Publications

2020
Working Paper

Determinants of Early-Stage Startup Performance: Survey Results

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

To explore determinants of new venture performance, the CEOs of 470 early-stage startups were surveyed regarding a broad range of factors related to their venture’s customer value proposition, product management, marketing, technology and operations, financial... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Survey Research; Performance Analysis; Entrepreneurship; Performance; Analysis; Business Startups; Failure; Surveys

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Article

Manage the Suppliers That Could Harm Your Brand: Know When to Avoid, Engage, or Drop Them

By: Jodi L Short and Michael W. Toffel

The pandemic has placed a new spotlight on working conditions in factories that supply global companies. To avert problems, firms often impose codes of conduct on their suppliers and perform audits to assess compliance. Do these measures help identify unethical... View Details

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14 Jun 2011
First Look

First Look: June 14

may be passing them by. In short, they'd rather do the wrong thing well than do the right thing poorly. They get stuck in this unproductive and unfulfilling pattern and can't break free. Of course, leaders... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2012
Case

New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. (Abridged)

By: H. Kent Bowen, Robert S. Huckman, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Matthew Preble

Considers whether New Balance, one of the world's five largest manufacturers of athletic footwear, should respond to Adidas' planned acquisition of Reebok—a transaction that would join the second- and third-largest companies in the industry. Highlights the unique... View Details

Keywords: Production; Competitive Strategy; Supply Chain; Brands and Branding; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sports Industry; Retail Industry; Asia; United States

Research Summary

Overview

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang

Start Up Strategy and Management
Bussgang’s research focuses on applying Lean Startup principles to early-stage technology companies as well as the challenges and opportunities when scaling startups. His work led to the creation of the MBA elective... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

Start Up Strategy and Management

Bussgang’s research focuses on applying Lean Startup principles to early-stage technology companies as well as the challenges and opportunities when scaling startups. His work led to the creation of the MBA elective course... View Details

28 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 28

increased dramatically (seven- to nine-fold) in the last two decades. To counteract this trend, I propose novel approaches to lower its cost or use attention more efficiently by adopting multitasker-tailored ads, View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2018
Article

Do Experts or Crowd-Based Models Produce More Bias? Evidence from Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia

By: Shane Greenstein and Feng Zhu

Organizations today can use both crowds and experts to produce knowledge. While prior work compares the accuracy of crowd-produced and expert-produced knowledge, we compare bias in these two models in the context of contested knowledge, which involves subjective,... View Details

Keywords: Online Community; Collective Intelligence; Wisdom Of Crowds; Bias; Wikipedia; Britannica; Knowledge Production; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Dissemination; Prejudice and Bias

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2022
Book

Productive Tensions: How Every Leader Can Tackle Innovation's Toughest Trade-Offs

By: Chris Bingham and Rory McDonald

Why is leading innovation in nascent business environments so distressingly hit-or-miss? More than 90% of high-potential ventures don’t reach their projected targets. Surveys show that 80% of executives consider innovation crucial to their growth strategy, but only 6%... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation and Management; Organizational Culture; Leadership Style; Decision Making

January 2020
Case

Ureed.com: The Marketplace for Language

By: Ashley V. Whillans, Esel Çekin and Alpana Thapar

Jordanian entrepreneur, Nour Al Hassan, founded Tarjama in 2008, tapping into an underserved and high demand need: Arabic translation service. Its lean model comprised of hiring full-time employees, mainly women, who worked from home. It steadily grew over the... View Details

Keywords: Language Translation; Freelancers; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Management; Expansion; Quality; Growth and Development Strategy

24 Oct 2023
HBS Case

From P.T. Barnum to Mary Kay: Lessons From 5 Leaders Who Changed the World

phone, “You can do it, Mary Kay, you can do it.” When she launched her own firm, Beauty by Mary Kay, she leaned on the early lesson her mother taught her about motivation to inspire her salespeople. “Especially View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

November 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Bridgit: Persevere or Pivot?

By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti

In late 2012, Mallorie Brodie and Lauren Lake, two young women in their final year of college, founded Bridgit, a technology startup that developed solutions to simplify vital but laborious processes within the construction industry. In the Fall of 2013, after months... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Founder; Co-founders; Women Executives; Pivot; Startup; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Applications and Software; Product Launch; Research and Development; Competition; Construction Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Canada

Article

Large-Scale Field Experiment Shows Null Effects of Team Demographic Diversity on Outsiders' Willingness to Support the Team

By: Edward H. Chang, Erika L. Kirgios and Rosanna K. Smith

Demographic diversity in the United States is rising, and increasingly, work is conducted in teams. These co-occurring phenomena suggest that it might be increasingly common for work to be conducted by demographically diverse teams. But to date, in spite of copious... View Details

Keywords: Field Experiment; Groups and Teams; Demographics; Diversity; Attitudes

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February 2009 (Revised July 2012)
Supplement

Jieliang Phone Home! (C)

By: Willy Shih, Ethan Bernstein and Nina Bilimoria

At Precision Electro-Tek's mobile phone manufacturing facility in southern China, thousands of operators - bright and capable young men and (mostly) women like Jieliang Hao are motivated to improve line productivity through small innovations for faster assembly and... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Compensation and Benefits; Surveys; Innovation and Invention; Management Practices and Processes; Production; Performance Productivity; Groups and Teams; Labor and Management Relations; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Manufacturing Industry; Telecommunications Industry; China

February 2009 (Revised August 2021)
Supplement

Jieliang Phone Home! (B)

By: Willy Shih, Ethan Bernstein and Nina Bilimoria

At Precision Electro-Tek's mobile phone manufacturing facility in southern China, thousands of operators—bright and capable young men and (mostly) women like Jieliang Hao—are motivated to improve line productivity through small innovations for faster assembly and have... View Details

Keywords: Managing People; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Production; Innovation and Invention; Performance Productivity; Groups and Teams; Management Practices and Processes; Compensation and Benefits; Labor; Surveys; Decisions; Manufacturing Industry; China

February 2009 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Jieliang Phone Home! (A)

By: Willy Shih, Ethan Bernstein and Nina Bilimoria

At Precision Electro-Tek's mobile phone manufacturing facility in southern China, thousands of operators—bright and capable young men and (mostly) women like Jieliang Hao—are motivated to improve line productivity through small innovations for faster assembly and have... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Job Design and Levels; Business Processes; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Manufacturing Industry; China