Publications

04 Oct 2021
Blog Post

Tapping into “Nontraditional” Private Equity and Venture Capital Talent at HBS

Mbanusi (MBA 2021) and Morgan Sheil (MBA 2021), who came to business school from nonprofit and chemical engineering backgrounds respectively, prove that experience outside of investing can also be highly transferable and valuable to the... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Venture Capital

August 2024
Case

Pioneering Pain Management: CWC Alliance Combats the Opioid Epidemic

By: Susanna Gallani, Karen L. Sedatole and Sarah Mehta

Set in March 2024, this case is about CWC Alliance (CWC), a nonprofit working to prevent opioid addiction in the U.S. Founder Cammie Wolf Rice launched CWC in 2018 after her son, Christopher Wolf, died of a heroin overdose. Wolf’s dependence on opioids stemmed from a... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Jobs and Positions; Nonprofit Organizations; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Delivery; Mission and Purpose; Health Industry; United States; Georgia (state, US); Atlanta

August 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

NewLab: Scaling an Innovation Engine

By: Tarun Khanna and George Gonzalez

Silicon Valley-veteran Shaun Stewart is the CEO of NewLab, a dynamic technology hub headquartered in the storied Brooklyn Navy Yard. Founded in 2016, NewLab fostered a community of entrepreneurs, corporate and government partners, and investors, all seeking to apply... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Social and Collaborative Networks; Global Range; Partners and Partnerships; Networks; Growth and Development Strategy; Opportunities; Brooklyn

16 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

Are You a Strategist?

"vision," "direction," "focus," "advantage." To Montgomery, the Timken Professor of Business Administration, this is indicative of a disturbing trend. "We've lost sight of where strategies come from and the distinctive role leaders play... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

Article

Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage

By: Robert D. Austin and Gary P. Pisano

Many people with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder and dyslexia have extraordinary skills, including those in pattern recognition, memory, and mathematics. Yet they often struggle to fit the profiles sought by employers. A growing number of... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Diversity; Competency and Skills

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October 2018 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Khan Academy 2018

By: William Sahlman and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded in 2008, Khan Academy was a global educational nonprofit with a mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone anywhere in the world. By 2018, the organization had expanded into numerous content areas, product areas, and geographic markets.... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Sustainability; Scaling; Social Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Strategy; Education; Entrepreneurship; Teaching; Education Industry; California

November 1990 (Revised June 2004)
Case

McDonald's and the Environment

McDonald's decides to withdraw its polystyrene plastic packaging for sandwiches and hamburgers after years of defending itself against environmental critics. The decision occurs in the midst of a six-month Joint Task Force study, with the nonprofit Environmental... View Details

Keywords: Announcements; Change Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

August 2007 (Revised September 2008)
Case

Marketing the "$100 Laptop" (A)

By: John A. Quelch and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In 2002, Professor Nicholas Negroponte, a successful venture capitalist, author, and co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, announced his intention to build a PC so cheap as to make it possible to provide... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Internet and the Web; Information Technology; Product Development; Technological Innovation; Nonprofit Organizations; Marketing Strategy; Information Infrastructure; Developing Countries and Economies; Manufacturing Industry; Information Technology Industry; Computer Industry; Cambridge

Josh Lerner graduated from Yale College with a special divisional major. He worked for several years on issues concerning technological innovation and public policy at the Brookings Institution, for a public-private task force in Chicago, and on... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; high technology; venture capital industry

Benson P. Shapiro

Benson P. Shapiro is a well-known authority on marketing strategy and sales management with particular interests in pricing, product line planning, and marketing organization. He is also the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing Emeritus at the Harvard Business... View Details

06 Sep 2024
Blog Post

Harvard Business School Announces 2024 Goldsmith Fellows

from the nonprofit and public sector to attend HBS, these fellowships enable the School to award $10,000 to a select number of incoming MBA students for each of their two years in the MBA Program. Beginning with the Class of 1990, 267... View Details

March 2018 (Revised June 2018)
Case

City Year at 30: Toward Long-Term Impact

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and James Weber

In 2018, City Year was a 30-year-old nonprofit that recruited and organized teams of young-adult “volunteers” (corps teams) to provide a year of citizen service. It had 3,100 corps members serving in 327 schools located in 28 U.S. cities. In its early decades, City... View Details

Keywords: Education; Service Operations; Nonprofit Organizations; Growth and Development Strategy; Performance Efficiency; Resource Allocation; Change Management; Social Entrepreneurship; Middle School Education; Secondary Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Human Capital; Growth Management; Service Delivery; Organizational Design; Social Enterprise; Poverty; United States

February 2018 (Revised December 2020)
Case

People Analytics at Teach For America (A)

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Julia Kelley

As of mid-2016, national nonprofit Teach For America (TFA) had struggled with three consecutive years of declining application totals, and senior management was re-examining the organization's strategy, including recruitment and selection. A few months earlier, former... View Details

Keywords: Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Analysis; Forecasting and Prediction

19 Jun 2023
Blog Post

The Road to Impact

When he turned 50, David Offensend (MBA 1977) decided to make a change. He’d had a successful career in finance, but ever since his undergraduate days of studying public and international affairs at Princeton, Offensend planned that, one day, he’d go into the View Details

Leemore S. Dafny

Leemore Dafny is the Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration and the Mary Ellen Jay and Jeffrey Jay Fellow at the Harvard Business School, and Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Dafny is an applied microeconomist whose... View Details

Keywords: health care

March 2021
Case

Dasra: From Strategic Philanthropy to Field Building

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Tanya Bijlani

Dasra, a pioneer in the Indian Strategic Philanthropy space founded by a husband and wife team, had grown and evolved with the fast changing philanthropy scene in India. By 2017 it had managed to raise nearly $100 million of new capital for NGOs and Nonprofits in... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy; Impact Investing; Corporate Social Responsibility; Social Sector; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Entrepreneurship; Strategy; India

March 2007 (Revised April 2007)
Case

Micro Insurance Agency: Helping the Poor Manage Risk

By: Michael Chu and Jean Hazell

The notable success of insurance products for low-income clients of its microfinance network leads Opportunity International to launch the first global specialized microinsurance company, the Micro Insurance Agency (MIA). Building on the experience in 10 countries... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Cost Management; Microfinance; Globalization; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk Management; Infrastructure; Nonprofit Organizations; Competition; Financial Services Industry; Africa; Asia; Latin America

May 1996 (Revised August 2001)
Case

Timberland and Community Involvement

By: James E. Austin and Jaan Elias

The Timberland Co., a manufacturer and retailer of footwear, outdoor apparel, and accessories, committed itself to instituting and communicating a core set of values to its employees, stockholders, and consumers. The system of beliefs emphasized community service.... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Business and Community Relations; Social Enterprise; Corporate Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry