Publications

2021
Working Paper

The Project on Impact Investments' Impact Investment Database

By: M. Diane Burton, Shawn Cole, Abhishek Dev, Christina Jarymowycz, Leslie Jeng, Josh Lerner, Fanele Mashwama, Yue (Cynthia) Xu and T. Robert Zochowski

Impact investing has grown significantly over the past 15 years. From a niche investing segment with only $25 billion AUM in 2013 (WEF 2013), it experienced double-digit growth and developed into a market with an estimated $502 billion AUM (Mudaliapar and Dithrich... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Investment; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis

SSRN

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February 2006 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Grove International Partners

By: Robert F. Higgins, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Suzanne Petrela

Grove International Partners, one of the world's largest international real estate private equity funds, is actively seeking new investment opportunities in the seniors housing industry. The firm has identified two potential opportunities--one located in Japan and one... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Investment; Opportunities; Financial Services Industry; Health Industry; Japan; United Kingdom

24 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 24

resistance to their lobbying activities from the general public. These areas are known as "thin political markets" to distinguish them from more vibrant and competitive "thick" political processes (e.g., healthcare regulation). This book develops... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2019 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Impossible Foods

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Impossible Foods founder and CEO Pat Brown started the company out of concern over livestock production’s impact on climate change. Impossible’s mission is to end consumption of animals by 2035, and its strategy is to develop and market plant-based foods so similar to... View Details

Karim R. Lakhani is the Dorothy & Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He specializes in technology management, innovation, digital transformation and artificial... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; communications; computer; health care; high technology; information technology industry; internet; pharmaceuticals; software; video games

February 2018 (Revised August 2018)
Case

OpenInvest

By: Shawn Cole, Boris Vallée and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded by a team of hedge fund and NGO alumni, OpenInvest launched its platform in 2015 to enable retail investors to tailor their portfolios to their personal values in an automated way, for instance by screening out weapons manufacturers stocks or overweighting... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Impact Investing; Investment Portfolio; Customization and Personalization; Technological Innovation; Social Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Financial Services Industry

2023
Working Paper

Firm Visibility and Acquisition Likelihood: Evidence from Seeking Alpha Coverage

By: Pu Gu, Benjamin Yost and Yuan Zou

This study investigates whether social media coverage influences a firm’s likelihood of being acquired. Specifically, we hypothesize that coverage of a firm on the Seeking Alpha platform raises its visibility to potential acquirers and M&A advisers (i.e., investment... View Details

Keywords: Social Media; Mergers and Acquisitions; Marketplace Matching; Investment Banking

SSRN

Charlotte Robertson is an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government, and the International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School. She teaches BGIE in the MBA required curriculum.

Professor Robertson conducts research on the history of financial... View Details

Rowan Clarke

Rowan Clarke is a PhD candidate at Harvard Business School in the Strategy Unit. He researches entrepreneurship and technology/AI for economic development and social impact. His work assists small business entrepreneurs, and high-growth technology... View Details

Keywords: energy; financial services; green technology; retail financial services; microfinance; management consulting; high technology

29 Apr 2013
News

The fragrance series – Part 3

17 Jan 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Expectations, Network Effects and Platform Pricing

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu & Hanna Hałaburda; Entertainment & Recreation

23 Oct 2019
Blog Post

How to Talk Gooder in Business and Life

Alison Wood Brooks is the O’Brien Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations, and Markets Unit at HBS. Her research, course development, and teaching focus is on the psychology of conversation—why we... View Details

February 1998 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Meadowlands

By: Arthur I Segel and William J. Poorvu

In February 1998, developers Ted Leonard and Charlie Sexton are attempting to acquire and develop a large multifamily site in Maryland, north of Washington, D.C. They are attempting to win financing and government approvals to develop a new kind of product for the... View Details

Keywords: Urban Development; Real Estate Industry; Maryland

05 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 5

Limits to Network Effects Authors:Hann Hałaburda and Mikołaj Jan Piskorski Abstract We model conditions under which agents in two-sided matching markets rationally prefer a platform restricting choice rather than a platform that offers... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

New Twitter Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets

Twitter has attracted tremendous attention from the media and celebrities, but there is much uncertainty about Twitter's purpose. Is Twitter a communications service for friends and groups, a means of expressing yourself freely, or simply a marketing... View Details

Zhongming Jiang

Zhongming Jiang is a Ph.D. student in Marketing (Quantitative) at Harvard Business School. His methodological interests include Bayesian {nonparametrics, causal inference, deep learning}, and probabilistic machine learning. Substantively, he is interested... View Details

May 2021 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Colombia: An Economic Premium to Peace?

By: Richard Vietor

Colombia, once the fastest growing country in Latin America, continues to struggle with productivity. Both labor productivity and total factor productivity have been low for the past decade, despite economic growth of 4.7% annually. Many factors contribute, which... View Details

December 2020
Case

Urban Company

By: Krishna G. Palepu

Urban Company is an India-based market platform that helps customers book home services and at home beauty services. The company differentiated itself by investing heavily in building customer trust. Rather than merely positioning itself as a lead generating... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Emerging Markets; Strategy; Service Delivery; Trust; Technology Industry; Service Industry; India