Publications

February 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Korea Venture Investment Corporation

By: Paul A. Gompers and Billy Chan

Financial service sector Korea Venture Investment Corporation (KVIC) is the venture capital arm of the Korean government with a founding mission to build a domestic startup ecosystem that would be as competitive as Silicon Valley. KVIC manages a basket of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Society; Investment; Venture Capital; Mission and Purpose; State Ownership; Financial Services Industry; Asia; South Korea

December 2003 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Blockbuster Inc. & Technological Substitution (C): The Internet Changes the Game

Investigates how the rise of the Internet as a vehicle for renting and buying movies has disrupted the video rental industry and how market leader Blockbuster Inc. can and should respond to these developments. Explores how the emergence of e-commerce affects the degree... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Risk and Uncertainty; Decisions; Technological Innovation; Competition; Change Management; Service Industry; Service Industry

February 2017 (Revised February 2018)
Case

Frank Baker: Siris Capital Group and Titan Systems

By: Steven Rogers and Derrick Collins

Private equity firm, Siris Capital Group, must decide if they should raise their offer to take Titan Telecom private by acquiring its publicly traded stock. Siris’ decision to pay a premium for Titan must be made in the context of their unique (and somewhat complex)... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Leveraged Buyouts; Mergers and Acquisitions; Private Equity; Mobile Technology; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States

26 Apr 2010
Research & Ideas

When Other Companies Compete Like Crazy, Dare to Be Different

Want to be different? Change your world, not your tactics. As HBS professor Youngme Moon argues in Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd, competition too often breeds conformity. Yet there is plenty of space for adventurous companies... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

31 Mar 2015
News

Let's Be Real: Why Transparency in Business Should Be the Norm

04 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Making the Case for Consumer-Driven Health Care

of health care is a major research topic at Harvard Business School and its Healthcare Initiative, where some 40 faculty conduct research on questions as diverse as how... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

May 2013
Case

Wendy Peterson

By: Linda A. Hill and Alisa Zalosh

Wendy Peterson was recently promoted to Vice President of Sales at the Plano, Texas, office of AccountBack, an accounting software and services company. To penetrate a perceived market niche, Peterson hires Fred (Xing) Wu, whose familiarity with and access to Chinese... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Conflict Management; Salesforce Management; Rank and Position; Performance Evaluation; Management Teams; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Accounting Industry; Texas

04 Feb 2020
Video

Dr. Elizabeth Mary Okelo

Mary Okelo, who pursued a successful career as an executive of Barclays Bank In Kenya before founding the only women’s bank in Africa and the Makini schools system, describes how, while a manager at Barclays,... View Details

March 2020
Case

Maven Clinic: Women's Health in the Digital Age

By: Ariel D. Stern and Sarah Mehta

In late 2017, Kate Ryder, the founder and CEO of digital women’s health telemedicine company Maven Clinic, faced an important decision. Maven offered both a direct to consumer (D2C) product that anyone could use to book virtual appointments with health practitioners... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Strategy; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Health Industry; Technology Industry; United States

June 2023
Teaching Note

From Cradle to Heaven: Taikang Insurance Group

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 320-088. The case explores the rise of Taikang Insurance Group and its quest to be a leader of one of China's fastest-growing industries. Due to China's underdeveloped social welfare state, Taikang saw an opportunity for the private... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Government and Politics; Health Industry; China

March 2008
Exercise

Exercise: Challenging Operational Assumptions

By: Frances X. Frei

This exercise provides students with an opportunity to thoroughly test an operating assumption. Students state an assumption as a testable hypothesis, collect and analyze relevant data, and communicate the results. At HBS, it is incorporated in a second-year elective... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Employees; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Service Operations; Performance Improvement

Find at Harvard

October 2016 (Revised April 2017)
Case

Succession Planning at Samsung: The Merger Formula of Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T

By: Gwen Yu and Tim Gray

A merger deal of two Samsung group companies becomes a center of a corruption scandal. The merger of Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T was seen as a crucial step to transfer power to Lee Jae Yong, the heir of Samsung group. The deal was criticized to purposefully... View Details

Keywords: Merger; Mergers and Acquisitions

September 1995 (Revised February 1996)
Case

Apollo Hospitals of India (A)

Dr. Prathap Reddy has created India's first corporate hospital, Apollo Hospitals of Madras. The hospital is managed according to an integrated philosophy of customer service and support to employees. A new hospital, in the city of Hyderabad, has not performed as well,... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Franchise Ownership; Health Care and Treatment; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Strategy; Health Industry; India

04 May 2009
Research & Ideas

What’s Next for the Big Financial Brands

company? So long as they are not triumphalist, large banks like JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo that were less involved in chasing too-good-to-be-true subprime returns have a differentiating advantage. But... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Financial Services; Financial Services

06 Feb 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas: February 6, 2018

workers; and the production of knowledge, including the idea of the economy, among other topics. Together, the essays suggest emerging themes in the field: a fascination with capitalism as it is made by... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

My research seeks to understand and improve service integration across specialized professions and organizations. A critical idea driving my research is that work is becoming more dynamic, complex and interconnected, particularly for work that addresses difficult... View Details

Keywords: Organization Behavior; Health Care Delivery; Team Effectiveness; Organizational Learning

George A. Riedel

George A. Riedel is the Henry B. Arthur Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the General Management Unit, where he currently teaches TEM (The Entrepreneurial Manager) and acts as a Section Chair in the Required Curriculum (RC). He has also taught TOM (Technology and... View Details

November 2017
Teaching Note

Tencent

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

Teaching Note for HBS No. 718-426. Tencent had undergone many transformations since it was founded in 1998 as a simple messaging service. In 2017, it was the largest online games provider in China with a wide range of game types, China’s largest social networking... View Details