Publications

October 2018 (Revised February 2018)
Case

Masayoshi Son and the Vision Fund

By: Tom Nicholas, Ramana Nanda and Benjamin N. Roth

In October 2016, SoftBank Group Corp., the Japanese conglomerate giant caused a significant shock to the worldwide market for venture capital and private equity by announcing the Vision Fund, the largest tech investment fund in the world at close to $100 billion. The... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Entrepreneurship; Competitive Strategy

May 2004 (Revised October 2004)
Case

Globe Telecom

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Ingrid Vargas

The Ayala Group, one of the oldest and largest Filipino business groups, partnered with Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) to launch a telecom venture following industry deregulation in the Philippines. The partners must decide whether to continue the venture in... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Development Economics; Partners and Partnerships; Emerging Markets; Business Startups; Telecommunications Industry; Singapore; Philippines

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18 Oct 2010
Lessons from the Classroom

Venture Capital’s Disconnect with Clean Tech

companies can crank out a marketable prototype in a matter of months, clean-tech companies can take years to develop products—solar panels, batteries, biofuels, and the like. And even when a working prototype is born, it's hard for a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities; Financial Services

18 Apr 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, April 18, 2018

counterparts. The empirical evidence presented in the chapter demonstrates that diversified business groups can add value in mature markets such as Britain. Even the much-criticized conglomerates of the 1970s-1990s were quite successful... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2001 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Howard Schultz and Starbucks Coffee Company

By: Nancy F. Koehn

Investigates the entrepreneur's strategic initiatives to develop a mass market for specialty coffee in the 1980s and 1990s. These initiatives included the development of premium products, rapid expansion of company-owned stores--each with attractive retail environments... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Groups and Teams; Brands and Branding; Growth Management; Employee Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Design; Leadership Style; Customer Relationship Management; Competitive Advantage; Vertical Integration; Food and Beverage Industry

05 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 5

Working PapersTo Groupon or Not to Groupon: The Profitability of Deep Discounts Authors:Benjamin Edelman, Sonia Jaffe, and Scott Duke Kominers Abstract We examine the profitability and implications of online discount vouchers, a new View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2017 (Revised November 2019)
Case

The Dubai International Film Festival

By: Rohit Deshpandé and Alpana Thapar

This case follows the conception and emergence of the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF). In an already crowded and highly competitive industry, Abdulhamid Juma was attempting to define and establish a unique brand positioning for DIFF. Committed to its vision,... View Details

Keywords: Brand Positioning; Underdog Brand Building; Business Models; Non-profit; Managing Multiple Stakeholders; Film Entertainment; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Decision Making; Growth and Development Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

May 1998 (Revised August 2017)
Case

DuPont Kevlar: Commercializing a Miracle Fiber

By: Clayton Christensen and Rory McDonald

Describes Dupont's efforts to build commercial markets for its miracle fiber, Kevlar. Initially, it sought to create a market for Kevlar tire cord, primarily because its existing tire cord business was languishing. This market never developed, even after Dupont spent... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Crisis Management; Product Launch; Emerging Markets; Research and Development; Technology

2010
Chapter

Business Groups in Historical Perspectives

By: Geoffrey Jones and Asli M. Colpan

Business groups-collections of legally independent firms interconnected by multiple economic and social linkages that exhibit widely diversified product portfolios-are viewed as the prototypical large-enterprise form in contemporary emerging economies. By exploring the... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Management Skills; Emerging Markets; Alliances; Groups and Teams; Competitive Advantage; Great Britain

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June 2001
Case

Privatization of Anatolia National Telekom, The: TAD Confidential Instructions

Anatolia National Telekom is a multiparty negotiation simulation patterned after the Turkish government's aborted attempt to privatize its state-owned telecommunications monopoly, Turk Telekom, in late 1997. Provides participants with an opportunity to identify and... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Process; Emerging Markets; Privatization; State Ownership; Telecommunications Industry; Turkey

June 2001
Case

Privatization of Anatolia National Telekom, The: BOW Confidential Instructions

Anatolia National Telekom is a multiparty negotiation simulation patterned after the Turkish government's aborted attempt to privatize its state-owned telecommunications monopoly, Turk Telekom, in late 1997. Provides participants with an opportunity to identify and... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Process; Emerging Markets; Privatization; State Ownership; Telecommunications Industry; Turkey

February 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Huazhu: A Chinese Hotel Giant's Journey of Digital Transformation

By: Feng Zhu, Yulin Fang, Bonnie Yining Cao and Duan Yang

Based in Shanghai, China, Huazhu Group, the world’s third-largest hotel operator, was known for its standardized IT system. It helped the company boost efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Digital Officer Xinxin Liu also faced some longer-term challenges:... View Details

Keywords: Hotel Industry; COVID-19 Pandemic; Labor; Business or Company Management; Emerging Markets; Information Technology; Operations; Strategy; Digital Transformation; Accommodations Industry; China; United States; Singapore; Germany; Hong Kong

Paul Gompers, Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, specializes in research on financial issues related to start-up, high growth, and newly public companies. Professor Gompers has an appointment in both the View Details

Keywords: electronics; health care; high technology; information technology industry; investment banking industry; pharmaceuticals; semiconductor; venture capital industry

2019
Working Paper

Machine Learning Approaches to Facial and Text Analysis: Discovering CEO Oral Communication Styles

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Dan Wang, Natalie A. Carlson and Tarun Khanna

We demonstrate how a novel synthesis of three methods—(1) unsupervised topic modeling of text data to generate new measures of textual variance, (2) sentiment analysis of text data, and (3) supervised ML coding of facial images with a cutting-edge convolutional neural... View Details

Keywords: Spoken Communication; Business History; Analytics and Data Science; Finance; Performance

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January 2010 (Revised December 2012)
Case

Knight the King: The Founding of Nike

By: Noam Wasserman and Kyle Anderson

It had taken Phil Knight 16 long years to build Nike into the number one athletic-shoe company in the country. When Knight had first conceived of the company for an MBA class project, Adidas had had more than 80% market share, but Knight's marketing approach had... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Initial Public Offering; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Apparel and Accessories Industry

March 1994 (Revised July 1995)
Case

Lotus Development Corp. in 1994

Jim Manzi, president and CEO of Lotus, must decide whether to position the firm as a provider of network applications or of the architectural programs required to support network applications. The decision will have lasting implications for Lotus's position in both... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Competitive Advantage; Applications and Software; Industry Structures; Information Technology Industry