Publications

06 Sep 2018
News

A boost for school principals

October 2002 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Collabrys, Inc. (A)-The Evolution of a Startup

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Brian DeLacey

The CEO of a two-year-old start-up must now decide whether to become a technology provider or a service agency. In a time of enormous uncertainty about the viability of various business models for Internet-delivered services and products, Collabrys has survived the... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Internet and the Web; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Technological Innovation; Cost vs Benefits; Partners and Partnerships; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Corporate Finance; United States

Video

2010 HBS Social Venture Track Business Plan Winners

November 2021 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Farfetch: Digital Transformation for Luxury Brands

By: Sunil Gupta, Jill Avery, Elena Corsi and Federica Gabrieli

Farfetch, a global luxury technology platform and digital marketplace had been surfing the wave of digital transformation in the luxury fashion industry since 2008. While the company’s stock price and market valuation had fluctuated since its IPO in 2018, it had... View Details

September 2009
Article

Deterring Online Advertising Fraud Through Optimal Payment in Arrears

By: Benjamin Edelman

Online advertisers face substantial difficulty in selecting and supervising small advertising partners. Fraud can be well hidden, and limited reputation systems reduce accountability. But partners are not paid until after their work is complete, and advertisers can... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Profit; Online Advertising; Advertising Industry

Read Now

11 Dec 2012
News

It's Not Your Typical Job

25 Mar 2014
News

A fresh bite of the Apple

September 1991
Case

Paul Olsen (A)

Paul Olsen, a doctoral management student, is considering forming a limited partnership to open a restaurant in a renovated downtown mall in Pittsburgh. He must assess the opportunity, find investors for the anticipated $250,000 start-up costs, and create a workable... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship

May 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Symyx Technologies, Inc.

By: H. Kent Bowen, Courtney Purrington and Thomas D. Perry

Symyx is a science-based company spun out of Berkeley. Its unique materials technology has been exploited for 10 years, but the company needs a new business model. The company concept required the invention of hardware and software to do high throughput materials... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Transition; Engineering; Technological Innovation; Resource Allocation; Product Development; Partners and Partnerships; Science-Based Business; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software

Find at Harvard

April 2014 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Texas Children's Hospital: Congenital Heart Disease Care

By: Michael E. Porter, Justin M. Bachmann and Zachary C. Landman

In 2014, Dr. Charles D. Fraser Jr., Surgeon-in-Chief of Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, was contemplating the future direction of the congenital heart disease program. The nation's largest pediatric hospital, Texas Children's was ranked by U.S. News & World... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Congenital Heart Disease; Integrated Practice Units; Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Measurement and Metrics; Performance Improvement; Health Industry; United States; Texas

26 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

Why Great Ideas Get Stuck in Universities

valuable insights for founders and universities as they invest more into the higher-risk, early-stage research that often results in meaningful innovation. Companies have long teamed with academia, but such View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Biotechnology; Health

December 2018
Case

The Nature Conservancy in 2018

By: Jose B. Alvarez, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a U.S.-based environmental NGO with $7 billion in assets and a presence in 72 countries in 2018. TNC originated in 1951 as a land trust, acquiring land in order to conserve it. Over the last 20 years, it developed a pragmatic... View Details

Keywords: Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

Video

Nicolás Jodal

Nicolás Jodal, Co-Founder and CEO of GeneXus, explains how he and his business partner Breogán Gonda built up their software development company in the late 1980s. View Details

September 2002 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Oklahoma VISION Project

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Susan Saltrick

Describes the two-year-old pilot phase of a public/private initiative in Oklahoma called the Virtual Internet School in Oklahoma Network (VISION) project. VISION was a first-of-its-kind, standards-based, vendor-neutral technology infrastructure developed to enable... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Internet and the Web; Performance Evaluation; Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Service Delivery; Innovation and Management; Entrepreneurship; Education; Information Technology Industry; Education Industry; Oklahoma; Western United States

Find at Harvard

September 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Supplement

Cathy Benko: WINning at Deloitte (B)

By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Deborah M. Kolb and Cailin B. Hammer

Cathy Benko pulls together a group of Deloitte and Touche's top partners for a weekend discussion of the Initiative for the Retention and Advancement of Women (WIN). Benko, stimulated by the strong reaction by the attending partners, agrees to take on the leadership... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Partners and Partnerships; Agreements and Arrangements; Retention; Gender

February 2023
Case

Roblox: Virtual Commerce in the Metaverse

By: Ayelet Israeli and Nicole Tempest Keller

In 2022, Roblox had 58.8 million daily active users, including over half of all children and teens under the age of 16 in the United States. Roblox, a free-to-use “co-experience platform”, allowed users to come together in immersive 3D experiences to socialize, work,... View Details

March 2009
Case

Aderans

By: Robin Greenwood, Rakesh Khurana and Masako Egawa

Steel Partners is a U.S.-based hedge fund that has made a large investment in Japan-based wigmaker Aderans. The case is set at the close of the annual meeting in May 2008, when shareholders have voted against all incumbent board members. Steel Partners must act... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Investment; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; Japan

Find at Harvard

Jacob Cook is a Lecturer in the Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches the EC course Digital Marketing & AI Workshop. His work focuses on how companies design and scale customer acquisition and retention strategies using digital marketing,... View Details

11 Nov 2018
Interview

Investment in South Africa [eNCA interview]

By: Euvin Naidoo

Partner and MD at Venture University and VU Fund, Euvin Naidoo, discusses the impact innovation can have on the growth of the South African economy. View Details

Keywords: Investment; Innovation and Invention; Economic Growth; South Africa