Publications

November 2012
Case

Tracy Palandjian at Social Finance US (A)

By: Alnoor Ebrahim, Catherine Clark and Beth Bafford

It had been eighteen months since Tracy Palandjian had left her position as a managing director at The Parthenon Group to start an ambitious venture called Social Finance US. With a mission "to mobilize investment capital to drive social change," her new organization... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career

21 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Searching for Better Practices in Social Investing

executive at eBay. "We live in a world where entrepreneurship drives massive change in the private sector, and we feel that can be true in the social sector." The Leadership Challenge As is the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

July 2019
Teaching Note

Piramal e-Swasthya (C): A New Name, Bigger Scope, and Public-Private Partnerships

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Joyce J. Kim

Teaching Note for HBS No. 320-012. View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Healthcare; Innovation; Emerging Economies

03 Jun 2014
Blog Post

Springing Forward on Social Enterprise Career Paths

Hello from HBS Social Enterprise Initiative! We apply innovative business practices and managerial disciplines to drive sustained, high-impact social change at HBS and beyond. Spring is one of the most... View Details

06 Aug 2012
News

Social Media on Fire

Keywords: News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

May 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

Cotopaxi: Managing Growth for Good

By: Andy Wu and Laura Huang

Cotopaxi, an innovative outdoor gear business targeting millennials, focuses on profit and social impact. This registered benefit corporation was formed by Davis Smith who coalesced his experiences as a Wharton MBA student along with professional knowledge from an... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Social Venture; Benefit Corporation; B-Corp; Retail; Consumer Products; Apparel; Social Impact; Social Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Product Positioning; Social Enterprise; Mission and Purpose; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry

June 2023 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Social Media Background Screening at Fama Technologies

By: Joseph Pacelli, Jillian Grennan and Alexis Lefort

Fama Technologies is an online screening company that uses AI to analyze job applicants' publicly available online content for signs of risk and culture fit. The case opens with Ben Mones, founder and CEO, looking to secure funding from venture firms. He is running... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Organizational Culture; Talent and Talent Management; AI and Machine Learning; Social Media; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; United States

Web

Black Business Leaders and Entrepreneurship | Baker Library

Help Center Black Business Leaders and Entrepreneurship How can I find underserved markets as a black entrepreneur? Use these resources to validate the need underlying your business idea. Please contact infoservices@hbs.edu to schedule a... View Details

24 Apr 2015
News

Entrepreneurship Takes Center Stage at New Venture Finale

2018
Book

Trust: Creating the Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries

By: Tarun Khanna

Entrepreneurs in developing countries who assume they will have the same legal, governmental, and institutional protections as their counterparts in the West will fail. To succeed, they need to build trust within the existing structures—and this book shows how it's... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Developing Countries and Economies; Trust

Find at Harvard

19 Jun 2013
News

Your Guide to Social Enterprise

achieve its social mission? "Social entrepreneurship is hard to define, but you know it when you see it," says Georgia Levenson Keohane (MBA 2000). There's a lot to see in it these days, as a kind of View Details

Keywords: Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations; Personal Services; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

2021
Working Paper

Impact Investing: A Theory of Financing Social Enterprises

By: Benjamin N. Roth

I present a model of financing social enterprises to delineate the role of impact investors relative to “pure” philanthropists. I characterize the optimal scale and structure of a social enterprise when financed by grants, and when financed by investments. Impact... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Social Entrepreneurship; Finance; Investment; Mathematical Methods

SSRN

Read Now

20 Mar 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Waste, Recycling and Entrepreneurship in Central and Northern Europe, 1870-1940

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones & Andrew Spadafora

Fast Answer

Government data and information sources for public entrepreneurship

governing; and the increasing significance of information policies and IT in relation to democratic practices. View Details

17 Sep 2020
News

The Rock Center for Entrepreneurship Announces 2020 Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, Rock Executive Fellows, and Venture Capital Partners

November 1994
Background Note

Social Enterprise: Private Initiatives for the Common Good

Presents a model for understanding how private social-purpose ventures (nonprofit and for-profit) differ from traditional business firms in both their objectives and methods of operation. Identifies six dimensions that are useful for understanding the differences. Also... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship

Web

Social Enterprise - Faculty & Research

Regulation ; Standards ; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact Citation Purchase Related Bergquist, Ann-Kristin, and Geoffrey Jones. "Institutional Entrepreneurship and Climate Change." Chap. 1 in... View Details

September 2013 (Revised June 2017)
Supplement

IBM and the Reinvention of High School (B): Replicating & Scaling P-TECH and Partners

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

IBM's Corporate Citizenship office created an innovation in public education through a business-school partnership for widespread replication and diffusion. In 2012, while P-TECH (Pathways in Technology Early College High School) was still in its first year operating,... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Partnerships; Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Partners and Partnerships; Social Entrepreneurship; Education; Business and Community Relations; Innovation and Invention; Growth Management; Chicago; Idaho