Publications

November 2019
Teaching Note

Hacking Heroin

By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah Mehta

This teaching note pairs with a case that is used in a course on Public Entrepreneurship, for a first module on "ideas." The case is designed to help students work through the question: where do new ideas to stubborn problems come from? And, in particular, the question... View Details

Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Hackathon; Heroin; Opioids; Crowdsourcing; Public Sector; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Health Pandemics; Public Administration Industry; Health Industry; Ohio; Cincinnati

November 24, 2020
Article

4 Strategies to Make Telehealth Work for Elderly Patients

By: Umar Ikram, Susanna Gallani, Jose F. Figueroa and Thomas W. Feeley

As providers have ramped up their use of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic, one group—the elderly—has experienced particular challenges in adopting the technologies. This article describes the strategies four innovative provider organizations have used to engage... View Details

Keywords: Telehealth; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Internet and the Web; Age; Technology Adoption; Strategy

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2020
Working Paper

Consumers Punish Firms That Cut Employee Pay in Response to COVID-19

By: Bhavya Mohan, Serena Hagerty and Michael Norton

Two experiments, including one incentive compatible study, examine the impact of cutting pay for executives versus employees in response to COVID-19 on consumer behavior. Study 1 explores the effect of announcing cuts or no cuts to CEO and employee pay, and shows that... View Details

Keywords: Employee Furloughs; CEO Pay Cuts; Pay Ratios; Purchase Intention; Health Pandemics; Employees; Wages; Executive Compensation; Consumer Behavior

SSRN

01 Sep 2020
News

Action Plan: Finding Fluency

Dunaway, the pandemic meant rethinking all of the company’s marketing plans. A veteran of established brands such as Frito-Lay, Yahoo, and Nintendo, Dunaway joined Duolingo in 2018 to build a marketing department from scratch with a focus... View Details

Keywords: April White; foreign language; education and technology; digital marketing; change management; COVID-19; Educational Services

04 May 2020
Blog Post

Crisis Leadership with Nikhil Patel: The Critical Importance of Trust

drivers, nursing homes, and homeless shelters. “We’re running twelve-to-sixteen hours a day, seven days a week.” Lessons in Leadership For Patel, both the intensity and the complexity of the pandemic response offer important lessons in... View Details

January–February 2015
Article

Heroic Villains: Are Foreign Investors Problems or Solutions in the Ebola Crisis?

By: Debora L. Spar

For months, the news out of West Africa has been unrelentingly grim. As of early December, the devastating Ebola epidemic had infected a reported 17,942 people and killed 6,388, according to the World Health Organization (WHO); the actual toll, which would also account... View Details

Keywords: Ebola; Multinational Corporation; Epidemics; Foreign Investment; Extractive Industries; Multinational Firms and Management; Health Pandemics; Developing Countries and Economies; Government and Politics; Africa

Find at Harvard

25 Feb 2021
News

A CEO’s Guide to Planning a Return to the Office

August 2021
Teaching Note

Fair Park Covid-19 Mass Vaccination Site (A) and (B)

By: Willy Shih

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 622-003 and 622-004. View Details

Keywords: Operations Improvement; Operations And Processes; Toyota Production System; Operations; Service Operations; Health Pandemics; Service Delivery; Problems and Challenges; Goals and Objectives; Measurement and Metrics; Health Industry; United States

2017
Casebook

Public Health Preparedness: Case Studies in Policy and Management

By: Arnold M. Howitt, Dutch Leonard and David W. Giles

This book provides detailed accounts of a range of public health emergencies. Topics range from natural disasters, to infectious diseases, to pandemics, and more. With chapters on Superstorm Sandy, H1N1, the Ebola virus, and bioterrorism, these cases cover major areas... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Health Pandemics; Natural Disasters; Safety; Public Sector; Policy; Management

October 2024 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Southern California Industrial: Freezer Drive

By: Arthur I Segel, Dwight Angelini and W. Matt Kelly

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a Boston based real estate private equity firm was seeking to make their very first West Coast investments in hopes of establishing their presence in the strategic region. An exciting property suddenly became available on the... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate Development; Acquisition; Health Pandemics; Risk and Uncertainty; Expansion; Cost vs Benefits; Investment Return; Real Estate Industry

Educators

January 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Case

iOpenEye: Theater and #MeToo in Nigeria

By: Caroline Elkins, Tarun Khanna and Joyce J. Kim

In 2014, Ifeoma Fafunwa, an award-winning playwright and director, founded iOpenEye, a commercial production company dedicated to driving social change through performance art. iOpenEye’s flagship theatrical production was called “Hear Word! Naija Woman Talk True,”... View Details

Keywords: Theatre; Social Change; Entrepreneurship; Social Enterprise; Arts; Entertainment; Social Issues; Health Pandemics; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Model; Nigeria

Educators

03 Jun 2020
News

What to Do When Work Feels Meaningless

06 Feb 2020
News

HBS Alumni Join Forces on Virus Outbreak in China

In response to the widening coronavirus outbreak in China and globally, HBS alumni are launching efforts intent on supporting the crisis relief efforts to Wuhan and other parts of China. One alumni group, calling itself the Wuhan Task Force, aims to rapidly provide... View Details

March 12, 2021
Article

Market Design to Accelerate COVID-19 Vaccine Supply

By: Juan Camilo Castillo, Amrita Ahuja, Susan Athey, Arthur Baker, Eric Budish, Tasneem Chipty, Rachel Glennerster, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Kremer, Greg Larson, Jean Lee, Canice Prendergast, Christopher M. Snyder, Alex Tabarrok, Brandon Joel Tan and Witold Wiecek

Build more capacity, and stretch what we already have. View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Vaccine; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Market Design; Supply Chain

2020
Working Paper

Paying It Backward and Forward: Expanding Access to Convalescent Plasma Therapy Through Market Design

By: Scott Duke Kominers, Parag A. Pathak, Tayfun Sönmez and M. Utku Ünver

COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) therapy is currently a leading treatment for COVID-19. At present, there is a shortage of CCP relative to demand. We develop and analyze a model of centralized CCP allocation that incorporates both donation and distribution. In order... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Convalescent Plasma; Vouchers; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Resource Allocation; Market Design