Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(5,254)
- Faculty Publications (1,341)
- December 2011 (Revised July 2013)
- Background Note
Hypothesis-Driven Entrepreneurship: The Lean Startup
By: Thomas Eisenmann, Eric Ries and Sarah Dillard
Firms that follow a hypothesis-driven approach to evaluating entrepreneurial opportunity are called "lean startups." Entrepreneurs in these startups translate their vision into falsifiable business model hypotheses, then test the hypotheses using a series of "minimum... View Details
- December 2011
- Article
EXEMPLARY CONTRIBUTION: Transforming Mental Models on Emerging Markets
By: Charles Dhanaraj and Tarun Khanna
Economic growth in the Western world increasingly depends on meaningful engagement with emerging markets such as Brazil, China, India, South Africa, and Turkey. Business schools are responding with increased attention to these markets in their research and curricula.... View Details
- November 2011
- Case
Pacific Grove Spice Company
By: William E. Fruhan and Craig Stephenson
Pacific Grove Spice Company is a profitable, rapidly growing manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of quality spices and seasonings. The company's business model requires significant investment in accounts receivable, inventory, and fixed assets to support sales.... View Details
- November 2011
- Article
KFC's Radical Approach to China
By: David E. Bell and Mary L. Shelman
Global companies face a crucial question when they enter emerging markets: how far should they go to localize their offerings? Typically they try to sell core products or services pretty much as they've been sold in Europe or the United States, with headquarters... View Details
- October 2011
- Case
Gene Sequencing: Staking a Position in an Expanding Industry
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Mara Aspinall and Phillip Andrews
Towards the end of 2010, companies in the gene sequencing industry were pushing aggressive R&D programs to develop technologies and products in the race to sequence the entire human genome at a cost of $1,000. It remained to be seen when the "$1,000 genome" would... View Details
- October 2011 (Revised March 2015)
- Case
Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Company: Marketing Challenges for the Underprivileged Latecomer
By: Willy Shih and Nancy Hua Dai
As Mr. Li Chunrong visited the new assembly line for the Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Company in Wuhan, China, he contemplated the position his business unit found itself in: a latecomer. As a state-owned enterprise Dongfeng had entered into numerous joint ventures to... View Details
- October 2011 (Revised May 2015)
- Case
The American Repertory Theater
By: Rohit Deshpande, Allen S. Grossman and Ryan Johnson
When Diane Paulus, artistic director and CEO of the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) first started in 2008, she attracted media coverage around an aesthetic that aimed to give the audience more ownership over the theater experience, excited theatergoers by... View Details
- 2011
- Chapter
American Exceptionalism?: A Comparative Analysis of the Origins and Trajectory of U.S. Business Education Development
By: Rakesh Khurana
As business education in an academic setting becomes an increasingly global phenomenon, the university-based business school in America remains a unique institution. This holds true despite the fact that the American business school as it evolved in the post-World War... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
The Dynamics of Firm Lobbying
By: William R. Kerr, William F. Lincoln and Prachi Mishra
We study the determinants of the dynamics of firm lobbying behavior using a panel data set covering 1998–2006. Our data exhibit three striking facts: (i) few firms lobby, (ii) lobbying status is strongly associated with firm size, and (iii) lobbying status is highly... View Details
- September 2011 (Revised August 2015)
- Case
ScoreBig
By: William A. Sahlman, Jeffrey Glass and Evan W. Richardson
The founding team at ScoreBig, an event ticketing company, is on the verge of a public launch of their product. The company has made great progress in negotiating access to tickets, designing its interface, and building a proprietary architecture. For consumers,... View Details
- September 2011 (Revised March 2014)
- Case
Brightcove, Inc. in 2007
By: Andrei Hagiu and David B. Yoffie
Brightcove, a technology and services provider to content owners in the Internet television field, aimed to become a media distribution company in its own right. On October 30, 2006, it relaunched its Website—and, in effect, its business. With its new, consumer-facing... View Details
- September 2011 (Revised May 2012)
- Case
GoodGuide
By: George Serafeim, Robert G. Eccles and Tiffany A. Clay
GoodGuide, a high-technology start-up company, founded by University of California Professor at Berkley Dara O'Rourke is at a critical junction. The venture capital funded company has yet to find the business model to monetize a very promising product that provides... View Details
- September 2011
- Article
Global Capitalism at Risk: What Are You Doing About It?
Market capitalism, a system that has proven to be a remarkable engine of wealth creation, is poised for a breakdown. That sounds dire, and it is. Increasing income inequality, migration, weaknesses in the global financial system, environmental degradation, and... View Details
- September 2011
- Article
On Testing Business Models
By: D. Huelsbeck, K. Merchant and Tatiana Sandino
This study explored management decisions regarding formal empirical testing of business models. It documented a test of one company's business model under seemingly favorable conditions for such a test – a successful single product firm following a consistent strategy... View Details
- September – October 2011
- Article
The Rise and Consequences of Corporate Sustainability Reporting
By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim
For many decades the cornerstone of corporate reporting has been financial information that is presented in a company's annual, semi-annual, and quarterly reports. These comprehensive financial reports—required by law for public companies in most countries... View Details
- August 2011 (Revised November 2015)
- Case
CFW Clinics in Kenya: To Profit or Not for Profit
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee
Ten years after having launched a chain of non-profit health clinics, its founder is now debating the merits of scaling the operation by converting to a for-profit enterprise. View Details
- August 2011
- Supplement
Better World Books Video
By: Michael I. Norton, Fiona Wilson, Jill Avery and Thomas Steenburgh
This video contains an interview with David Murphy, CEO of Better World Books. Topics discussed include: the opportunities and constraints offered by having a social mission, an update on the company, and the future of Better World Books. View Details
- July 2011 (Revised January 2012)
- Teaching Note
Demand Media (TN)
By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
Teaching Note for 512021. View Details
- July 2011
- Article
Mixed Source
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gaston Llanes
We study competitive interaction between a profit-maximizing firm that sells software and complementary services and a free open source competitor. We examine the firm's choice of business model between the proprietary model (where all software modules are... View Details
- July–August 2011
- Article
Putting Business Models Under the Microscope
By: K. Merchant, Tatiana Sandino and D. Huelsbeck
The article provides advice for financial managers on evaluating business models for corporate performance measurement. Emphasis is given to a study sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) that examined the business model of a medical... View Details