Publications

2017
Working Paper

Self-Employment Dynamics and the Returns to Entrepreneurship

By: Eleanor W. Dillon and Christopher T. Stanton

Small business owners and others in self-employment have the option to transition to paid work. If there is initial uncertainty about entrepreneurial earnings, this option increases the expected lifetime value of self-employment relative to pay in a single year. This... View Details

Keywords: Self-employed; Small Business; Business Earnings; Entrepreneurship; Ownership; Compensation and Benefits

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02 Apr 2019
News

The Right Way to Get Your First 1,000 Customers

20 Oct 2010
Op-Ed

Export Competitiveness: Reversing the Logic

can only be justified, if the rise in exports enhances the effect of other policies that ultimately increase competitiveness. If that happens the View Details

Keywords: by Christian Ketels

April 2009 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Gucci Group: Freedom within the Framework

By: Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, Elena Corsi and Vincent Marie Dessain

Gucci Group's CEO had to decide if his decentralized management style was the most effective philosophy in an economic downturn. The sharing of customer information across units and its use in the creative process are key initiatives analyzed in the case. CEO Robert... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Globalized Firms and Management; Knowledge Sharing; Leadership; Management Style; Management Systems; Brands and Branding; Apparel and Accessories Industry

2009
Working Paper

Negotiating the Path of Abraham

By: Kimberlyn Leary, James K. Sebenius and Joshua Weiss

In the face of daunting barriers, the Abraham Path Initiative envisions uncovering and revitalizing a route of cultural tourism that follows the path of Abraham and his family some 4,000 years ago across the Middle East. It begins in the ancient ruins of Harran, in... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Social Entrepreneurship; Negotiation; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Religion; Environmental Sustainability; Tourism Industry; Middle East

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January 2000 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Cambridge Hospital Community Health Network - The Primary Care Unit

By: V.G. Narayanan, Lisa Brem and Ryan Moore

The Cambridge Hospital Community Health Network needed to gain a better understanding of its unit-of-service costs, which had been rising at a rate of 10% per year. The network's step-down costing system gave only aggregate costing information, and there was some... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Accounting; Cost; Network Effects; Health Industry; Service Industry; Massachusetts

15 Feb 2000
Research & Ideas

The Right Connections

that whom you know can be just as important as what you know when trying to offset the uncertainty inherent in backing a high-risk startup in an initial public offering (IPO). "Our work suggests that... View Details

Keywords: by Judith A. Ross

30 Aug 2023
Blog Post

I’m From the South and Going Back: Why HBS Was the Best School for Me

graduation, and a brief stint in Birmingham, I’m heading back to Georgia after accepting a position in consulting and I couldn't be happier with the decision. To be honest, I wasn't initially considering a... View Details

01 Sep 2023
News

Case Study: The Home Team

Illustration by Jon Krause Illustration by Jon Krause Brendan Kennealey (MBA 2006) wasn’t even searching for a business idea. A couple of years ago, the Wilmington, Delaware, native met up with an old friend who’d bought a new house. Over dinner this friend enumerated... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Real Estate

24 Oct 2018
Blog Post

The Energy & Environment Club

resources, such as CPD, the Business & Environment Initiative (BEI), and networks within the Energy & Environment Club. Thanks to Zander Sebenius (MBA ’19) and Andrew... View Details

25 Aug 2022
News

Up on the Corner

series of breathtakingly capricious bureaucratic hurdles. The city initially fast-tracked the demolition of the two vacant buildings on View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; photographed by Melissa Golden; Real Estate

03 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping

Transporting "containerized cargo" seemed to be a natural, cost-effective extension of his business. McLean initially envisioned his trucking fleet as an integral part of an extended transportation network. Instead of truckers... View Details

Keywords: by Anthony J. Mayo & Nitin Nohria; Manufacturing; Transportation; Aerospace

Reviving and Restructuring the Corporate Sector Post-Covid

The report commends the broad-based governmental actions initially taken to support the economy, citizens, and the corporate sector during the Covid pandemic. However, structural changes in our economies due to the pandemic, and growing corporate... View Details

09 Jun 2008
Lessons from the Classroom

Monetizing IP: The Executive’s Challenge

firms share their technology with each other. The rapid growth of open source software over the course of this decade has been highlighted in numerous press accounts. The... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Video Game; Web Services

January 2023 (Revised June 2024)
Supplement

Zaoui & Co. (B): Executing the Odyssey SPAC Transaction

By: Ashish Nanda, Alex Kitsberg and Zack Kurtovich

In September 2019, founding partners Michael and Yoel Zaoui decided to add principal investing to Zaoui & Co.’s offerings. The case outlines how, over the next two years, Zaoui & Co. pursued the formation of a SPAC, Odyssey Acquisitions, followed by the identification... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Investment Banking; SPACs; M＆A; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Europe; United Kingdom

April 6, 2023
Article

A New NFT Launch Strategy: The Wave Mint

By: Scott Duke Kominers and 1337 Skulls Sers

In an NFT project, the mint—the process by which tokens are initially allocated—largely determines who your community is and how they and the broader market view the project going forward. In this piece, we review a new minting strategy recently introduced by 1337... View Details

Keywords: NFTs; Mechanism Design; Sales Management; Sales Model; Crypto Economy; Non-fungible Tokens; Networks; Product Launch; Auctions; Market Design

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November 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Celsius Network Inc.: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt in the Brave New World of Crypto Bankruptcy

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

In July 2022, Celsius Network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. CEO Alex Mashinsky acknowledged that Celsius had grown its assets “faster than the Company was prepared to deploy [them]” and as a result had made “certain poor asset deployment decisions.” Two months after... View Details

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Chapter 11; Restructuring; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Asset Management; Acquisition; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Services Industry; United States