Publications

17 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

If Marketing Experts Ran Elections

Maybe they have to register in advance, wait in line at the polling station, and use an out-of-date polling machine to do so. The commercial marketplace is much more convenient. Consumers can cast their... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch

February 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Taffi: Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia

By: Paul A. Gompers and Fares Khrais

Taffi was a tech-enabled fashion styling startup founded by Shahad Geoffrey in Saudi Arabia in 2020. Within three years of operating, Geoffrey had pivoted the business multiple times. In 2023, Geoffrey was attempting the business’s most ambitious pivot yet, shifting... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Fashion Industry; Technology Industry; Saudi Arabia; Arabian Peninsula

09 Feb 2018
Research & Ideas

Big Hits: The Best of the 2018 Super Bowl Ads

public’s interest and underscore its anxiety regarding artificial intelligence, playing with themes of machines with minds of their own, the loss of privacy, and the rise of... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Telecommunications

March 2024
Teaching Note

'Storrowed': A Generative AI Exercise

By: Mitchell Weiss

Teaching Note for HBS Exercise No. 824-188. “Storrowed” is an exercise to help participants raise their proficiency with generative AI. It begins by highlighting a problem: trucks getting wedged underneath bridges in Boston, Massachusetts on the city’s Storrow Drive.... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Government Administration; Transportation Industry; Public Administration Industry

February 2024
Teaching Note

TimeCredit

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Raymond Kluender and Shai Benjamin Bernstein

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 824-139. TimeCredit is an artificial intelligence (AI) startup that is developing large language models (LLMs) to generate accounting memos. The case follows Ndonga Sagnia, a Gambian Harvard Business School MBA student with an accounting... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; AI and Machine Learning; Entrepreneurial Finance; Identity; Partners and Partnerships; Technology Industry

10 May 2017
Research & Ideas

Amazon Web Services Changed the Way VCs Fund Startups

“Supercomputing has opened up massive innovations in nuclear startups by allowing us to simulate the inside of a nuclear reactor for a mere $200 million instead of $6 billion!” As new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Banking; Financial Services; Information Technology

April 2024
Case

Managing AI Risks in Consumer Banking

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Satish Tadikonda, Paul Dongha, Manoj Saxena and Radhika Kak

In early 2024, Ruth Jones, head of digital banking at Signa Bank, a (fictitious) European consumer bank, was thinking about how to best incorporate GenAI capabilities to improve efficiencies and create new ways to improve the customer experience. Where were the biggest... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; AI and Machine Learning; Risk Management; Opportunities; Customization and Personalization; Banking Industry; Europe

February 2024
Case

ReSpo.Vision: The Kickstart of an AI Sports Revolution

By: Paul A. Gompers, Elena Corsi and Nikolina Jonsson

This case study explores the growth journey of Polish computer vision sports start-up ReSpo.Vision in an emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem. By providing 3D data and analysis to soccer clubs, ReSpo.Vision achieved significant milestones with a €1 million seed round, an... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Plan; Experience and Expertise; Talent and Talent Management; Decisions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Applications and Software; Business Strategy; Sports Industry; Technology Industry; Poland; Europe

14 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Rewriting the Rules of Service Competition

way when it introduced faster, larger expresso machines that ruined the service experience for baristas and customers alike by shortening the contact time and obstructing their... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett, W. Earl Sasser & Leonard A. Schlesinger; Retail

24 May 2004
Research & Ideas

The Watsons: IBM’s Troubled Legacy

the International Business Machines Corporation and its indomitable leader, Thomas J. Watson Sr. As a demonstration of the latest device out of the I.B.M. research laboratories, a letter of congratulation... View Details

Keywords: by Richard S. Tedlow

03 Apr 2019
Book

Fintech's Game-Changing Opportunities for Small Business

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data will transform financial services and small-business lending long before they impact driverless cars, predicts Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Banking; Financial Services

16 Nov 2020
Blog Post

Flatiron School: Reflections from Summer 2020

Birchbox, Young Invincibles, Color Camp, Women 2.0 and Casper. WHAT WERE YOUR GOALS FOR THE SUMMER? Rocio Wu (MBA 2020): Learning python and machine learning had always been on... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

2023
Working Paper

The Limits of Algorithmic Measures of Race in Studies of Outcome Disparities

By: David S. Scharfstein and Sergey Chernenko

We show that the use of algorithms to predict race has significant limitations in measuring and understanding the sources of racial disparities in finance, economics, and other contexts. First, we derive theoretically the direction and magnitude of measurement bias in... View Details

Keywords: Racial Disparity; Paycheck Protection Program; Measurement Error; AI and Machine Learning; Race; Measurement and Metrics; Equality and Inequality; Prejudice and Bias; Forecasting and Prediction; Outcome or Result

SSRN

Read Now

04 Mar 2014
First Look

First Look: March 4

Cabot Lowell (1775-1817). Slater, a skilled British textile machinery engineer, helped to develop the country's first cotton spinning mill. Lowell, a member of a prominent New England mercantile family, established the first integrated... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Dec 2022
News

Built to Last

Weisiger at Carolina Tractor & Equipment: laying a foundation for employee development and company values The third generation to lead Carolina Tractor & Equipment (CTE), Ed Weisiger Jr. (MBA 1986) wants to rewrite the typical Hollywood... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; family business; leadershp; employee management; Machinery Manufacturing; Machinery Manufacturing

February 2024
Case

Continuity & Change at Boston Consulting Group

By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and David Lane

As the new CEO of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) since autumn 2021, Christoph Schweizer had big shoes to fill—his predecessor, Rich Lesser, had tripled the partnership’s total revenues and created digital initiatives that contributed 40+% of 2021 revenues, more than... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Change Management; Talent and Talent Management; Governance; AI and Machine Learning; Environmental Sustainability; Leading Change; Risk Management; Organizational Culture; Partners and Partnerships; Revenue; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Succession; Consulting Industry