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- August 2024 (Revised November 2024)
- Case
Mercado Bitcoin: M&A, IPO, or Series B?
By: Raymond Kluender, Emanuele Colonnelli, Sabrina T. Howell and Karina Souza
In April 2021, Brazilian cryptocurrency platform Mercado Bitcoin had to decide how to scale: go public, M&A with a bank, or take a VC big check. In a highly volatile market, Roberto Dagnoni, chairman of the board, viewed the unprecedent crypto momentum as a window of... View Details
Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Decision Making; Going Public; Ownership Stake; Strategic Planning; Venture Capital; Problems and Challenges; Business Cycles; Digital Platforms; Emerging Markets; Market Timing; Expansion; Diversification; Valuation; Value Creation; Investment Funds; Initial Public Offering; Price; Price Bubble; Negotiation Offer; Financial Liquidity; Information Technology Industry; Financial Services Industry; Latin America; South America; Brazil; Sao Paulo; United States
- August 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
Barbie: Reviving a Cultural Icon at Mattel
The 2023 release of the live-action film Barbie, and its accompanying marketing blitz, incited a worldwide Barbie craze. Suddenly Barbie was everywhere, a celebrated icon reinstated at the forefront of cultural conversation. This goodwill stood in contrast to... View Details
- August 2024
- Case
Quickmart: Sustaining Growth in a Challenging Economic Environment
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Kuria Kamau
In July 2023, Peter Kang’iri, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Quickmart, Kenya’s second-largest retail chain, sat in his Nairobi office reviewing the company’s first half financial results before the weekly executive committee (EXCO) meeting. The company was in... View Details
- July 11, 2024
- Article
Research: New Hires’ Psychological Safety Erodes Quickly
By: Derrick P. Bransby, Michael J. Kerrissey and Amy C. Edmondson
Across industries, from manufacturing to health care, the luxury of waiting years to benefit from new talent is long gone. Thriving in today’s dynamic economy means bringing new hires up the learning curve faster than ever. Yet, the authors’ latest research suggests... View Details
- 2024
- Chapter
Corporations as the Central Institutions of Society
Mark Twain observed that, “Prediction is very difficult—particularly when it involves the future,” and he was right. One way to reduce the risk of becoming an infamous forecaster—like the experts who told us the Internet would quickly collapse, that Apple would never... View Details
- July 2024 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
Gates Ventures: Making Alzheimer's a Forgotten Past
By: Satish Tadikonda, William Marks, Shardule Shah and Calvin Marambo
After a personal journey and interest in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) by Bill Gates, Gates Ventures set out to find the best way to accelerate innovation in the field of AD. In partnership with the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, Gates Ventures created the... View Details
- July 2024
- Case
Replika AI: Alleviating Loneliness (A)
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
Eugenia Kuyda launched Replika AI in 2017 as an empathetic digital companion to combat loneliness and provide emotional support. The platform surged in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering non-judgmental support to isolated users. By 2023, Replika boasted... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Incrementality Representation Learning: Synergizing Past Experiments for Intervention Personalization
This paper introduces Incrementality Representation Learning (IRL), a novel multitask representation learning framework that predicts heterogeneous causal effects of marketing interventions. By leveraging past experiments, IRL efficiently designs and targets... View Details
- June 2024
- Article
Oral History and Business History in Emerging Markets
By: Geoffrey Jones
This article describes the motivation, structure and use of the Creating Emerging Markets (CEM) oral history-based project at the Harvard Business School. The project consists of lengthy interviews with business leaders from emerging markets. By June 2024 183... View Details
- May 2024 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
MStudio and Djoli: Accelerating Startup Growth in Francophone Africa
By: Paul A. Gompers, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Temitayo Lawal
Djoli, a procurement platform, was one of the startups launched and supported by MStudio, a startup studio in Côte d'Ivoire, in 2023. After a year of operations, Djoli must look beyond MStudio, which had supported them financially and in kind in exchange for equity,... View Details
- 2024
- Case
EPCorp: Sell on Amazon or Invest in Our Data?
