff, CEO of Sidewalk Labs, began hosting a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session in January 2018, he had only nine months remaining to convince the people... View Details

Myra Hart's research focus is high potential entrepreneurship. She has taught MBA and executive programs, co-chaired the entrepreneurship unit, and led several HBS initiatives. As a founding memberView Details

Keywords: consumer products; e-commerce industry; education industry; real estate; retailing

Program

Competing in the Age of Digital Platforms

platforms. Key Benefits For business leaders, platforms present enormous opportunities but also pose serious risks. Competing in what have been called "multi-sided markets driven by network effects" is often akin to playing... View Details

17 Dec 2013
First Look

First Look: December 17

in engineering and infrastructure construction, its challenges in planning and innovation, and the special things that a firm must do to compete successfully in the Chinese market. We conclude with China's approach to the global economy... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

12 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 12, 2019

Reorientation in New Ventures By: McDonald, Rory, and Cheng Gao Abstract—New ventures often experience deviations from their plans that oblige them to reorient in pursuit of better fit between their evolving products and their target... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

August 2009 (Revised March 2011)
Case

Shenzhen Development Bank

By: Li Jin, Yuhai Xuan and Xiaobing Bai

Weijian Shan, Managing Partner of Newbridge Capital, faces a tough call in regard to his firm's investment in Shenzhen Development Bank, China's fifteenth-largest commercial bank listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Due to the aggressive lobby of the existing... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Private Equity; Commercial Banking; Investment; Emerging Markets; Business and Government Relations; Banking Industry; China

05 Dec 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, December 5, 2017

identified in the education and skill system, labor market incentives and flexibility, the ability to translate R&D outcomes into economic value creation, and in preparing the economy for the new realities of globalization. Maybe most... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: January 4

changing circumstances, both within and outside of the gaming context. Market Interest in Nonfinancial Information Authors:R. G. Eccles, Michael P. Krzus, and George Serafeim Publication:Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 23, no. 4... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Web

Program Details - Doctoral

Program for Research in Markets & Organizations Program Details 2ms Program Dates The dates for Summer 2025 will be between June 2025 - August 2025. Program Eligibility PRIMO is open to continuing students (rising sophomores, juniors, or... View Details

26 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 26, 2008

Working PapersAn Investigation of Earnings Management through Marketing Actions Authors:Craig J. Chapman and Thomas J. Steenburgh Abstract Combining new, hand-collected data with a widely studied dataset, we examine how firms use View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

Podcast - Business & Environment

uses blended capital, including philanthropic first-loss investments and commercial impact funding, to scale business models in underdeveloped markets where traditional investors hesitate. Jacqueline also shares examples of companies... View Details

August 1989 (Revised October 2003)
Case

Fan Pier

By: William J. Poorvu and Katherine Sweetman

The owner of the Fan Pier site in South Boston has been found legally responsible for blocking the efforts of his development partner in attaining the approval necessary to build the $800 million megaproject they had planned together. It was believed that the owner... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Law; Projects; Design; Organizational Design; Marketing Strategy; Government and Politics; Property; Real Estate Industry; Boston

Web

Great American Business Leaders of the 20th Century - Leadership

Loan Marketing Association, 1973–1990 William Fox Fox Film Company, 1915–1929 Clarence Francis General Foods Corporation, 1935–1943 John M. Franklin United States Lines, 1946–1960 Frank M. Freimann Magnavox Company, 1950–1967 Jack Frye... View Details

16 Nov 2016
Research & Ideas

Turning One Thousand Customers into One Million

Few companies in the past few years have rocketed to success faster than Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy, which together have transformed the way we hail a cab, plan a vacation, and shop for handmade gifts, respectively. In a previous HBS Working... View Details

Keywords: by Thales S. Teixeira and Michael Blanding; Retail; Transportation; Accommodations

Web

Accounting & Management - Faculty & Research

135–159. Redefining the Edge: Jahez’s Strategic Pivot in Saudi Arabia’s Food Delivery Battle By: Krishna G. Palepu and Ahmed Dahawy June 2025 | Case | Faculty Research Jahez made its mark in Saudi Arabia’s food delivery market by serving... View Details

September 2006 (Revised September 2007)
Case

VMware, Inc. (A)

By: David B. Yoffie, Ward Bullard, Nikhil Raj and Suja Vaidyanathan

VMware, Inc., the first company to crack the software virtualization market, faces new challenges from competitors' plans to bundle free virtualization solutions in operating systems. VMware, acquired by data storage giant EMC Corp. in 2003, has delivered top-line... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Open Source Distribution; Competition