Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,092)
- Faculty Publications (405)
- March 2022
- Case
In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent
By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Pierre Marchesseault
To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020.... View Details
Keywords: Finance; Fintech; Emerging Market; Fundraising; Financial Inclusion; Strategy; Expansion; Management; Entrepreneurship; Personal Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Africa; Togo; Nigeria; Ghana
- March 2022
- Article
Contractual Restrictions and Debt Traps
By: Ernest Liu and Benjamin N. Roth
Microcredit and other forms of small-scale finance have failed to catalyze entrepreneurship in developing countries. In these credit markets, borrowers and lenders often bargain over not only the interest rate but also implicit restrictions on types of investment. We... View Details
- February 2022 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
Resident 2020
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Thomas O. Jones
Launched in 2016, Resident was a leading player in the direct-to-consumer bed-in-a-box mattress market, where it was one of at least 175 venture-backed companies competing in the space. By late 2020, it had realized over $500 million in revenue, profitability in the... View Details
- Winter 2022
- Article
Leading Disruption in a Legacy Business: A Compelling Growth Ambition Is a Critical Enabler for New Ventures
By: Andy Binns, Michael Tushman and Charles O'Reilly
Leading innovation in established corporations is difficult. Active inertia and dynamic conservatism are real. Still, leaders can drive disruptive ventures from inside large corporations. These leaders ideate, incubate, and scale innovations, much as an entrepreneur... View Details
- December 2021 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
Bed Bath & Beyond: The New Strategy to Drive Shareholder Value
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher
At one time, Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the most successful specialty retailers in the United States—its growth and profit margins far exceeded both peer retailers in the home goods market as well as many other discount retailers. But in 2014, its stock price peaked,... View Details
- December 2021
- Case
Bunge: Building a Sustainable Future?
By: Forest Reinhardt, David E. Bell, Pedro Levindo and Ruth Costas
Bunge, one of the world’s leading agribusiness traders and processors, strives to comply with its commitment to having a deforestation-free value chain by 2025 while it considers potential new business growth areas. After a complex turnaround, which involved one of the... View Details
- November 2021
- Case
LKQ-Stahlgruber
By: Guhan Subramanian and Caeden Brynie
Through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions, LKQ Corp. became the leading aftermarket auto parts distributor in the U.S. by the early 2000s. Beginning in 2012, the company began similarly consolidating the European marketplace. However, by 2017, the... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
upGrad: Delivering Career Outcomes Online: Degree by Degree
By: John J-H Kim, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla
In August 2021, the founders of upGrad, the latest unicorn in the Indian higher education online space, were deciding how to best use the funds to execute on their ambitious growth plans. Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli had envisioned upGrad as an... View Details
- September 2021
- Case
Posse Foundation: Developing Strong Leaders from Diverse Backgrounds
By: John J-H Kim, Robin Mendelson and Julia Kelley
Founded in 1989, Posse Foundation was a nonprofit organization with a mission of developing future leaders who reflected the U.S.’s rich diversity. The organization ran a selective, localized admissions process in 10 U.S. cities to identify outstanding students with... View Details
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Education; Higher Education; Decision Making; Demographics; Diversity; Ethnicity; Income; Race; Values and Beliefs; Geography; Geographic Scope; Growth and Development; Leadership; Leading Change; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Partners and Partnerships; Social Enterprise; Nonprofit Organizations; Identity; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Expansion; Education Industry; North and Central America; United States
- September 2021 (Revised November 2021)
- Case
Kwame Owusu-Kesse at the Harlem Children's Zone
Do you—as leader, an individual within an organization, or running your own business—know when to say yes and when to say no? How do you make decisions about your own career and life? How do you counsel others who ask you for career and life insights?... View Details
- 2021
- Book
Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator's Dilemma
By: Charles A. O'Reilly III and Michael Tushman
Why do successful firms find it so difficult to adapt in the face of change—to innovate? In the past ten years, the importance of this question has increased as more industries and firms confront disruptive change. The pandemic has accelerated this crisis, collapsing... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Zoom Video Communications: Building a Culture of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion During COVID-19
By: Karen G. Mills, Scott Duke Kominers, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu, George Gonzalez and Gabriella Elanbeck
Keywords: Diversity Management; Diversity Training; Cultural Change; Cultural Diversity; Inclusion; Inclusive Growth; Inclusive Hiring; Hiring; Hiring Of Employees; Recruiting; Performance Management; Change Leadership; Race And Ethnicity; Racial Bias; Racial Disparity; Racial Injustice; Racial Tensions; Racism; Organization; Organization Process; Organization Structure; Structural/institutional Racism; Leadership And Change Management; Leadership And Managing People; Leading; Gender Bias; Discrimination; Inequalities; Inequality; Social Change; Employee Attitude Development And Empowerment; Employee Bonding; Employee Empowerment; Employee Engagement; Employee Fairness; Employee Morale; Employee Performance Management; Employee Relations; Company Culture; Company Values; Values; COVID-19 Pandemic; Demographics; Diversity; Age; Ethnicity; Gender; Business Processes; Change Management; Change; Race; Human Capital; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Jobs and Positions; Job Interviews; Leadership; Leading Change; Management; Management Teams; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Style; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Culture; Happiness; Prejudice and Bias; Satisfaction; Equity; Identity; Leadership Style; Values and Beliefs; Technology Industry; United States
- August 2021
- Case
Mylestone: Can Multiple Pivots Preserve the Life of a Death Tech Startup?
