Publications

October 2020 (Revised July 2023)
Case

UCK Partners: Gong Cha

By: Victoria Ivashina and Sangyun Lee

In the Spring of 2017, Soomin Kim, Founding Partner of UCK Partners, and his team were debating the potential exit of UCK Partner’s investment in Gong Cha Korea, the sole local franchisor of the premium milk tea brand that they proprietarily sourced three years ago.... View Details

Keywords: Exit; Strategic Decision Making; Private Equity; Investment; Strategy; Investment Return; Decision Making; Bids and Bidding

October 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Wilderness Safaris: Impact Investing and Ecotourism Conservation in Africa

By: James E. Austin, Megan Epler Wood and Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard

In 2018 the majority ownership of publicly owned Wilderness Safaris, the leading high-end ecotourism company in Africa with safari operations in eight countries, was acquired by The Rise Fund, one of the world’s largest private social impact investing funds, and by FS... View Details

2020
Working Paper

Reverse Information Sharing: Reducing Costs in Supply Chains with Yield Uncertainty

By: Pavithra Harsha, Ashish Jagmohan, Retsef Levi, Elisabeth Paulson and Georgia Perakis

Supply uncertainty in produce supply chains presents major challenges to retailers. Supply shortages create frequent disruptions in terms of promised delivery times, quantity and quality delivered. To alleviate these challenges, dual sourcing--a strategy in which... View Details

Keywords: Information Sharing; Yield Uncertainty; Ration Gaming; Blockchain; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty

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September 2020
Teaching Note

First Aid Beauty

By: Karen G. Mills and Annie Dang

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 319-082. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Term Sheets; Decision Choices And Conditions; Preferred Shares; Common Stock; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

September 2020
Case

Merck: COVID-19 Vaccines

By: Willy C. Shih

COVID-19 infections were still climbing across the U.S. and many other parts of the world in September 2020, and it seemed that every time Ken Frazier, the CEO of Merck & Co. consented to an interview in recent months he always seemed to hear the same question,... View Details

Keywords: Vaccines; COVID-19 Pandemic; Health Pandemics; Health Testing and Trials; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Business Strategy; Product Launch; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 2020
Article

Customer Supercharging in Experience-Centric Channels

By: David R. Bell, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno

We conjecture that for online retailers, experience-centric offline store formats do not simply expand market coverage, but rather, serve to significantly amplify future positive customer behaviors, both online and offline. We term this phenomenon “supercharging” and... View Details

Keywords: Retail Operations; Marketing-operations Interface; Omnichannel Retailing; Experience Attributes; Quasi-experimental Methods; Operations; Internet and the Web; Marketing Channels; Consumer Behavior; Retail Industry

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September 2020
Article

How Multimedia Shape Crowdfunding Outcomes: The Overshadowing Effect of Images and Videos on Text in Campaign Information

By: J Yang, Y Li, Goran Calic and Anton Shevchenko

This study aims to explore the moderating effect of the number of images and videos on the relationship between text length in crowdfunding campaign descriptions and crowdfunding outcomes. We use data from 13,622 technology campaigns on the Kickstarter website to test... View Details

Keywords: Crowdfunding; Media; Cognition and Thinking; Performance Effectiveness; Entrepreneurial Finance

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2021
Working Paper

Time and the Value of Data

By: Ehsan Valavi, Joel Hestness, Newsha Ardalani and Marco Iansiti

Managers often believe that collecting more data will continually improve the accuracy of their machine learning models. However, we argue in this paper that when data lose relevance over time, it may be optimal to collect a limited amount of recent data instead of... View Details

Keywords: Economics Of AI; Machine Learning; Non-stationarity; Perishability; Value Depreciation; Analytics and Data Science; Value

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August 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Case

Migros Turkey: Scaling Online Operations (A)

By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in November 2019 as Ozgur Tort and Mustafa Bartin, CEO and chief large-format and online retail officer of Migros Ticaret A.S. (Migros), Turkey’s oldest and one of its largest supermarket chains, are contemplating what the best fulfillment format and... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Grocery; Business Model; Emerging Markets; For-Profit Firms; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Value Creation; Globalization; Competition; Expansion; Logistics; Profit; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Turkey

