Publications

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January 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Case

iOpenEye: Theater and #MeToo in Nigeria

By: Caroline Elkins, Tarun Khanna and Joyce J. Kim

In 2014, Ifeoma Fafunwa, an award-winning playwright and director, founded iOpenEye, a commercial production company dedicated to driving social change through performance art. iOpenEye’s flagship theatrical production was called “Hear Word! Naija Woman Talk True,”... View Details

Keywords: Theatre; Social Change; Entrepreneurship; Social Enterprise; Arts; Entertainment; Social Issues; Health Pandemics; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Model; Nigeria

Article

Caste and Entrepreneurship in India

By: Lakshmi Iyer, Tarun Khanna and Ashutosh Varshney

It is now widely accepted that the lower castes have risen in Indian politics. Has there been a corresponding change in the economy? Using comprehensive data on enterprise ownership from the Economic Censuses of 1990, 1998, and 2005, we document substantial caste... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Income; Entrepreneurship; Rank and Position; India

August 2024
Case

Zipline: Expanding the World's Largest Autonomous Drone Delivery Network

By: Tarun Khanna and George Gonzalez

Zipline initially established the world's largest logistics network in Rwanda and Ghana by delivering medical supplies to hospitals via automated drones from a centralized hub. The company is now looking to expand to the U.S. home delivery market and designed a... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Logistics; Expansion; Air Transportation; Business Model; Rwanda; Ghana; United States

07 Apr 2009
First Look

First Look: April 7, 2009

Review 87, no. 4 (April 2009) No abstract is available at this time. Purchase the article: http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/04/how-to-market-in-a-downturn/ar/1 Diasporas and Domestic Entrepreneurs: Evidence from the Indian Software Industry Authors:Ramana Nanda and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Spring 2024
Article

One Aspirational Future for India’s Higher Education Sector

Several recent encouraging experiments in Indian higher education suggest a plausible aspirational path toward a more salubrious future than that suggested by an otherwise struggling system. Four case studies of privately conceived and funded universities each exhibit... View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; India

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September 2020
Article

Regulatory Sandboxes: A Cure for mHealth Pilotitis?

By: Abhishek Bhatia, Rahul Matthan, Tarun Khanna and Satchit Balsari

Mobile health (mHealth) and related digital health interventions in the past decade have not always scaled globally as anticipated earlier despite large investments by governments and philanthropic foundations. The implementation of digital health tools has suffered... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; mHealth; Digital Health; Design Thinking; Regulation; Intervention; Regulatory Sandbox; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Design; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; India

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July 2002 (Revised September 2002)
Case

Competition in Japanese Financial Markets, 2002 (Abridged)

In early 2002, Japan, the world's largest economy, had been mired in a decade-long recession. A range of stimulus packages had failed to work their magic. The "Big Bang" financial deregulation reforms announced in 1998 had not quite produced the economic boom that the... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Financial Markets; Global Strategy; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Japan

March 2010 (Revised September 2010)
Case

TeamLease: Putting India to Work (Il) Legally

By: Tarun Khanna and Anjali Raina

This case focuses on the growth dilemmas facing Manish Sabharwal, co-founder, TeamLease Services Pvt. Ltd. TeamLease is a human resource outsourcing and temp staffing company located in India, which has grown rapidly from 2002 to 2009. Set in the context of the highly... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Employment; Human Capital; Lawfulness; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Power and Influence; Employment Industry; India

July 2020
Case

Super 30: Educating the Elite Poor

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna and Shreya Ramachandran

In the summer of 2019 in New Delhi, S K Shahi and his daughter, Meenakshi, faced a difficult problem. India had 19 centers of their non-profit, the Center for Social Responsibility and Leadership. Also called the 'Super 30' program, this offered free training for... View Details

Keywords: Non-profit; Inclusive Growth; Education; Higher Education; Diversity; Nonprofit Organizations; Operations; Expansion; Geographic Location; Strategy; Decision Making; India

June 2000 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Must Zee TV

By: Bharat N. Anand and Tarun Khanna

Explores issues related to (1) the vertical boundaries of the firm in an emerging-economy context, especially the effects of lack of intellectual property rights and lack of contract enforcement on both industry structure and boundaries of the firm; and (2) the extent... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Developing Countries and Economies; Copyright; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

18 Sep 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, September 18, 2018

working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55004 Shifting Centers of Gravity: Host Country versus Headquarters Influences on MNC Subsidiary Knowledge Inheritance By: Choudhury, Prithwiraj, Mike Horia Teodorescu, and View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

September 2005 (Revised October 2005)
Case

Agora SA

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu, Vincent Dessain and Monika Stachowiak

Tells the story of Agora, the largest media company in Poland, describing its corporate strategy of diversification since its founding in 1989 by entrepreneurial journalists closely linked to the anti-communist movement Solidarity. Describes in detail Gazeta Wyborcza,... View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Competition; Media; Corporate Strategy; Emerging Markets; Journalism and News Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Germany; Poland

January 2006 (Revised April 2007)
Case

General Electric Healthcare, 2006

By: Tarun Khanna and Elizabeth Raabe

In January 2006, Joe Hogan, head of General Electric (GE) Healthcare Technologies, prepared to step into William Castell's shoes as CEO of GE Healthcare, the world's leading manufacturer of diagnostic imaging equipment. In 2004, former CEO Jeff Immelt acquired Amersham... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Cost vs Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Machinery and Machining; Global Range; Multinational Firms and Management; Product Design; Technological Innovation; Expansion; Value Creation; Business Subsidiaries; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

2020
Chapter

Reflections on Comparing China and India

In this essay, the introductory chapter to an edited volume (Bajpai, Ho and Miller (edited), Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations, 2020), I reflect on two decades of my comparative scholarship on the trajectories of modern China and India, with a lens... View Details

Keywords: Country Analysis; Comparative Analysis; International Relations; Entrepreneurship; China; India

July–August 2018
Article

When Technology Gets Ahead of Society

New technologies can be unsettling for industry incumbents, regulators, and consumers, because norms and institutions for dealing with them don’t yet exist. Interestingly, businesspeople in emerging economies face similar challenges: The rules are unclear and... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Society; Situation or Environment; Infrastructure; Entrepreneurship; Performance Effectiveness; Cooperation

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11 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 11

they made by history, or do they make it? In Indispensable, Harvard Business School professor Gautam Mukunda offers an enticingly fresh look at how and when individual leaders really can make a difference. View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2005 (Revised August 2007)
Background Note

Why Study Emerging Markets

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Kjell Ke-Li Carlsson

Emerging markets have attracted considerable attention and are likely to become an increasingly important political and economic force. They represent an enormous opportunity for entrepreneurs, multinationals, and investors but also pose a threat for products, jobs,... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Governance; Emerging Markets; Problems and Challenges; Opportunities