Publications

February 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

TikTok in 2020: Super App or Supernova?

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Dan Maher and Dan O'Brien

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was launched in 2012 around a simple idea – helping users entertain themselves on their smartphones while on the Beijing Subway. In less than a decade, it had become one of the world’s most valuable private companies, with investors... View Details

July 2011 (Revised August 2011)
Supplement

Renewing GE: The Africa Project (B)

By: David A. Thomas and Stephanie J. Creary

This case continues the story of the evolution of GE's business initiatives Africa. Between November 2010 and March 2011 several significant structural changes and leadership appointments were announced at GE, which reflected the company's commitment to global growth... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Restructuring; Multinational Firms and Management; Developing Countries and Economies; Consumer Products Industry; Hong Kong; Africa; Republic of Ireland

September 2010
Article

Bank Lending During the Financial Crisis of 2008

By: Victoria Ivashina and David S. Scharfstein

This paper documents that new loans to large borrowers fell by 47% during the peak period of the financial crisis (fourth quarter of 2008) relative to the prior quarter and by 79% relative to the peak of the credit boom (second quarter of 2007). New lending for real... View Details

Keywords: Financial Liquidity; Financing and Loans; Credit; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Crisis; Banking Industry

Strong Brands, Strong Relationships

From the editor team of the ground-breaking Consumer-Brand Relationships: Theory and Practice comes this new volume. Strong Brands, Strong Relationships is a collection of innovative research and management insights that... View Details

Academics - Health Care

life sciences, students need not have a scientific background, merely a passion for making an impact through participation in these ventures. Students will explore opportunities along various aspects of the R&D and commercialization... View Details

01 Jun 2023
News

3-Minute Briefing: Jeremy Grantham (MBA 1966)

career, which is more than most can stand. In other words, you can’t know how much money you might make before the bubble bursts. That is so commercially painful that the big investment firms are almost never bearish except for now, which... View Details

Keywords: climate change; finance; sustainability; prediction; Finance

Loan Reduction - Entrepreneurship

Eligible ventures include product- or service-based for-profit ventures, both digital and physical. Products may include software, hardware, consumer goods, commercialized technology, etc. The program does not support professional... View Details

Planned Giving - Alumni

and hedge fund investments may be used to make a gift. Real Estate You can use real estate that you no longer need or enjoy, such as a personal residence, vacation home, or commercial property, to support HBS. Simplify Your Philanthropy... View Details

Doctoral 100 Years - Doctoral

Overview Doctoral 100 Years 1922 Training Men for Teaching Business HBS is authorized by the Harvard University Governing Boards to grant the degree of Doctorate of Commercial Science. 1928 Gragg Awarded First Doctorate of View Details

Research Summary

The new property: computational property, intellectual property, and cyberspace

The objective of this project is to design ownership regimes for property located in cyberspace, such as websites, links for e-travel, applets that run on distant processors, and other related computational species. The driving assumption of the project is that the... View Details

2013
Working Paper

Do Display Ads Influence Search?: Attribution and Dynamics in Online Advertising

By: Sunil Gupta

As firms increasingly rely on online media to acquire consumers, marketing managers feel comfortable justifying higher online marketing spend by referring to online metrics such as click-through rate (CTR) and cost per acquisition (CPA). However, these standard online... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Digital Marketing

11 Sep 2023
Blog Post

Reflections on My First Semester Teaching at HBS

DJ DiDonna is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School where he teaches the required first year course: The Entrepreneurial Manager. He has dedicated his career to commercializing social science... View Details

Doing Business with China: Early American Trading Houses - A Chronicle of the China Trade

the 1500s, when Dutch and Portuguese traders began to import Chinese goods including silk, spices, porcelain, painting, and fine furniture. But it was the consumption of tea in Europe that created a booming commercial market between China... View Details

March 2025
Case

Metaphysic AI: Rethinking the Value of Human Expertise

By: Zoë B. Cullen, Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

In early 2025, Thomas Graham, CEO of Metaphysic, a leading AI generative video company confronted fundamental questions about who should control digital identity in a world where AI could perfectly recreate human likeness. Founded in 2021, Metaphysic first rose to fame... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Ethics; AI and Machine Learning; Intellectual Property; Rights; Negotiation; Value; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Technology Industry

June 2007 (Revised April 2016)
Case

Octone Records

By: Anita Elberse and Elie Ofek

In February 2007, Octone Records founders James Diener, Ben Berkman, and David Boxenbaum had been highly successful with the first two bands they had signed, Maroon 5 and Flyleaf. Known for its grassroots marketing campaigns, Octone operated through a unique... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Joint Ventures; Investment Return; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Product Development; Outcome or Result; Creativity; Music Industry

28 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

Remote Workers Spend More on Housing. Do They Deserve Higher Pay?

To executives expecting to save on office space when some employees continue working remotely post-pandemic: Not so fast. Makeshift desks and kitchen tables have sufficed for many people working from home to avoid COVID-19. However, permanently remote workers tend to... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

July 2018
Case

LIXIL Group Corporation: Building a New Company in an Old Industry

By: Boris Groysberg and Akiko Kanno

In the spring of 2018, Kinya Seto, president and CEO of LIXIL Group Corporation, a major housing and building products and services company, called a meeting at the company’s head office in central Tokyo to discuss how to implement the new three-year strategic plan.... View Details

Keywords: Turnaround; Leadership And Change Management; Consolidation; Change Management; Leadership; Global Strategy; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Japan

2014
Working Paper

Bridging Science and Technology Through Academic-Industry Partnerships

By: Sen Chai and Willy C. Shih

Scientific research and its translation into commercialized technology is a driver of wealth creation and economic growth. Partnerships to foster the translational processes from public research organizations, such as universities and hospitals, to private firms are a... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Firm Performance; Public-private Partnership Funding; Translational Research; Small And Medium Enterprises; Partners and Partnerships; Public Sector; Private Sector; Performance; Science-Based Business; Innovation and Invention