Pandemics - Publications - Faculty & Research

29 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

For Entrepreneurs, Blown Deadlines Can Crush Big Ideas

gain experience, they get worse at predicting timelines." Record venture capital investment and a surge of new businesses launched during the COVID-19 pandemic are raising the stakes for entrepreneurs. In a domain that prizes speed,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

20 Jan 2023
News

Free Spirits

January 2022, Tilden stepped into an increasingly popular party. The rise of non-alcoholic (NA) beverages has been one of the big headlines in the industry, where sales of beer grew almost 70 percent from 2016 to 2021, according to Euromonitor, and spirits shot up 113... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Food Services and Drinking Places; Hospitality

19 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

Fed Up Workers and Supply Woes: What's Next for Dollar Stores?

and delivery delays, and explains how dollar stores have been able to defy the downward trends that have devastated brick-and-mortar retail in recent years. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Harvard Gazette: The View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Retail

06 Feb 2023
Blog Post

African American Student Union Spotlight on HBCUs

feel welcomed and wanted for just being me and that felt really good. At what point did you decide to pursue an MBA, and why? I started to think more seriously about pursuing an MBA during COVID. Up until that point I'd only lived in Baltimore — born, raised, college,... View Details

09 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

OneTen: Creating a New Pathway for Black Talent

lasting implications. According to the United Negro College Fund, “Only 57 percent of Black students have access to the full range of math and science courses necessary for college readiness, compared to 81 percent of Asian American students and 71 percent of white... View Details

Keywords: by Rawi E. Abdelal, Katherine Connolly Baden, and Boris Groysberg

01 Nov 2022
What Do You Think?

Why Aren’t Business Leaders More Vocal About Immigration Policy?

likely is that managers have OVERESTIMATED the need for face-to-face contact and during the pandemic were (finally) compelled to question the wisdom of spending time and money (not their own!) to travel to often distant places for... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

14 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restarting Under Uncertainty: Managerial Experiences from Around the World

additional informational benefit, allowing firms to fully grasp the magnitude of the pandemic in its early days, when exact information on COVID-19 was still scarce. This was the case of VacuumCo, a German company with over 3,500... View Details

Keywords: by Raffaella Sadun, Andrea Bertoni, Alexia Delfino, Giovanni Fassio, and Mariapaola Testa

05 Jul 2021
What Do You Think?

Do Companies Really Need Chief Experience Officers to Know Their Customers?

is opportunity The past few years, companies have complained of a dearth of women and minority applicants. It would be a real silver lining if the pandemic creates the wave of “new” candidates you describe. What will be even better is if... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

22 Feb 2022
News

New Urban Order

what assets to protect and which people to move? We all hope Al Gore and Greta Thunberg fix everything, but if they don’t, then homeowners, businesses, universities, and governments will have to do something.” If the pandemic laid bare... View Details

Keywords: Kathleen Fu, Deborah Blagg, Julia Hanna, and Maureen Harmon; illustrations by; energy; environment; sustainability; entrepreneurship; Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation; Transportation; Water, Sewage and Supply Systems; Utilities; Construction of Buildings; Construction; Waste Management and Remediation Services; Corporate Services

February 2021 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Shopify: The Conquest for Chinese E-Commerce

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Avani Patel, Samantha Lin and Ariel Yang

In mid-2020, Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, faced a critical decision on how to time potential expansion into the China market. Over the prior 15 years, his Canadian software-as-a-service company had grown from a small e-commerce solutions provider to a full service... View Details

Citation

Educators

12 Nov 2021
News

Alumni Business Leaders on Confronting the Climate Change Challenge

Challenges BIO The COVID-19 pandemic has been a global tragedy that continues to affect tens of millions around the world. Some call it a black swan event. However, through this adversity, we have seen remarkable examples of human... View Details

08 Mar 2021
Blog Post

International Women's Day Featured Stories

women involved, the result will be a world with less war. Shivangi Goel Harvard MD/MBA Student, Class of 2022 At the start of the pandemic all medical schools across the country pulled medical students out of the hospitals. I chose to... View Details

13 Apr 2021
Book

How Inclusive Managers Create Glass-Shattering Organizations

self-confidence. Add in a devastating pandemic that has forced many mothers to scale back professional duties to support children at home, and deeply embedded stereotypes about women as caregivers and men as breadwinners start to... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

Web

2024 Reunion Presentations - Alumni

More Info – Less Info If there’s one thing that the pandemic and the resulting economic volatility have made clear, it’s that most people need—and want—a dramatically different relationship with work. Whether you are personally... View Details

09 Jun 2020
News

How Leaders Are Fighting Food Insecurity on Three Continents

manage a food distribution company and an agricultural investment fund. “Many global experts have underscored that this pandemic is a 12-18 month battle and that we can expect future pandemics and shocks... View Details

Keywords: Agriculture

24 Mar 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Cutting Jobless Aid Isn't the Answer to Worker Shortages

significant loss of benefits and spending,” says Kluender, who coauthored the recent working paper Early Withdrawal of Pandemic Unemployment Insurance: Effects on Employment and Earnings with HBS research associate Calvin Jahnke; Kyle... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

01 Mar 2006
News

One-on-One with Dr. Margaret Chan

Dr. Margaret Chan (PMD 61, 1991) is worried. She believes that a serious human influenza pandemic will almost certainly occur at some time in the near future. Chan is particularly concerned by the avian influenza virus H5N1 that is... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Government; Ambulatory Health Care Services; Health, Social Assistance

25 Jun 2020
News

Covering All Corners

Riad Armanious (MBA 2008) regards the pandemic as the greatest professional challenge he has faced as managing director of family-owned Eva Group and CEO of Eva Pharma, a multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Egypt. The... View Details

19 May 2020
News

Exploring the Economics of a Pandemic; Alumni Forums Draw Closer Online

Clubs News Clubs News Black Businesses Get Pandemic Survival Tips Via Webinar Series The HBS African-American Alumni Association (HBSAAA), in partnership with Steven Rogers (MBA 1985), the MBA Class of 1957 Senior Lecturer of Business... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

20 Apr 2020
News

To Build Connection in Quarantine, Clubs Go Virtual

meeting for the very latest on the coronavirus pandemic. In his work as the CEO and Chief Medical Officer of Enable Biosciences, an award-winning early and accurate disease diagnosis company in San Francisco, Seftel had been aware of the View Details