Publications

15 Dec 2008
Research & Ideas

The Surprisingly Successful Marriages of Multinationals and Social Brands

What happens when giant multinational corporations acquire relatively small companies that enjoy iconic status as socially progressive brands? According to recent research out of Harvard Business School, such marriages can be good for... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products; Food & Beverage

01 Nov 2019
HBS Seminar

Meijun Liu, Shuo Li Liu, The University of Hong Kong, Division of information and technology & Stanford University School of Engineering

August 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Lexoo: Building a Long-Lasting Platform (Abridged)

By: Chiara Farronato and Elena Corsi

Lexoo, a UK-based online marketplace for legal services, was facing the strategic choice of how to grow from early start-up to mature platform. Daniel van Binsbergen, Lexoo's CEO, and web developer Chris O'Sullivan, CTO, had set up Lexoo to help Small and Medium-Sized... View Details

Keywords: Legal Services; Marketplaces; Pivot; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Small Business; Service Operations; Decision Making; Legal Services Industry

26 Apr 2017
News

How Banks Can Compete Against an Army of Fintech Startups

July 2013 (Revised August 2017)
Case

TaKaDu

By: Elie Ofek and Matthew Preble

In December 2012, Amir Peleg, founder and CEO of TaKaDu, reflected on how to position his young firm for the next fiscal year and beyond. The small Israeli startup had developed an innovative software system that used patented algorithms and statistical analysis to... View Details

September 2018 (Revised October 2018)
Supplement

Lexoo: Building a Long-Lasting Platform

By: Chiara Farronato and Elena Corsi

Lexoo, a UK-based online marketplace for legal services, was facing the strategic choice of how to grow from early start-up to mature platform. Daniel van Binsbergen, Lexoo's CEO, and web developer Chris O'Sullivan, CTO, had set up Lexoo to help Small and Medium-Sized... View Details

Keywords: Marketplaces; Legal Services; Growth Strategy; Technology Ventures; Pivot; Service Operations; Digital Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Small Business; Decision Making; Legal Services Industry

January 2016 (Revised July 2017)
Case

HourlyNerd

By: Jill Avery and Joseph Fuller

HourlyNerd, a two-sided marketplace platform for matching freelance consultants with small companies looking for help, struggles to define a growth plan for the future. The company, started as a class project in HBS' FIELD 3 course, is assessing three growth paths:... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Lean Startup; Two Sided Markets; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Consulting Industry; United States

March 2017 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Catalant: The Future of Work?

By: Thomas Eisenmann, Jeffrey F. Rayport and Christine Snively

Catalant, founded in 2013 as an online marketplace where MBAs could bid on consulting projects posted by small- to medium-sized businesses, had expanded by 2016 to provide Fortune 1000 companies with access to over 35,000 independent experts. The founders envisioned... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Recruitment; Labor; Market Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Employment Industry; Consulting Industry; United States

05 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 5, 2019

forbearance in non-democracies. We argue that unelected regimes forbear their supporters’ informal businesses. We test this argument in Jordan. Using survey data of over 3,800 micro and small View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

June 2013
Background Note

Venture Philanthropy: Its Evolution and Its Future

By: Allen Grossman, Sarah Appleby and Caitlin Reimers

This note explores the current state of venture philanthropy in the U.S. and its future. Based on interviews with 28 practitioners in the field of philanthropy and a review of the literature since the publication of the article introducing the concept of venture... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy; Nonprofit; Social Institutions; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Entrepreneurship; Civil Society or Community; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; United States

January 2025
Case

Untapped Global: Financing Africa's Missing Middle

By: Raymond Kluender and Emanuele Colonnelli

In November 2024, Jim Chu, founder and CEO of Untapped Global, faced mounting internal tensions over the company’s strategic direction. Untapped had developed a data-driven revenue-based financing (RBF) model to address the “missing middle” problem—the $5.2 trillion... View Details

Keywords: Sheryl WuDunn; Arts, Sports, Language, Driving, and Other Schools; Arts, Sports, Language, Driving, and Other Schools; Arts, Sports, Language, Driving, and Other Schools; Arts, Sports, Language, Driving, and Other Schools

Research Summary

Overview

By: Brian L. Trelstad

The focus of my research is on the systems of social innovation. How small groups of individuals come up with new products and services targeting important problems; how they finance these initial efforts, and convert prototypes into viable organizational strategies;... View Details

01 Sep 2009
News

Heroines and Helping Hands

WuDunn Photo Courtesy Sheryl WuDunn Girls matter — we take that for granted here in the developed nations, and we all expect our daughters, sisters, and wives to make a difference in the world. But take a... View Details

May 2014
Article

Right Up the Middle: How Israeli Firms Go Global

By: Jonathan Friedrich, Amit Noam and Elie Ofek

The article considers international business enterprises based in Israel and how they successfully expanded from their origins as small businesses. A common technique of those companies in which they focused on market entry in other countries whose markets were too... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Israel

Find at Harvard

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July 2015 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Erin L. Henry, Andreas Georgoulias and Natalie Bartlett

Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank details the development of the bank's new Office of Outreach Partnerships to sustain a culture of innovation through maintaining and generating partnerships in order to fulfill the bank's greater... View Details

01 Dec 1999
News

Christensen and Vernon Remembered

international trade and investment. In 1965 he was asked to direct the School's Multinational Enterprise Project to study the operations of U.S.- and foreign-based... View Details

18 Dec 2006
Lessons from the Classroom

Grooming Next-Generation Leaders

is only going up. It's just not a question of leading a small team. It's about leadership in ideas, in actions. "Add that to the fact that in most situations people are dealing with the global economy, rapid commoditization, View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2008
Working Paper

Can the Virtuous Mouse and the Wealthy Elephant Live Happily Ever After?

By: James E. Austin and Herman B. Leonard

What happens when small iconic socially-oriented businesses are acquired by large corporations? Such mergers create significant opportunities for creating both business value and substantially expanded social value, but also pose unusually difficult challenges because... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Management Style; Agreements and Arrangements; Social Enterprise; Social Issues