Publications

October 2013 (Revised February 2019)
Case

Chobani: Growing a Live and Active Culture (Abridged)

By: Joshua D. Margolis and Matthew Preble

Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of the Greek yogurt company Chobani, Inc., was reflecting on what explained his young company's meteoric rise. The company held over half of the U.S. Greek yogurt market and nearly 20% of the total yogurt market. The company's innovative approach to... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Culture; Growth Strategy; Growth Management; Yogurt; Innovation Strategy; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Agribusiness; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Canada; Australia

September 2021 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Tesla in 2023: 'Electrified' Competition

By: Eric Van den Steen, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

Over its 17 years in existence, Tesla had redefined people’s view of electric cars, and in 2020, the company saw its stock rise by more than 700% to became the most valuable carmaker in the world. In December 2020, Tesla celebrated its fifth consecutive quarter of... View Details

Keywords: Barrier To Entry; Competitive Advantage; Innovation; Tesla; Automotive Industry; Sustainable Competitive Advantage; Values; Vision; Learning By Doing; Economies Of Scale; Electric Vehicle; Scenario Planning; Batteries; Competitive Strategy; Product Positioning; Profit; Competition; Industry Growth; Auto Industry

February 2023
Supplement

Graphic Packaging: Project Cowboy (A) Courseware

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Scott Mayfield

In July 2019, Graphic Packaging CEO Michael Doss was proposing a $600 million investment in a new machine to produce coated recycled board (CRB), a type of paper packaging used for consumer products (cups, cereal boxes, beverage boxes, etc.) that utilized recycled... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Growth Management; Demand and Consumers; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Value Creation; Supply and Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States; North America

20 May 2020
Interview

Reflections on The Prosperity Paradox, with Euvin Naidoo and Efosa Ojomo

By: Euvin Naidoo and Efosa Ojomo

This week on The Disruptive Voice, we're delighted to introduce you to Euvin Naidoo and Efosa Ojomo, who join us for a conversation about innovation, prosperity, and development in Africa. Originally from KwaDukuza, South Africa, Euvin is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard... View Details

Keywords: Prosperity; Innovation and Invention; Development Economics; Africa

06 Nov 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, November 6, 2018

average, NPEs appear to behave as opportunistic “patent trolls.” NPEs sue cash-rich firms and target cash in business segments unrelated to alleged infringement at essentially the same frequency as they target cash in segments related to alleged infringement. View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

12 Jan 2016
First Look

January 12, 2016

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50177 The Globalization of Angel Investments: Evidence across Countries By: Lerner, Josh, Antoinette Schoar, Stanislav Sokolinski, and Karen Wilson Abstract—This paper examines investments... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

2012
Working Paper

~Why Do We Redistribute so Much but Tag so Little? Normative Diversity, Equal Sacrifice and Optimal Taxation

By: Matthew Weinzierl

Tagging is a free lunch in conventional optimal tax theory because it eases the classic tradeoff between efficiency and equality. But tagging is used in only limited ways in tax policy. I propose one explanation: conventional optimal tax theory has yet to capture the... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cost; Framework; Policy; Taxation; Analytics and Data Science; Performance Efficiency; United States

SSRN

06 Feb 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas: February 6, 2018

Innovation and Economic Performance By: Delgado, Mercedes, and Karen G. Mills Abstract—An active debate has centered on the importance of manufacturing for driving innovation in the U.S. economy. This paper... View Details

21 Mar 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, March 21

assignment frictions, which appear to be more severe in lower-income regions. The productivity loss generated by inefficient assignment is equal to 13% of the productivity gap between high- and low-income countries in our sample. Download... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2007 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Grand Central Publishing

By: Anita Elberse

In April 2007, Grand Central's publisher Jamie Raab and editor Karen Kosztolnyik were involved in a frantic bidding war for a proposed book on the life of cat Dewey, billed as the feline answer to the best-selling "Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Product Launch; Bids and Bidding; Product Development; Publishing Industry

03 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 3

foundings are driven by collective patterns of activity-that is, by patterns of prior foundings, of support from related markets, and of institutional activism in a given sector. Building on research on... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2019
Case

Noiler

By: José B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

In 2019, Nigerian entrepreneur Dr. Ayoola (Ayo) Oduntan is accelerating distribution of Noiler, a genetically optimized breed of poultry, to smallholder farmers across Nigeria. The bird was bred to be productive as a source of both meat and eggs and to thrive in the... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Poverty; Health; Growth and Development Strategy; Nigeria

5 Feb 2013
Conference Presentation

Financing Entrepreneurial Growth

By: Tom Alberg, Andrew A. Bogan, Harold Bradley, Robert D. Cooter, Monika Gruter Cheney, Oliver R. Goodenough, William R. Hambrecht, Frank Hatheway, Thomas F. Hellmann, Marianne Hudson, Jared Konczal, Josh Lerner, Robert E. Litan, Diane Mulcahy, Ramana Nanda, Frank Partnoy, Joe Ratterman, Nava Ravikant, Jay R. Ritter, Alicia Robb, David T. Robinson, Allison Schrager, Barry Silbert, E. R. Sirri, Daniel Stangler and Sharon Vosmek

Despite recent innovations in entrepreneurial finance, particularly at the early stage of business creation, many new and young companies continue to face hurdles to acquire capital.

The Kauffman Foundation addressed current challenges and opportunities in... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Entrepreneurial Finance; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; United States

SSRN

February 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Chari: Exploring Fintech in Morocco

By: Karen G. Mills and Ahmed Dahawy

This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Morocco. It highlights Morocco’s unique economy where cash remains a dominant player in the market despite global advancements in digitalization. The case also explores the various cultural and... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Technological Innovation; Distribution Industry; Financial Services Industry; Morocco

2016
Book

Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan

The foremost authority on innovation and growth presents a path-breaking book every company needs to transform innovation from a game of chance to one in which they develop products and services that customers want to buy and are willing to purchase at a premium price.... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Consumer Behavior

Find at Harvard

October 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Eastern Bank: Innovating Through Eastern Labs

By: Karen Mills, Dennis Campbell and Aaron Mukerjee

Eastern Bank is a 200-year-old New England mutual bank with a community focus. Eastern specializes in small business lending, having made strategic investments to become the top SBA lender in New England in the midst of the Great Recession, when other banks were... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Management

August 2020
Supplement

Luckin Coffee (B): Revelations of Fraud

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes revelations of fraud at Luckin Coffee, beginning with an anonymous report in January 2020 and continuing with the company’s admission in April 2020 that it had inflated its revenues by 2.2 billion RMB ($310 million), almost half its reported... View Details

Keywords: Fraud; Corporate Misconduct; Business Earnings; Financial Statements; Financial Condition; Stocks; Financial Management; Profit; Revenue; Price; Food; Lawfulness; Crime and Corruption; Food and Beverage Industry; Technology Industry; Asia; China

September 2020
Case

Uber at a Crossroads (2017)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes the history of Uber, its business model—including the ways it differed from that of the traditional taxi industry—and its competition with Lyft. The case is set in 2017, a year in which Uber was plagued by even more scandals than usual, though its... View Details