Publications

July 2005
Case

Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession

By: Rakesh Khurana, Tarun Khanna and Daniel Penrice

Since its founding in 1908, Harvard Business School's mission has been to perform a much-needed service for American society by turning business management into a profession. One of the most important factors in the founding of HBS and the nation's other new business... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Mission and Purpose; Alignment; Social Issues; Practice

22 Nov 2019
HBS Seminar

Edward Glaeser (Paper Joint with Naomi Hausman), Harvard University

01 Sep 2023
News

Solving for Z

happy with and what more needs to be done to make Apollo a better and more attractive place to work. “You’ve got to co-create your culture,” he says. “And how do you do that? You ask for feedback. So I position myself as the walking... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; Illustrations by Doug Chayka; Administration of Human Resource Programs; Government

Web

Human Behavior & Decision-Making - Faculty & Research

Studies 2 and 3 (i.e., childhood memories and impressions formed, respectively). Second, we hypothesize that greater self-insight attributed to thoughts that are (perceived to be) spontaneous leads those thoughts to more potently influence judgment. Participants felt... View Details

30 Sep 2014
First Look

First Look: September 30

associated with a product's production heightens consumers' attraction to the firm, which in turn increases purchase interest (Experiments 1-3). In fact, cost transparency has a stronger impact on purchase interest than emphasizing the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

07 Jun 2023
HBS Case

3 Ways to Gain a Competitive Advantage Now: Lessons from Amazon, Chipotle, and Facebook

capabilities that they as a firm can hone, monitor, and manage,” she says. Those capabilities then allow the company to continuously produce innovative products at the same time they are creating more efficiency in manufacturing and View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

28 Jun 2016
First Look

June 28, 2016

Dinr part time and gathered £40,000 of initial capital. Yet, making the decision to leave his corporate job and become an entrepreneur was not easy: Was Dinr a good business opportunity? Would it be attractive to outside investors? What... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Taffi: Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia

By: Paul A. Gompers and Fares Khrais

Taffi was a tech-enabled fashion styling startup founded by Shahad Geoffrey in Saudi Arabia in 2020. Within three years of operating, Geoffrey had pivoted the business multiple times. In 2023, Geoffrey was attempting the business’s most ambitious pivot yet, shifting... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Fashion Industry; Technology Industry; Saudi Arabia; Arabian Peninsula

July–August 2020
Article

Price Bargaining and Competition in Online Platforms: An Empirical Analysis of the Daily Deal Market

By: Lingling Zhang and Doug J. Chung

The prevalence of online platforms opens new doors to traditional businesses for customer reach and revenue growth. This research investigates platform choice in a setting where prices are determined by negotiations between platforms and businesses. We compile a unique... View Details

Keywords: Business-to-business Marketing; Platform Competition; Two-Sided Markets; Price Bargaining; Daily Deals; Structural Model; Digital Platforms; Competition; Price; Negotiation

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November 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Rebuilding Puerto Rico

By: Laura Alfaro, Laura Phillips Sawyer and Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason

On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria swept over Puerto Rico, devastating the island’s infrastructure and agriculture. The natural disaster was layered atop years of mounting financial distress. Before the hurricane, Puerto Rico had accumulated $74 billion in debt and... View Details

Keywords: Natural Disasters; Financial Crisis; Infrastructure; Borrowing and Debt; Economy; Strategic Planning; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Puerto Rico

January 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

ZappRx

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Olivia Hull

In October 2015, ZappRx founder Zoe Barry is deciding between two business models for her health technology start-up. Her product, a software application that aims to expedite the prescription fulfillment process for patients with rare diseases, has attracted interest... View Details

Keywords: Speciality Drugs; Hub Services; Pivot; Speciality Prescriptions; Health Care and Treatment; Customization and Personalization; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Massachusetts

October 2016 (Revised January 2017)
Background Note

The U.S. Health Club Industry, 2005–2016

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

In 2015, the U.S. health-club industry generated revenues of $25.8 billion, up from $14.8 billion in 2004. Members of health clubs accounted for 17% of the population, up from 14%. The number of clubs had grown from 26,830 in 2004 to 36,180. In the process, the list of... View Details

October 2013
Case

Mitch Daniels and the State of Indiana

By: Robert Steven Kaplan and Wendy K. Winer

Mitch Daniels, Governor of the State of Indiana, knew he had to make a difficult choice as he sat in his office in December 2010. Should he aggressively push the state legislature to pass comprehensive education reform—a major priority of his administration—or,... View Details

Keywords: Education Reform; Priorities; Leadership; Education; Government and Politics; Public Administration Industry; Education Industry; Indiana

02 Mar 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Short-Termism, Investor Clientele, and Firm Risk

Keywords: by Francois Brochet, Maria Loumioti & George Serafeim

Research Summary

Overview

My research is at the intersection of organizational strategy, global sustainability governance, and social change. It explores the diffusion of sustainability standards to non-traditional sectors (e.g. jewelry, cannabis, plastics, pets) and the relationship between... View Details

July 2021
Teaching Plan

Aligning Mission and Margin at Southern Bancorp

By: Rebecca Henderson, Brian Trelstad and Eren Kuzucu

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 321-099. In October 2020, after spending almost a decade to turnaround Southern Bancorp, an Arkansan bank founded with the mission to provide financial services to rural, underserved communities, CEO Darrin Williams is wondering how... View Details

Keywords: Racial Wealth Gap; Banks and Banking; Growth and Development; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Going Public; Investment Return; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States; Arkansas

August 2020
Case

Gerald Chertavian

By: Leslie Perlow and Matthew Preble

Gerald Chertavian (HBS 1992) finds himself at a personal crossroads. It is 1999--the height of the dot com-bubble--and Chertavian and his business partners have just sold their Internet-based business for $83 million. His share of the sale’s proceeds means that he has... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Personal Development and Career; Decision Choices and Conditions

June 2020
Teaching Note

Armarium: Luxury Fashion Brands for Rent

By: Jill Avery and David Fubini

Armarium, a two-sided digital platform that offered consumers the opportunity to rent the most coveted, current season high fashion clothing and accessories from the top global luxury brands, had emerged from its first sales season with two distinct customer segments:... View Details

Keywords: Luxury Brand; Fashion; Sharing Economy; Two-sided Marketplace; Target Market; Customer Selection; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Two-Sided Platforms; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Value and Value Chain; Fashion Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; North America