Small Business - Publications - Faculty & Research

December 2006 (Revised February 2009)
Case

China Merchants Bank: Here Just For You

By: F. Warren McFarlan, GuoQing Chen, HengYuan Zhu, Bin Yang, Michael Shih-ta Chen, G.A. Donovan, Waishun Lo and Yan Yang

Founded in 1987, China Merchants Bank (CMB) is a pioneer in the use of technical innovation and IT as a competitive tool in the rapidly evolving Chinese banking sector. With a relatively small branch network when compared to its larger competitors, CMB uses an... View Details

Keywords: Credit Cards; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Innovation Leadership; Competitive Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Emerging Markets; Opportunities; Banking Industry; China; Hong Kong

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02 Jun 2016
Blog Post

Applying to the JD/MBA Program

Applying to business school can be a stressful and time consuming endeavor. For those who hope to pursue a joint degree, the application process is doubly demanding. Joanna Cornell and Bhargav Srinivasan are both one year into their... View Details

14 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restarting Under Uncertainty: Managerial Experiences from Around the World

small and large alike, are reacting with resourcefulness to the business challenges posed by the pandemic, mainly leveraging internal capabilities or detecting helpful local resources. We hope that the... View Details

Keywords: by Raffaella Sadun, Andrea Bertoni, Alexia Delfino, Giovanni Fassio, and Mariapaola Testa

30 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

How to Recover Gracefully After Shutting Down Your Startup

enough to make sound decisions, Eisenmann says. But deciding when to pull the plug is rarely easy. Here’s why: Failure happens slowly. A struggling business might limp along for months or even years, sometimes with View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

October 2006 (Revised March 2007)
Case

Production I.G: Challenging the Status Quo

By: Andrei Hagiu, Tarun Khanna, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Masako Egawa and Chisato Toyama

In July 2006, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa wondered how he could further enhance the success and visibility of his animation production company headquartered in Tokyo, Production I.G. For the year ended May 2006, Production I.G. had sales of 5,439 million yen ($47.3 million),... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Competitive Advantage; Markets; Animation Entertainment; Going Public; Growth and Development Strategy; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Tokyo

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January 2014
Article

The Consequences of Entrepreneurial Finance: Evidence from Angel Financings

By: William R. Kerr, Josh Lerner and Antoinette Schoar

This paper documents that ventures that are funded by two successful angel groups experience superior outcomes to rejected ventures: they have improved survival, exits, employment, patenting, web traffic, and financing. We use strong discontinuities in angel funding... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Financing and Loans; Interests; Employment; Patents; Internet and the Web; Operations; Entrepreneurship; Business Exit or Shutdown

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10 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Do You Have Change Fatigue?

above. The remedy, say the experts, flies in the face of the revolutionary approach to change that reigned during the dot-com era's heyday: Pare down the number of initiatives. Be less preoccupied with large-scale transformation, and focus instead on View Details

Keywords: by Nick Morgan

01 Oct 2024
Cold Call Podcast

Choosing Passion: A Founder’s Mission to Meet a Need for Obesity Care

Keywords: Re: Jon M. Jachimowicz; Health

Teaching Interest

Overview

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang

Launching Technology Ventures
Launching Technology Ventures (LTV) is designed for students who are actively working on their own startups or who will work at early-stage startups. The course material is, in particular, focused on new businesses in the... View Details

28 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

Billions of Entrepreneurs in China and India

these processes are unfolding not just in the mainstream business sector but in society writ large and even in politics and civil society," says Khanna. Khanna's book Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India Are Reshaping Their... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

September 22, 2023
Article

How Software Companies Can Avoid the Trap of Product-Led Growth

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Oliver Jay

Companies like Slack and Dropbox have pioneered the use of Product-Led Growth (PLG). They start by building a product that’s indispensable for small teams, then count on low friction and customer advocates to expand throughout the organization. PLG works, at least at... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Product; Network Effects; Business Strategy

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October 2013 (Revised February 2019)
Teaching Note

Red Hen Baking Company

By: Richard Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Lisa Paige

The case explores the decision to expand in a small business setting. In 2007, the Red Hen Baking Company (RHB) was deciding whether to move from its cramped and inefficient Duxbury, Vermont facility to a new facility in nearby Middlesex, Vermont. It had been in... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Capital; Risk Management; Expansion

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12 Jun 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, June 12, 2018

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54559 Harvard Business School Case 118-016 Data Science at Target Paritosh Desai joined Target.com in 2013 as VP of Business Intelligence, Analytics &... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Program

Preparing to Be a Corporate Director

with a diverse group of peers who can provide wide-ranging insights into your business challenges and career decisions Who Should Attend Senior executives who are interested in serving on a corporate board Executives who are retired or... View Details

28 Jun 2021
Blog Post

7 Things HBS Taught Me the Last 2 Years

I graduated from Harvard Business School last month with 900 indomitable classmates as part of the Class of 2021. I feel a deep sense of gratitude to my family, friends, colleagues, and everyone else who made this journey from Bombay to... View Details

August 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Lexoo: Building a Long-Lasting Platform (Abridged)

By: Chiara Farronato and Elena Corsi

Lexoo, a UK-based online marketplace for legal services, was facing the strategic choice of how to grow from early start-up to mature platform. Daniel van Binsbergen, Lexoo's CEO, and web developer Chris O'Sullivan, CTO, had set up Lexoo to help Small and Medium-Sized... View Details

Keywords: Legal Services; Marketplaces; Pivot; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Small Business; Service Operations; Decision Making; Legal Services Industry

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22 Nov 2004
Research & Ideas

Side Effects: The Case of Propecia

concerns," said an audience participant. Is a doctor really going to write a prescription for something as medically non-serious as hair loss if there is a chance, admittedly a small one, of sexual side effects? Propecia Hits The... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Health; Pharmaceutical

09 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Why Entrepreneurs Should Go Work for Government

enforcement on air pollution controls. In California, OpenCounter streamlined registration for small businesses and provided zoning clearances in a fraction of the usual time. In New York, Mark43 is... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Capitalism at Risk: How Companies Can Lead

Q. Who should take the lead in fixing market capitalism? A. Business, not government alone. The spread of capitalism worldwide has made people wealthier than ever before. But capitalism's future is far from assured. Pandemics, income inequality, resource depletion,... View Details

February 2010
Case

Shurgard Self-Storage: Expansion to Europe (Abridged)

By: Richard G. Hamermesh

Shurgard, a U.S.-based firm that rents storage facilities to consumers and small businesses, is considering financing options for rapid expansion of its European operations. Five years after entering Europe, Shurgard Europe has opened 17 facilities in Belgium, France,... View Details