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Marilyn Morgan Westner
Dave Balter and Jim Myers co-founded Mylestone, a death tech startup that applied technology to transform how grieving people memorialize the dead. The startup addressed a cultural problem and promised to solve a pressing need in the antiquated, multi-billion dollar... View Details
- July 19, 2021
- Article
Do Most Family Businesses Really Fail by the Third Generation?
By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer
Perhaps the most commonly-cited statistic about family businesses is their failure rates. Most articles or speeches about family businesses start with some version of the “three-generation rule,” which suggests that most don’t survive beyond three generations. But that... View Details
- June 2021
- Case
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments): April 2021
By: Josh Lerner, Reza Satchu and Alys Ferragamo
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is one of the largest pools of investment capital in the world and follows a rigorous “Total Portfolio Framework” in its approach to investment management. In April of 2021, John Graham was just two months into his role... View Details
- May 2021 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
CPE and SUS Environmental: You've Got to Know When to Hold 'Em (A)
By: Josh Lerner and Franko Jira
In July 2016, Di Yang and Grace Guo of the leading Chinese private equity group CPE faced a dilemma—a happy dilemma, but a challenge nonetheless. CPE’s investment in the waste-to-energy firm SUS Environment had proved to be exceedingly successful. This success had... View Details
- May 2021
- Case
Endeavor Kenya: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Shikhar Ghosh and Christian Godwin
In 2016, Fiona Mungai became Endeavor Kenya’s first managing director. In this role, she helped the organization build its inaugural board and select its first Endeavor entrepreneur, a fintech company called Cellulant. Throughout this process, Mungai observed the power... View Details
Keywords: Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Leadership; Leading Change; Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Negotiation; Economy; Markets; Emerging Markets; Network Effects; Relationships; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Shipping Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa; Kenya
- April 2021
- Case
Transforming BlackBerry: From Smartphones to Software
By: Ranjay Gulati and Nicole Tempest Keller
On the verge of failure, BlackBerry brought in John Chen as CEO in 2013 to orchestrate a bold turnaround of the company. Once an iconic leader in the smartphone market, BlackBerry was best known for its tactile QWERTY keyboard, strong security, and a focus on business... View Details
Keywords: Pivot; Managing Change; Turnaround; Smartphone; Change Management; Leading Change; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Change; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Cybersecurity; Technology Industry; Transportation Industry; Canada
- April 2021
- Case
ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Ashiana Jivraj and Jane Barrow
The case illustrates the application of value-based health care to dental medicine. ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers was a rapidly-growing network of dentist-owned independent implant clinics. The targeted market included 23 million people, 15% of the US adult... View Details
- April 2021
- Case
Codecademy: Where to Next?
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Max Mailman and Sarah Ascherman
In March 2020, Zach Sims, co-founder and CEO of online education platform Codecademy, prepared for a meeting with his Chief of Staff Kunal Ahuja to discuss the company’s goals. Codecademy billed itself as the largest online resource for computer science literacy and... View Details
Keywords: Monetization Strategy; Business Model; Change Management; Venture Capital; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Teams; Marketing Channels; Product Marketing; Network Effects; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; United States