Publications

07 May 2008
Research & Ideas

The Intellectual History of Harvard Business School

Date: April 17-18, 2008 Faculty Chair: Richard S. Tedlow Faculty Summary Report: Colloquium: The Intellectual History of the Harvard Business School: Six Case Studies What were the overall goals of the... View Details

Keywords: by Richard S. Tedlow; Education

03 Feb 2003
What Do You Think?

Can Business Schools Teach the Craft of Getting Things Done?

Summing Up Implementation or "execution" can be taught. Whether business schools are the best places to do it remains a question with the readers responding to this month's column. For many, the requirements for teaching the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

22 May 2017
Lessons from the Classroom

A Luxury Industry Veteran Teaches the Importance of Aesthetics to Budding Business Leaders

Pauline Brown joined the HBS faculty following a tenure as Chairman of North America at the French luxury goods conglomerate, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. (Photo credit: Albert Cheung) To future CEOs who want to succeed in the View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Beauty & Cosmetics; Apparel & Accessories; Auto; Tourism

20 Jun 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Fame, Faith, and Social Activism: Business Lessons from Bono

To Nancy F. Koehn, the history of the Irish rock band U2 has it all as a business case study: teamwork, leadership, creative destruction, branding, and strategy. Koehn's case "Bono and U2", co-written with Katherine Miller and Rachel K.... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Entertainment & Recreation

05 Nov 2024
Book

Building the Road to 'Small Business Utopia' with AI and Fintech

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from chapter one of Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream, written by Karen G. Mills, senior fellow at Harvard Business School. The second edition was... View Details

Keywords: by Karen G. Mills; Financial Services

16 Aug 2024
In Practice

Election 2024: What's at Stake for Business and the Workplace?

Ahead of the Democratic National Convention, HBS Working Knowledge gathered insights from Harvard Business School faculty about what’s at stake for companies, and how the election might impact workplaces. They offer an assessment as the... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

31 Jan 2017
Research & Ideas

Why These Business School Professors Oppose Trump's Executive Order on Immigration

interests of the United States,” and “opposes undue burden on members of our community.” As of this writing, the signatories include some 50 Nobel Laureates and more than 14,800 faculty members at US colleges and universities. Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Staff

23 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Businesses Need a 'Catalyst' to Make CSR Practices Stick

Many companies follow a tried-and-true approach to pursuing corporate social responsibility practices. They set aside a certain amount per year to fund a CSR office, which then tries to help clean up the environment or improve the quality of life of people in the areas... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

22 Dec 2016
Op-Ed

The Small Business Administration is a Model for How to Drive Economic Growth

U.K. government borrowed from the SBA’s contracting efforts, setting an even higher small business contracting goal than ours here in the United States (25 percent versus our 23 percent) and achieving it in... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills

August 2019 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Family Matters: Governance at the Zamil Group

By: Christina R. Wing, Suraj Srinivasan and Esel Çekin

This case focuses on a large Saudi Arabian industrial conglomerate and family business Zamil Group’s corporate and family governance journey. The 12 sons of the founder led and grew the group successfully after taking over from their father in 1961. The secret to their... View Details

Keywords: Middle East; Family Ownership; Family-owned Business; Saudi Arabia; Family Business; Governance; Organizational Structure; Values and Beliefs; Steel Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Middle East; Saudi Arabia; Bahrain

28 Aug 2014
Op-Ed

Government Can Do More to Unfreeze Small Business Credit

guarantee programs, and state-sponsored venture capital programs. Additionally, in 2011 the SBA leveraged its partnership with larger banks, resulting in 13 of America's top lenders committing to increase their small business lending by... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Banking

September 2017 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Chai Point: Disrupting Chai

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani

Chai Point is India’s largest organized chai retailer. It has missed its target for retail store openings by approximately 25%, goals that are very important to its investors who are also board members. However, it has developed an exciting new internet-based tea... View Details

14 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Ethics Bots and Other Ways to Move Your Code of Business Conduct Beyond Puffery

wrote. “They are too general to cause a reasonable investor to rely upon them.” That’s typical of the way that many people and even employees view codes of conduct, says Eugene F. Soltes, Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

July 2012 (Revised August 2012)
Case

Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged)

By: Clayton Rose and Aldo Sesia

In 2010, Friend Bank was entering the fifth year of Hope Harris Johnson's ambitious 20-year growth plan to transform her family's one-branch community bank into an institution with a substantial presence in southeastern Alabama. Harris Johnson was pleased, so far, with... View Details

Keywords: Banking; Family Business; Strategy And Execution; Banks and Banking; Family Ownership; Financial Institutions; Strategy; Banking Industry; United States; Alabama

02 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

Government and Financial Tech Can Fix Cash Woes for Small Businesses

to wait for payment for the work they had performed. With small businesses responsible for nearly $100 billion in contracts with the federal government, our goal was to get this cash to these small firms... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills

01 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

How Foundations Think: The Ford Foundation as a Dominating Institution in the Field of American Business Schools

Keywords: by Rakesh Khurana, Kenneth Kimura & Marion Fourcad; Education

Article

Understanding Boards of Directors: A Systems Perspective

By: Jay W. Lorsch

In this essay, my goal is to explore why, despite the tireless efforts of talented people, research on corporate governance has been slow and uneven, and where that research should turn to next to be most valuable to practitioners. My belief is that the most fruitful... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Boards; Business Admnistration; Social Systems; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; System