Publications

November 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Bridgit: Persevere or Pivot?

By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti

In late 2012, Mallorie Brodie and Lauren Lake, two young women in their final year of college, founded Bridgit, a technology startup that developed solutions to simplify vital but laborious processes within the construction industry. In the Fall of 2013, after months... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Founder; Co-founders; Women Executives; Pivot; Startup; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Applications and Software; Product Launch; Research and Development; Competition; Construction Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Canada

January 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Index

By: Jose Alvarez and Julia Kelley

In December 2017, Marc Freed-Finnegan and Jonathan Wall, the co-founders of retail technology company Index, had to discuss the company’s direction as they entered 2018. Five years earlier, Freed-Finnegan and Wall had founded Index after observing the technological... View Details

Keywords: Product Launch; Product Positioning; Sales; Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Retail Industry; Technology Industry

Web

Stories

Thinking Saving Giraffes from Silent Extinction Re: Susan Myers (MBA 1978); Richard Myers (MBA 1984); By: Jen Mcfarland Flint; Illustrations by Maria Jesus Contreras 01 Jun 2025 HBS Magazine Barbie: Reviving... View Details

12 Jan 2018
News

The Only 3 Career Steps that Matter

10 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Taking Advantage of Life’s (Few and Far Between) Inflection Points

grasp those few "inflection points" that present themselves to change our lives—if we recognize the opportunity. Howard Stevenson is the Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration. Slingshot Round the Moon From Howard's Gift: Uncommon Wisdom to Inspire Your... View Details

Keywords: Re: Howard H. Stevenson

Web

Placement - Doctoral

studies, are uniquely individualized. Factors like departmental fit, location preferences, dual career choices, and family needs shape these decisions. We celebrate when students secure a position that brings them joy! Students are supported throughout their job search... View Details

Forthcoming
Book

How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage

By: Ranjay Gulati

What leads people to speak truth to power, share bold new ideas, or put their lives on the line? Most of us chalk it up to personality, presuming that our heroes are naturally fearless. But what if courage isn’t simply a matter of personality? What if it’s something... View Details

Keywords: Personal Characteristics; Personal Development and Career

17 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: January 17

PublicationsUncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business Authors:Frances Frei and Anne Morriss Publication:Harvard Business Review Press, forthcoming An abstract is not available at this time.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2024
Case

Flashfood: The Magic of Commitment

By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti

Josh Domingues had accomplished what countless young entrepreneurs long to achieve: founding a promising company that aspires to make the world a tangibly better place. Shocked to learn that international food waste cumulatively amounted to the world’s third largest... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Founder; Startup; Business Model; Business Startups; Food; Applications and Software; Mission and Purpose; Environmental Sustainability; Canada

One of the leading business thinkers in the world offers a bold, new theory of advanced leadership for tackling the world's complex, messy, and recalcitrant social and environmental problems.

Over a decade ago, renowned innovation... View Details

November 2020
Article

Tackling Youth Unemployment: Evidence from a Labor Market Experiment in Uganda

By: Livia Alfonsi, Oriana Bandiera, Vittorio Bassi, Robin Burgess, Imran Rasul, Munshi Sulaiman and Anna Vitali

We design a labor market experiment to compare demand- and supply-side policies to tackle youth unemployment, a key issue in low-income countries. The experiment tracks 1700 workers and 1500 firms over four years to compare the effect of offering workers either... View Details

Keywords: Employment; Training; Competency and Skills; Developing Countries and Economies

Read Now

February 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

San Francisco Ballet: On 'Pointe' for the Future

By: Rohit Deshpandé and Nicole Tempest Keller

The SF Ballet was regarded as one of the top ballet companies in the world. It had an enviable earned revenue percentage of almost 50% and had an internationally recognized ballet school. However, by 2019 the Ballet faced a number of challenges. Ballet was a European... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Demographics; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Social Enterprise; Cultural Entrepreneurship; United States; San Francisco

2012
Working Paper

Putting Integrity into Finance: A Purely Positive Approach

By: Werner Erhard and Michael C. Jensen

We summarize our new positive theory of integrity that has no normative content, and argue that there are large gains from putting integrity into finance—into both the theory and practice of finance. We define integrity as being whole and complete and unbroken. We... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Ethics; Theory; Practice; Change

SSRN

17 Mar 2009
First Look

First Look: March 17, 2009

consumer surplus by making the gray market less competitive domestically. Under certain circumstances, the domestic welfare destruction arising from this erosion dominates the domestic welfare gains that accompany a shift to arm's length... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2008 (Revised January 2008)
Case

Two Brattle Center: A Mental-Health Clinic in Search of a Viable Operating Model

By: Robert G. Eccles

Two Brattle Center (TBC) is a struggling for-profit private mental health clinic based in Harvard Square. Its founder, Dr. Joan Wheelis, is a nationally recognized practicing psychiatrist who has developed outpatient treatment programs based on Dialectical Behavior... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Medical Specialties; Nonprofit Organizations; Emotions; Health Industry; United States

Web

Technology & Operations Management - Faculty & Research

efficiency by comparing actual input allocations to optimal allocations given various objectives. Overall, the market for science is moderately efficient at maximizing output and researchers’ utility: actual input levels are positively... View Details

March 2015
Case

Clifford Chance: Women at Work

By: Boris Groysberg, Katherine Connolly and Stephanie Marton

It was October 2013, and global law firm Clifford Chance was coming under fire for the second time in less than a year for reputedly failing to provide a supportive work environment for its female associates. A memo entitled "Speaking Effectively" was just issued to... View Details

Keywords: Women; Law; Fairness; Employee Relationship Management; Retention; Human Capital; Organizational Culture; Performance Expectations; Work-Life Balance; Public Opinion; Problems and Challenges; Legal Services Industry; United States

22 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Meet LASO: The HBS Latino Student Organization

encourage more Latino prospective students to apply. Thirdly, a new initiative, LASO Scholars, is our way of giving back to the Latinx community by pairing HBS students with local high school students. The goal of LASO Scholars is to... View Details

5 Feb 2013
Conference Presentation

Financing Entrepreneurial Growth

By: Tom Alberg, Andrew A. Bogan, Harold Bradley, Robert D. Cooter, Monika Gruter Cheney, Oliver R. Goodenough, William R. Hambrecht, Frank Hatheway, Thomas F. Hellmann, Marianne Hudson, Jared Konczal, Josh Lerner, Robert E. Litan, Diane Mulcahy, Ramana Nanda, Frank Partnoy, Joe Ratterman, Nava Ravikant, Jay R. Ritter, Alicia Robb, David T. Robinson, Allison Schrager, Barry Silbert, E. R. Sirri, Daniel Stangler and Sharon Vosmek

Despite recent innovations in entrepreneurial finance, particularly at the early stage of business creation, many new and young companies continue to face hurdles to acquire capital.

The Kauffman Foundation addressed current challenges and opportunities in... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Entrepreneurial Finance; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; United States