Publications

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September 2008 (Revised October 2008)
Case

Marc Abrahams: Annals of an Improbable Entrepreneur

By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

Marc Abrahams was a media entrepreneur who specialized in science humor. In 2008, he sought to boost the scale and monetization potential of his business. That business, called Improbable Research, encompassed a magazine (Annals of Improbable Research), a high-profile... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Selection and Staffing; Human Capital; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Personal Development and Career

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August 2012
Case

Jess Westerly at Kauflauf GmbH

By: John J. Gabarro and Colleen Kaftan

Jess Westerly is the assistant product owner of CRM applications for computer and office supply wholesalers and retailers at Kauflauf, a fast-growing provider of subscription enterprise software headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany. Only months into her job, outsider... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Leading Change; Behavior; Salesforce Management; Social and Collaborative Networks; Planning; Web Services Industry; Germany

October 2023 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Governance and Growth at GenUnity

By: Brian Trelstad, Paul Healy and Annelena Lobb

Jerren Chang, CEO and co-founder of GenUnity, had to choose a strategy to scale his civic engagement-focused nonprofit. Based in Boston, Chang could grow the organization there or begin to expand to other cities. He also had to select candidates for a board of... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Nonprofit Organizations; Expansion; Governing and Advisory Boards; Boston

17 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Why We Don’t Study Corporate Responsibility

For too long, scholarship in the field of management has looked at economic performance rather than social welfare, argue HBS professor Joshua Margolis and colleagues James P. Walsh, of University of Michigan Business School, and Klaus... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

February 2007 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Urban Video Game Academy: Getting in the Game

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Susan Saltrick

Urban Video Game Academy was founded to enhance the academic and career prospects of urban youth. How will its founder grow it into a sustainable business? Provides an opportunity to discuss the challenges of social entrepreneurship and how to create a sustainable... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Social Enterprise; Change Management; Education; Education Industry; Video Game Industry

February 2010
Case

Burt's Bees: Balancing Growth and Sustainability (Multimedia)

By: Christopher Marquis

The case examines sustainability initiatives at Burt's Bees, with video segments that detail the company's history, leadership, and implementation of ambitious 2020 sustainability goals. The company traces its roots to 1984, when Roxanne Quinby and Burt Schavitz teamed... View Details

Keywords: Balance and Stability; Leadership; Problems and Challenges; Business or Company Management; Growth Management; Organizational Culture; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Mergers and Acquisitions; Social Enterprise; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Ethics

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Motivation and the Cross-Sector Alliance

With cross-sector collaborations on the rise, a new book exploring partnerships between business and social organizations in the Americas comes at just the right time. Social Partnering in Latin America:... View Details

Keywords: by James Austin, Ezequiel Reficco & SEKN research team

22 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 22, 2019

enterprises seem incapable of transformative innovation, it is due to how we design and manage them, rather than anything inherent in their scale. In fact, Creative Construction argues, if used properly, View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

23 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Corporate Sustainability Reporting: It’s Effective

environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. The trend of mandatory sustainability reporting picked up steam as consumers, investors, and civil society in general increasingly demonstrated that they value the social... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

18 May 2021
News

How Georgia State University Increased Graduation Rates

September 2021 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Harambe: Mobilizing Capital in Africa

By: Anywhere (Siko) Sikochi, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Francesco Tronci

Harambe was a non-profit organization whose mission was to build an ecosystem to identify promising young African entrepreneurs and provide them access to training, markets, capital, and support networks. From 2007 to 2021, Harambe had grown to a network of 367... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Business Model; Strategy; Organizational Structure; Business Startups; Capital; Venture Capital; Social and Collaborative Networks; Networks; Developing Countries and Economies; Emerging Markets; Africa; South Africa

Linda A. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and Faculty Chair of the Leadership Initiative. Hill is regarded as one of the top experts on leadership and innovation. Hill is... View Details

20 Apr 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Why Every Company Needs a CSR Strategy and How to Build It

Keywords: by Kash Rangan, Lisa A. Chase & Sohel Karim

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

May–June 2025
Article

Branch-and-Price for Prescriptive Contagion Analytics

By: Alexandre Jacquillat, Michael Lingzhi Li, Martin Ramé and Kai Wang

Contagion models are ubiquitous in epidemiology, social sciences, engineering, and management. This paper formulates a prescriptive contagion analytics model where a decision maker allocates shared resources across multiple segments of a population, each governed by... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Mathematical Methods

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Summer 2013
Response

How Caesars Entertainment Is Betting on Sustainability: Response

By: Michael W. Toffel

One of the largest gaming companies in the world expanded its sustainability efforts using a scorecard to guide and goad managers. This response assesses Caesars Entertainment's CodeGreen scorecard, advocates a more comprehensive environmental assessment to target... View Details

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Entertainment; Energy; Energy Conservation; Buildings and Facilities; Goals and Objectives; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Evaluation; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

December 2009 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Phreesia: The Patient Intake Company

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Sunaina Yarlagadda and Brian L. Walker

How should the co-founders of an organization that provides patient sign-in and billing services scale their company after five years of successfully targeting small private physician practices? Phreesia had deployed a direct mail and sales force strategy that resulted... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Social Entrepreneurship; Revenue; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

September 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Student Success at Georgia State University (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Robin Mendelson and Julia Kelley

Georgia State University had developed a reputation for driving student success by nearly doubling its graduation rate for students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It did so while growing its student body and the proportion of Black/African... View Details