2020
Book

Work, Mate, Marry, Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny

By: Debora L. Spar

Covering a time frame that ranges from 8000 BC to the present, and drawing upon both Marxist and feminist theories, the book argues that nearly all the decisions we make in our most intimate lives—whom to marry, how to have children, how to have sex, how to think about... View Details

July 2020
Case

CSL Capital Management: Patriot Proppants (A)

By: Victoria Ivashina and Yury Kapko

This two-part case series follows CSL Capital’s 2009 investment in the greenfield manufacturing company, Patriot Proppants. CSL, a recently established investment firm, employs a unique investment model, funding new ("green field") energy service businesses that serve... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Renewable Energy; Business Model; Decision Making

July 2020
Case

Michael Solomonov: Jerusalem in a Bowl

By: Boris Groysberg, Evan M.S. Hecht and Katherine Connolly Baden

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook had begun to wonder whether it might be time to rethink their opportunistic approach to the expansion of their small restaurant empire in Philadelphia, CooknSolo. The pandemic, however, caused an... View Details

Keywords: Restaurant Industry; Entrepreneur; COVID-19; Crisis; Crisis Response Plans; Entrepreneurship; Food; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Creativity; Strategy; Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Situation or Environment; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

July 2020
Case

Kathy Fish at Procter & Gamble: Navigating Industry Disruption by Disrupting from Within

By: Emily Truelove, Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

When Kathy Fish, Procter & Gamble’s Chief Research, Development & Innovation Officer, and a 40-year company veteran, stepped into her role in 2014, she was concerned that the world’s leading consumer packaged goods company had lost its capability to produce a steady... View Details

Keywords: Female Protagonist; Organizational Change; Organizational Behavior; Culture Change; Digital; Innovation; Lean Startup; Experimentation; Metrics; Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG); Leadership; Leading Change; Change Management; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Disruption; Innovation and Invention; Digital Transformation

June 2020
Case

Jill Draeger

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Michael J. Roberts

The Jill Draeger case is designed as an introduction to a general course on entrepreneurship. It is appropriate for many levels of students. It attempts to portray the archetype of opportunity-focused, resource-constrained behavior that is the hallmark of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Opportunities; Negotiation; Agreements and Arrangements; Risk Management

June 24, 2020
Article

Wolfgang Puck on Leading His Restaurants Through the Pandemic

By: Boris Groysberg

Chef Wolfgang Puck shares his experience leading his restaurants and other businesses through the pandemic crisis. He explains how his company has pivoted to find new sources of revenue and how he has become a vocal advocate for the restaurant industry. He also... View Details

Keywords: Coronavirus Pandemic; Restaurants; Restaurant Industry; Reopening; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Safety

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June 2020
Case

TransDigm: The Acquisition of Aerosonic Corp.

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher

In April 2013, TransDigm, a company that manufactured a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts for both military and commercial aircraft, announced an agreement to acquire Aerosonic Corporation for $39 million in cash (1.2 times Aerosonic’s sales of $31... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Growth Management; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation; Valuation; Negotiation; Cash Flow; Contracts; Aerospace Industry; Air Transportation Industry; United States

June 2020
Teaching Note

Understanding the Brand Equity of Nestlé Crunch Bar

By: Jill Avery and Gerald Zaltman

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 519-061 and 519-062. In early 2018, Nestlé announced the sale of its U.S. candy-making division and a select collection of twenty of its confectionery brands, including the Nestlé Crunch Bar, to Ferrero SpA for $2.8 billion. Under the... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Brand Storytelling; Brand Equity; Market Research; Qualitative Methods; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry

May 2020 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Soofa: Displaying the Right Path?

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Amy Klopfenstein and Amram Migdal

In November 2019, Sandra Richter, co-founder and CEO of Soofa, a network of advertising-supported digital bulletin boards, must decide between two different fundraising and expansion plans for her company. One plan entails raising $15 million in a Series A round and... View Details