By: Jacob M. Cook
Amidst a history of exponential growth, Electronic Products Company (EPCorp) finds itself at a crossroads as its once thriving retail presence faces a downturn, despite hefty investments into a promising new direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform. Shivani, EPCorp s... View Details
- May 2024
- Supplement
gWorks (A)
By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
In January of 2019, Joe Heieck, CEO of gWorks, was deciding whether to proceed with his acquisition of Data Tech, that was a business roughly the same size as gWorks. gWorks, which provided geospatial software to small city and rural county governments, was acquired by... View Details
Keywords: Acquisition; Small Business; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Business Education; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Problems and Challenges; Talent and Talent Management; Customer Relationship Management; Technology Adoption; Information Infrastructure; Digital Platforms; Growth Management; Applications and Software; Risk and Uncertainty; Technology Industry; United States
- May 2024
- Supplement
gWorks (B)
By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
In January of 2019, Joe Heieck, CEO of gWorks, was deciding whether to proceed with his acquisition of Data Tech, that was a business roughly the same size as gWorks. gWorks, which provided geospatial software to small city and rural county governments, was acquired by... View Details
Keywords: Acquisition; Small Business; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Business Education; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Problems and Challenges; Talent and Talent Management; Customer Relationship Management; Technology Adoption; Information Infrastructure; Digital Platforms; Growth Management; Applications and Software; Risk and Uncertainty; Technology Industry; United States
- May 2024
- Background Note
Pricing Strategy and Channels of Distribution: Where Value Delivery and Value Capture Intersect
By: Elie Ofek
Channels of distribution are a critical component of a firm’s go-to-market strategy. A company may elect to sell its products directly to customers (DTC) without the assistance of any intermediaries or, alternatively, it may seek several channel partners to help it... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
LASH Risk and Interest Rates
By: Laura Alfaro, Saleem Bahaj, Robert Czech, Jonathan Hazell and Ioana Neamtu
We introduce a framework to understand and quantify a form of liquidity risk that we dub Liquidity After Solvency Hedging or “LASH” risk. Financial institutions take LASH risk when they hedge against losses, using strategies that lead to liquidity needs when the value... View Details
- May 2024
- Case
Pernod Ricard: Uncorking Digital Transformation
By: Iavor Bojinov, Edward McFowland III, François Candelon, Nikolina Jonsson and Emer Moloney
This case study explores the opportunities and challenges of the digital transformation journey of French wine and spirits company Pernod Ricard. As part of the transformation, the company launched four key digital programs (KDPs) aimed at using data and artificial... View Details
Keywords: Business Organization; Business Divisions; Talent and Talent Management; Global Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Digital Transformation; Digital Strategy; Advertising; Sales; Organizational Culture; Product Development; Decision Making; Technology Adoption; Alignment; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry; France; Europe
- May 2024
- Case
Net Protections (A)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno
In Case A, set in early 2017, Net Protections (NP) is the largest Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) fintech service in Japan and is experiencing a slowdown in growth of its core product, NP Atobarai. Launched in 2002 as non-membership service, the NP Atobarai product has given... View Details
- May 2024
- Case
HarvEast
By: Jeremy Friedman and Natalie Kindred
In late 2023, Dmitry Skornyakov, CEO of Ukrainian agribusiness HarvEast, was navigating the turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began in 2014 and escalated into full-scale war in February 2022. Before the full-scale invasion, HarvEast managed 127,000... View Details
Keywords: Goods and Commodities; Natural Resources; Food; Problems and Challenges; Adaptation; Innovation and Management; Crisis Management; Logistics; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty; Loss; Trust; Human Needs; War; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Chile; South America; Latin America; Ukraine
- May 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Market by Met Council: Revolutionizing Food Pantries in the Digital Age
By: Elisabeth Paulson and Michael W. Toffel
In fall 2023, the Food Program of Met Council—America’s largest Jewish charity dedicated to fighting poverty—completed the rollout of the newest version of its digital pantry platform to twelve food pantries in the Met Council food pantry network. The digital... View Details