Publications

July 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Vicky Tsai and Tatcha: Confronting Stereotypes

By: Geoffrey Jones and Veronica Tong

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 323-007. This case examines the career of Vicky Tsai, the creator of San Francisco-based TATCHA, a Japanese-themed luxury beauty brand launched in 2009. It explores how Tsai developed the concept, assembled management, and successfully... View Details

Keywords: Cosmetics Industry; Japan; Startup; Marketing; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development; Product Development; Product Marketing; Acquisition; Identity; Brands and Branding; Ethnicity; Gender; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States

30 Jun 2021
In Practice

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2021

What’s on HBS faculty members’ reading list for summer 2021? Which books are most meaningful to them and why? Below, faculty share their top picks, ranging from biographies and memoirs to their colleagues’ latest works. Julia Austin: Social justice and the Obamas I... View Details

Keywords: by Kathryn Haviland

January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Uncle Nearest: Creating a Legacy

By: Hise Gibson, Archie L. Jones, Nicole Gilmore and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Fawn Weaver, as a Black woman and industry outsider in a capital-intensive, highly regulated, competitive and male-dominated spirits industry, successfully overcame numerous obstacles to launch a premium American whiskey brand, Uncle Nearest in 2017, which became the... View Details

Web

HBS - The year in Review

college or university. This year's group of 17 Fellows included students from Wellesley College, Princeton University, Carleton College, and Georgia Institute of Technology. New Venture Competition hosts 24th contest Led by the Arthur Rock Center for View Details

June 2010 (Revised February 2011)
Case

The Fox Islands Wind Project (A)

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, James Thomas Corcoran, Max Gazor, Dylan Hogarty and Alexander H. Somers, Jr.

The market for electricity on the Fox Islands of North Haven and Vinalhaven, Maine is unique and costly for residents. Historically, electricity prices on the islands had been three times the national average because of the high cost of importing electricity via an... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Renewable Energy; Social Entrepreneurship; Cost; Financing and Loans; Projects; Business and Community Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology Industry; Maine

February 1992 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Amelia Rogers at Tassani Communications (A)

By: Linda A. Hill

Describes a conflict that has arisen between an account manager and a creative director at Tassani Communications, a Chicago-based advertising agency which is making the transition from entrepreneurial to professional management. The client, the marketing director of a... View Details

Keywords: Rank and Position; Conflict Management; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Practice; Behavior; Creativity; Problems and Challenges; Advertising Industry; Chicago

March 2021 (Revised March 2024)
Case

M-KOPA: Empowering Lives

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Wale Lawal and Pippa Tubman Armerding

The Pay As You Go solar power company in East Africa had sales of $71 million in 2019. It wished to grow to $300 million by 2025. M-KOPA, founded by three entrepreneurs in 2011, had grown nicely in Kenya and Uganda to reach nearly 750,000 households with an innovative... View Details

Keywords: Mobile Payment; Go-to-market Strategy; Business At The Base Of The Pyramid; Business Growth; Social Entrepreneurship; Renewable Energy; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Marketing Strategy; Developing Countries and Economies; Kenya; Uganda; Nigeria

January 2022
Background Note

Common Prosperity? China Shifts Left

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been mistrustful of entrepreneurs and the private sector that operates outside the government’s authority. In its first decades under Mao Zedong, the CCP... View Details

Keywords: Market Reform; Gdp; Government Administration; Government and Politics; Private Sector; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Economy; Globalized Economies and Regions; Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Globalized Markets and Industries; Social Issues; Society; Economic Growth; China

July 2018
Article

Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs: A Review of Recent Literature

By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and Tina Xu

We review the extensive literature since 2000 on the personality traits of entrepreneurs. We first consider baseline personality traits like the Big-5 model, self-efficacy and innovativeness, locus of control, and the need for achievement. We then consider risk... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Venturing; Personality Traits; Characteristics; Big-5; Risk Attitudes; Goals; Skills; Entrepreneurship; Personal Characteristics; Goals and Objectives; Competency and Skills; Success; Demographics; Research

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Web

Entrepreneurial Management Awards & Honors - Faculty & Research

(Journal of Finance, forthcoming). Lauren H. Cohen : Invited to brief the United States Congress on innovation policy, 2020. Lauren H. Cohen : Winner of the 2020 Global Thought Leadership Grant on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)... View Details

March 2022
Case

In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Pierre Marchesseault

To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020.... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Fintech; Emerging Market; Fundraising; Financial Inclusion; Strategy; Expansion; Management; Entrepreneurship; Personal Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Africa; Togo; Nigeria; Ghana

Web

Augustine Heard & Co.: Building a Family Business - A Chronicle of the China Trade

Research Business & Environment Business History Christensen Center for Teaching & Learning Entrepreneurship Faculty & Research Global Healthcare HBS Working Knowledge Institute for Strategy & Competitiveness Leadership Networked Business... View Details

February 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Buddy Valastro: Cake Boss

By: Boris Groysberg, Evan M.S. Hecht and Katherine Connolly Baden

Buddy Valastro, celebrity baker and business owner, inherited his father’s bakery—Carlo’s Bake Shop of Hoboken, New Jersey—at the age of seventeen. He had willed the shop to survive and gone on to fame through his television show, “Cake Boss”—the name most people now... View Details

01 Sep 2009
News

Bold Idea Takes Off

foundations, and most recently, Falik was named an HBS Social Entrepreneurship Fellow. GCY’s teen recruits will receive two months of intensive training, after which they will spend six months living with a... View Details

Keywords: Social Assistance; Social Assistance

September 2015
Article

Design and Implementation of a Privacy Preserving Electronic Health Record Linkage Tool in Chicago

By: Abel Kho, John Cashy, Kathryn Jackson, Adam Pah, Satyender Goel, Jorn Boehnke, John Eric Humphries, Scott Duke Kominers and et al.

Objective
To design and implement a tool that creates a secure, privacy preserving linkage of electronic health record (EHR) data across multiple sites in a large metropolitan area in the United States (Chicago, IL), for use in clinical... View Details

Keywords: Information; Customers; Safety; Rights; Ethics; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Chicago