Publications

August 2007 (Revised June 2008)
Case

The Lapdesk Company: A South African FOPSE

Shane Immelman, founding CEO of Lapdesk (South Africa), is facing several acute problems: a conflict between his director of marketing and his director of field operations; a dramatic increase in prices by a key supplier; and a major strategic alliance that does not... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; For-Profit Firms; Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Education Industry; South Africa

winter 1997
Article

Risk and Reward in Private Equity Investments: The Challenge of Performance Assessment

By: Paul A. Gompers and J. Lerner

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Motivation and Incentives; For-Profit Firms; Equity; Investment; Problems and Challenges; Performance

Find at Harvard

March 2010
Teaching Note

Xi'an International University: The Growth of Private Universities in China (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan

Teaching Note for 309074. View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Competition; Growth Management; Governance Controls; For-Profit Firms; Higher Education; Education Industry; China

March 2009
Teaching Note

Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll: The MTV Approach to Tackling HIV/AIDS (TN)

By: Tarun Khanna, Sonali R. Bloom and David E. Bloom

Teaching Note for [709429]. View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Emerging Markets; Health Pandemics; Announcements; Social Issues; Customers; For-Profit Firms; Business Strategy; Infrastructure; Multinational Firms and Management; Music Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Africa

01 Sep 2010
News

Faculty Books

Talent and the Portability of Performance by Boris Groysberg (Princeton University Press) Many firms try to buy star performers by luring them away from competitors. But after examining the careers of over 1,000 star analysts on Wall... View Details

Keywords: Retail Trade; Water Transportation; Transportation

01 Jun 2011
News

What’s after Fannie and Freddie?

Scharfstein: “Whenever you mix government guarantees with private, for-profit entities, those private entities put the government at risk.” Reforming the U.S. housing finance system remains perhaps the largest piece of unfinished business... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Credit Intermediation and Related Activities; Finance

01 Mar 2016
News

Measuring Impact

Nearly 40 percent of Harvard alumni from across all schools have founded for-profit and nonprofit organizations—launching more than 146,000 active ventures with an estimated $3.9 trillion in annual revenues and creating 20.4 million jobs... View Details

Keywords: April White

15 Jan 2025
Blog Post

Building Bridges to Sustainable Infrastructure with Allied Climate Partners

The firm operates with a mission to deploy hundreds of millions of dollars across regions like Africa, India, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia—essentially targeting places where sustainable infrastructure is often most needed yet... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

January 2008 (Revised September 2008)
Supplement

Marketing the "$100 Laptop" (C)

By: John A. Quelch and David Chen

In October 2007, the OLPC reported production delays and missed its shipment date. In early November, the $100 PC finally went into production, with initial shipments planned for Uruguay and Mongolia, and mid-month launched the "Give One, Get One" program. It enabled... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; For-Profit Firms; Partners and Partnerships; Information Infrastructure; Problems and Challenges; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Computer Industry; Canada; Mongolia; Uruguay; United States

17 Feb 2011
News

Field Report: Rwanda

middle ground of companies that employ 50 to 100 people — somewhere between the nonprofit that would get help from USAID and bigger, for-profit firms served by traditional consulting companies.” For his... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations; Personal Services

September 2010
Teaching Note

Acumen Fund: Measurement in Impact Investing (TN) (A) and (B)

By: Alnoor Ebrahim

Teaching Note for 310011 and 310017. View Details

Keywords: Projects; For-Profit Firms; Networks; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Evaluation; Investment Portfolio; Asset Pricing; Competition; Multinational Firms and Management; Venture Capital; Investment Return; Poverty; Financial Services Industry; Kenya

October 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Calloway Laboratory: Pee for Profit

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and David Kiron

Describes the formation and rapid growth of a drug-testing company. The company needs to decide whether to enter the painkiller testing market, in addition to growing its drug treatment center business. View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Health Industry

August 2001 (Revised April 2003)
Case

International Trachoma Initiative

By: Diana Barrett, James E. Austin and Sheila McCarthy

In an effort to combat trachoma, a major eye disease, the Clark Foundation entered into a partnership with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. After a successful pilot project, a joint initiative was established (the Trachoma initiative) that has as its goal to eradicate the... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Joint Ventures; Globalization; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Alliances; Partners and Partnerships; Non-Governmental Organizations; Health Industry

Find at Harvard

30 Sep 2014
News

Life Lessons on the Open Seas

on the island of Nantucket off Massachusetts, serves more than 1,000 children, adults, and veterans every year. “I’m a firm believer in growing only as fast as you can control the quality of your product,” says Callahan. “We’ve served... View Details

Keywords: Jill Radsken

15 Jan 2025
Blog Post

Building Bridges to Sustainable Infrastructure with Allied Climate Partners

The summer between my RC and EC years at HBS, I joined Allied Climate Partners (ACP) as a Summer Associate in New York. ACP, a philanthropy-backed investment firm, dedicates itself to catalyzing climate-related infrastructure projects in emerging markets and developing... View Details

February 2008 (Revised August 2008)
Case

Quanta Computer and the One Laptop Per Child Initiative

By: Willy Shih, Chintay Shih and Jyun-Chen Wang

When Quanta Computer, Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of laptop computers, first joined the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, it faced a challenge trying to balance the cost objectives of a laptop computer targeted at children of the developing world with... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Disruptive Innovation; Demand and Consumers; Supply Chain; Partners and Partnerships; Nonprofit Organizations; Hardware