Publications

2013
Teaching Note

Innovation and Development of China Machine Press in the New Century (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Ning Jia and Guo Jia

China Machine Press (CMP), founded in 1952, is a leading multi-field, multi-discipline and multimedia publishing group in China with large scale, comprehensive and specialized business that integrates paper media, audiovisual media and online media, and combines... View Details

Keywords: General Management; Organizational Structure; Strategy; China; China

14 Nov 2019
Book

Lifting the Lid on Turkey's Hidden Business History

limited the competitive structure of the economy. Silverthorne: In a chapter on business ethics and corruption, you and colleague Janet Hunter note that the country has struggled with corruption (as have... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

12 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Can Religion and Business Learn From Each Other?

Mention the words religion and business in one breath, and chances are good that someone will take offense. It's a common conviction within most Western societies that the two do not and should not be mixed—ever. Yet when Laura Nash and... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

January 2025
Article

Overcoming Barriers to Employee Ownership: Insights from Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

By: John Guzek and Ashley Whillans

This research investigates the limited adoption of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) among small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. Through interviews with 30 SMB owners across various industries, we identify the key barriers to ESOP adoption as lack of... View Details

Keywords: Profit Sharing; Employee Ownership; Management Practices and Processes; Compensation and Benefits; Small Business; Adoption; Employees

February 2013 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Elasto Therm: The Next Step

By: Jim Sharpe and James Weber

Julia and Nate Burstein were living their dream running their own business and balancing the demands between their work and family obligations while creating a company that was responsive to their employees' and their customers' needs. The Bursteins had joined a large... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurs; Pricing; Pricing Policies; Pricing Strategy; Pricing Structure; Sales Force Management; Acquisitions; Work/family Balance; Family-owned Business; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Work-Life Balance; Manufacturing Industry; Rubber Industry; United States

June 2012
Article

A Reexamination of Tunneling and Business Groups: New Data and New Methods

By: Jordan I. Siegel and Prithwiraj Choudhury

One of the most rigorous methodologies in the corporate governance literature uses firms' reactions to industry shocks to characterize the quality of governance. This methodology can produce the wrong answer unless one considers the ways firms compete. Because... View Details

Keywords: Governance; System Shocks; India

03 Apr 2019
Book

Fintech's Game-Changing Opportunities for Small Business

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data will transform financial services and small-business lending long before they impact driverless cars, predicts Harvard Business School Senior Fellow Karen G. Mills. “As we speak,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Banking; Financial Services

June–July 2019
Article

A Methodology for Operationalizing Enterprise IT Architecture and Evaluating Its Modifiability

By: Robert Lagerström, Alan MacCormack, David Dreyfus and Carliss Y. Baldwin

Recent contributions to information systems theory suggest that the primary role of a firm’s information technology (IT) architecture is to facilitate, and therefore ensure the continued alignment of a firm’s IT investments with a constantly changing business... View Details

Keywords: Enterprise Architecture; Modularity; Information Systems; Modifiability; Design Structure Matrix

2017
Book

HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Find, acquire, and run your own business. Are you looking for an alternative to a career path at a big firm? Does founding your own start-up seem too risky? There is a radical third path open to you: you can buy a small business and run it as CEO. Purchasing a small... View Details

October 2004 (Revised November 2004)
Case

Mavens & Moguls: Creating a New Business Model

By: Myra M. Hart, Victoria Winston and Kristin Lieb

Mavens & Moguls is a "virtual" marketing-consulting firm of approximately 40 professionals. Examines the processes by which its founder, Paige Arnof-Fenn, learns the business, builds a power network of industry experts and potential customers, and uses this expertise... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Values and Beliefs; Work-Life Balance; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Operations; Networks; Business Model; Growth Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Consulting Industry

06 Nov 2019
Op-Ed

Torched Planet: The Business Case to Reinvent Almost Everything

The world is. on. fire. The Earth is burning. We only have a little time to arrest climate change, and if we fail to do so the consequences will be both dire and irreversible. We have the technology and the resources to fix things, if we want to. We even have a View Details

Keywords: by Rebecca Henderson; Energy

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

How to Write a Great Business Plan

Every seasoned investor knows that detailed financial projections for a new company are an act of imagination. Nevertheless, most business plans pour far too much ink on the numbers—and far too little on the information that really... View Details

Keywords: Re: William A. Sahlman

2014
Working Paper

The State of Small Business Lending: Credit Access During the Recovery and How Technology May Change the Game

By: Karen G. Mills and Brayden McCarthy

Small businesses are core to America's economic competitiveness. Not only do they employ half of the nation's private sector workforce—about 120 million people—but since 1995 they have created approximately two-thirds of the net new jobs in our country. Yet in recent... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Financing and Loans; United States

SSRN

November 2007
Article

If Private Equity Sized Up Your Business

By: Robert C. Pozen

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. As the dust settles on the recent frenzy of private equity deals (including... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Capital Structure; Private Equity; Investment Return; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry

February 2006
Case

Bumble and bumble: Building a Successful Business in Beauty and Fashion

By: Nancy F. Koehn and Erica Helms

Explores the creation and subsequent rise of Bumble and bumble, a trend-setting hair-care company. Analyzes the vision and achievements of the founding entrepreneur, Michael Gordon, and charts the evolution of the company within the $230 billion global beauty industry.... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Brands and Branding; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Strategy; Financial Condition; Business Growth and Maturation; Success; Distribution; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Fashion Industry

20 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

Fixing Corporate Governance: A Roundtable Discussion at Harvard Business School

inadequate disclosure rules were cracks in the financial infrastructure, options were the rocket fuel that blew the cracks wide open, with some disastrous results. I think all the attention being paid to the current problems—particularly by View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons

April 2017
Case

Global Leadership in a Dynamic and Evolving Region: Molinas @ The Coca-Cola Company (A)

By: Tsedal Neeley and Esel Çekin

Galya Frayman Molinas, President of Coca-Cola's Turkish business and a 20-year company veteran, is unexpectedly asked to take the helm of a newly expanded territory with operations across eight additional countries in Central Asia: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia,... View Details

Keywords: Functions; Structure; Centralization; Decentralization; Diversity; Country Of Origin Effects; Global Contextual Intelligence; Leading Change; Crisis Management; Organizational Structure; Experience and Expertise; Situation or Environment; Central Asia; Turkey

March–April 2019
Article

The Dual-Purpose Playbook

By: Julie Battilana, Anne-Claire Pache, Metin Sengul and Marissa Kimsey

Corporations are being pushed to dial down their single-minded pursuit of financial gain and pay closer attention to their impact on employees, customers, communities, and the environment. But changing an organization’s DNA may require upending the existing business... View Details

Keywords: Hybrid Organizing; Business And Society; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Model; Goals and Objectives; Organizational Structure; Leadership