Publications

September 1983 (Revised July 1998)
Case

Heather Evans

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Michael J. Roberts

Focuses on the efforts of Heather Evans, a second-year MBA student, and her attempts to start her own dress business. Examines the business plan and the process of acquiring control over the financial and human resources necessary to implement the plan. View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Business Startups; Investment; Human Resources; Strategic Planning; Apparel and Accessories Industry

May 1983 (Revised December 1987)
Case

Technical Data Corp.

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes a decision confronting the president of a small company about selling some or all of the shares in his company to another firm. Technical Data Corp. provides analytical services to professional bond market traders over a system of computer terminals operated... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Valuation; Negotiation Tactics; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Strategy; Horizontal Integration; Information Industry; Service Industry

April 1983 (Revised October 2000)
Case

People Express (A)

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Debra Whitestone

Describes the start up, strategy, organizational design, and operations over the first eighteen months of the airline. Focuses on the creative use of human resources as an integral part of the business strategy. View Details

Keywords: Human Capital; Air Transportation; Organizational Design; Operations; Business Startups; Business Strategy; Air Transportation Industry; United States

November 1982 (Revised February 1985)
Case

Ruth M. Owades

By: Howard H. Stevenson, Richard O. von Werssowetz and Robert W. Kent

Ruth Owades developed a concept for a new mail order venture offering gardening products. Her current employer turned down the idea, so with permission to try it independently, she has begun the process of raising funds and preparing for a separate operation. She still... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Borrowing and Debt; Resignation and Termination; Operations; Risk and Uncertainty

October 1982 (Revised September 1988)
Case

Steven B. Belkin

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Richard O. von Werssowetz

Steven Belkin, 26 years old and 2 1/2 years out of HBS, has decided to leave a group travel company he has run for the last year to start his own similar business. In the course of several months he has written a business plan, attracted several partners and employees,... View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Business Startups; Decisions; Equity; Investment; Personal Finance; Recruitment; Resignation and Termination; Failure; Partners and Partnerships

February 1978
Case

Sierra Log Homes, Inc. (A)

By: Michael E. Porter

Describes the history and evolution of the log home manufacturing industry, a rapidly growing embryonic industry capitalizing on the back-to-basics lifestyle changes in the United States. Focuses on one of the leading firms in the industry, but allows a discussion of... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Change Management; Industry Structures; Supply and Industry; Problems and Challenges; Business Startups; Business Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; United States

Forthcoming
Article

Antitrust Platform Regulation and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from China

By: Ke Rong, D. Daniel Sokol, Di Zhou and Feng Zhu

Many jurisdictions have launched antitrust enforcement and brought in regulation of large tech platforms. The swift and strict implementation of China’s Anti-Monopoly Guidelines for the Platform Economy (Platform Guidelines) provides a quasi-natural experiment... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Antitrust; Regulation; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Supply and Industry; China

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Forthcoming
Article

Beefing IT Up for Your Investor? Engagement with Open Source Communities, Innovation, and Startup Funding: Evidence from GitHub

By: Annamaria Conti, Christian Peukert and Maria P. Roche

We study the engagement of nascent firms with open source communities and its implications for innovation and attracting funding. To do so, we link data on 160,065 U.S. startups from Crunchbase to their activities on the open source software development platform... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Knowledge; Open Source Communities; GitHub; Machine Learning; Innovation; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Information Technology; Strategy

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Research Summary

Changing the World: Life Choices of Influential Leaders

By: Robert Simons

This project studies the life choices made by a variety of people who have left a lasting legacy. Using biographical data, we are examining the choices that high-impact individuals faced in their lives and the paths they chose to follow. The leaders we study come... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Personal Characteristics; Work-life Balance; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Success

Research Summary

Competing business models

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Building on the literatures on competitive positioning and the theory of industrial organization, my work seeks to tackle previously unaddressed questions by studying situations where firms compete in dissimilar ways. Some examples of these questions include:View Details

Forthcoming
Article

Confronting the Limits of Symbolic Actions: How Entrepreneurs Narrow the Presentation-Performance Gap

By: Rebecca Karp and Siobhan O'Mahony

Entrepreneurs often skillfully leverage symbolic actions to manage impressions and gain acceptance for their innovations. Impression management can generate interest, but also heighten expectations beyond an innovation’s capabilities, creating a gap between... View Details

Keywords: Digital Innovation; Integration Strategy; Impression Management; Innovation Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Health Industry; Technology Industry

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