Publications

June 2024
Case

Building Innovation at VINCI

By: Dennis Campbell, Aluna Wang and Carlota Moniz

This case study explores how the VINCI Group, a French multinational operating in concessions, energy, and construction, bolstered awareness and adoption rates of new technologies within the organization. Through its separate innovation hub, Leonard, VINCI aimed to... View Details

June 2024
Article

Counterparty Risk and Counterparty Choice in the Credit Default Swap Market

By: Wenxin Du, Salil Gadgil, Michael Gordy and Clara Vega

We investigate how market participants price and manage counterparty credit risk using confidential trade repository data on single-name credit default swap (CDS) transactions. We find that counterparty risk has a modest impact on the pricing of CDS contracts but a... View Details

Keywords: Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Market Participation; Risk and Uncertainty; Price; Financial Markets; Credit

June 2024 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light

By: Jill Avery and Celine Chammas

On April 1, 2023, social media content creator and influencer Dylan Mulvaney recorded a promotional post. It featured a video of herself drinking from a can of Bud Light beer, offering a virtual toast to her followers. Alongside the video, she posted a photograph of a... View Details

Keywords: Brand Crises; Brand Management; Influencer Marketing; Boycott; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Social Media; Advertising; Social Issues; Public Opinion; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

June 2024
Article

Oral History and Business History in Emerging Markets

By: Geoffrey Jones

This article describes the motivation, structure and use of the Creating Emerging Markets (CEM) oral history-based project at the Harvard Business School. The project consists of lengthy interviews with business leaders from emerging markets. By June 2024 183... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Economies; Oral History; Emerging Markets; Business History; Research

June 2024
Article

Rationalizing Outcomes: Interdependent Learning in Competitive Markets

By: Anoop R. Menon and Dennis Yao

In this article we use simulation models to explore interdependent learning in competitive markets. Such interactions require attention to both the mental representations held by the management of the focal firm as well as the beliefs of that management about the... View Details

Keywords: Mental Models; Strategic Interactions; Rationalization; Explanation-based View; Competition

May 2024
Case

Naked Wines: The Profit vs. Growth Decision

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer

Nick Devlin faced a difficult strategic decision in October 2022. As the CEO of a UK-based subscription business connecting wine drinkers in the US, UK, and Australia with winemakers from around the world (which one journalist called the “Netflix of Wine”), he had to... View Details

May 2024 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Lowe's: Improving the Total Home Strategy

By: Elie Ofek, K. Shelette Stewart and Alicia Dadlani

In 2023, Marvin Ellison, CEO of Lowe’s, contemplated enhancements to the company’s Total Home Strategy to accelerate performance and grow market share. In the last five years since becoming CEO, Ellison had championed a turnaround of the company, completing a... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Competition; Brands and Branding; Business Strategy; Retail Industry; United States; North Carolina

May 20, 2024
Article

Porter’s Five Forces and Competitive Advantage in Web3

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Liang Wu

Competitive strategy — the art of crafting and executing plans to achieve an advantageous position in the market — is integral to any business, and especially relevant for platforms because it determines their ability to achieve network effects and scale. But web3... View Details

Keywords: Five Forces Framework; Competitive Strategy; Business Strategy; Network Effects; Digital Transformation

May 2024
Case

LinkedIn Corporation, 2024

By: David B. Yoffie, George Gonzalez and Emily Grandjean

By 2024, the LinkedIn profile was well established as the professional identity of record on the Internet. Following a multi-year effort to expand the platform’s user base, as well as a period of rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, LinkedIn’s membership had... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Social Media; Network Effects; Growth and Development Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Technology Industry; Employment Industry; Sunnyvale

May 2024 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Choosing the Course of Passion: Brooke Boyarsky Pratt at knownwell

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz and Alexis Lefort

Brooke Boyarsky Pratt (HBS ’13) enjoyed considerable success in her early career, quickly climbing the ranks to associate partner at McKinsey, and later becoming an executive vice president at Berkadia, a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio company. Throughout these years,... View Details

Keywords: Passion; Career; Career Planning; Purpose; Personal Development and Career; Mission and Purpose; Identity; Business Startups; Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Health Industry; United States

May 2024
Case

Pernod Ricard: Uncorking Digital Transformation

By: Iavor Bojinov, Edward McFowland III, François Candelon, Nikolina Jonsson and Emer Moloney

This case study explores the opportunities and challenges of the digital transformation journey of French wine and spirits company Pernod Ricard. As part of the transformation, the company launched four key digital programs (KDPs) aimed at using data and artificial... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Business Divisions; Talent and Talent Management; Global Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Digital Transformation; Digital Strategy; Advertising; Sales; Organizational Culture; Product Development; Decision Making; Technology Adoption; Alignment; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry; France; Europe

May 2024
Supplement

Net Protections (C)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

In Case C, in spring 2021, four years after the launch of atone, the company is considering how to grow the service given slow merchant adoption. View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Product Launch; Adoption

May 2024
Supplement

HubSpot and Motion AI (B): Generative AI Opportunities

By: Jill Avery

The technologies driving artificial intelligence (AI) had progressed significantly since HubSpot’s acquisition of Motion AI in 2017. Generative AI was the newest major development. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies such as HubSpot were analyzing how generative AI... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; CRM; Chatbots; Sales Management; Generative Ai; SaaS; Marketing; Sales; AI and Machine Learning; Customer Relationship Management; Applications and Software; Technological Innovation; Competitive Advantage; Technology Industry; United States

May 2024
Teaching Note

The Meteoric Rise of Skims

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jill Avery and Leonard A. Schlesinger

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 524-023, "The Meteoric Rise of Skims." View Details

May–June 2024
Article

What Makes a Successful Celebrity Brand?

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jill Avery, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Matt Higgins

Celebrities have shifted from endorsing established brands to being influencers for established brands to drawing on their influence to create brands themselves. The authors examine what it takes to make celebrity brands work. View Details

Keywords: Celebrities; Celebrity Endorsement; Celebrity Management; Celebrity; Direct To Consumer Marketing; DTC; Influencer Marketing; Influencers; Influencer Advertising; Influencer; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Power and Influence; Advertising; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; United States

April 2024
Supplement

Recycle & Re-Match: The Future of Soccer Turfs

By: George Serafeim

April 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Market Dynamics and Moral Dilemmas: Novo Nordisk’s Weight-Loss Drugs

By: Joseph L. Badaracco, Tom Quinn and John Schultz

Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk was owned by a charitable foundation, and since its founding in the 1920s had focused on producing insulin to treat diabetes. In 2017, however, it released Ozempic, a diabetes treatment with the revolutionary side effect of... View Details

April 2024
Article

Detecting Routines: Applications to Ridesharing CRM

By: Ryan Dew, Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer and Nachum Sicherman

Routines shape many aspects of day-to-day consumption. While prior work has established the importance of habits in consumer behavior, little work has been done to understand the implications of routines—which we define as repeated behaviors with recurring, temporal... View Details

Keywords: Ride-sharing; Routine; Machine Learning; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Segmentation

April 2024 (Revised February 2025)
Teaching Note

eBee: Affordable Mobility for Africa

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Gamze Yucaoglu and Jordan Mitchell

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 724-360.The case opens in March 2023, as Sten van der Ham and Jaap Maljers, CEO and co-founder of eBee, an electric bike (e-bike) company in Africa, are contemplating the different avenues for growth and path to profitability for the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Value Creation; Competition; Expansion; Logistics; Profit; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Product Marketing; Entrepreneurial Finance; Bicycle Industry; Africa; Kenya