small businesses - Publications - Faculty & Research

10 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 10

into group processes, study diversity in the context of virtual interaction, and take advantage of opportunities for cross-disciplinary research. February 2015 European Business Review Preparing for Uncertainty: How to Use Creaction at... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 May 2009
What Do You Think?

Do Innovation and Entrepreneurship Have to Be Incompatible with Organization Size?

R&D spending; premature diversification from "core" activities; and a "talent bench shortfall." In the stalled companies, innovation suffered from a concentration on smaller and smaller niche opportunities, brand extensions, or generally ideas... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

22 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

The ‘Mother of Fair Trade’ was an Unabashed Price Protectionist

small businesses like her own, succeeded in pushing the boundaries of antitrust legislation. Edna Gleason, known as the “Mother of Fair Trade.” Courtesy of the journal Pharmacy in History. The photo first... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail; Health; Legal Services

14 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

The Big Money for Big Projects

There is nothing small about the research practiced by Harvard Business School professor Benjamin Esty. He studies the financing of some of the largest projects in the world: the Eurotunnel, Hong Kong... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

23 May 2011
Op-Ed

Leading and Lagging Countries in Contributing to a Sustainable Society

Editor's note: Please see related story, Corporate Sustainability Reporting: It's Effective. To what extent companies contribute to a sustainable society is a question increasingly important, not only to the companies themselves, but also to investors, the countries... View Details

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles & George Serafeim

13 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Market for Babies

"It is difficult to conceive of a child as commerce," writes Harvard Business School professor Debora L. Spar in her new book, The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception. In fact, baby... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls; Biotechnology; Health; Technology

11 Aug 2016
Cold Call Podcast

Why College Rankings Keep Deans Awake at Night

this system is extraordinarily new. The US News and World Report, which everyone knows in the United States, started its college rankings in 1983 because it was a failing news magazine that needed another business to stay in print. That's... View Details

Keywords: Re: William C. Kirby; Education

12 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

Competition the Cure for Healthcare

Last month HBS Working Knowledge offered an excerpt from Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results, by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg. The U.S. healthcare... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Health

05 Jan 2010
First Look

First Look: January 5

graduate from HBS in Spring 2009. He must decide whether to join his father's company, Toronto-based AME Learning, as president working alongside his father who will be CEO. AME has been in business for 12 years, mostly as a View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

04 Nov 2014
First Look

First Look: November 4

Inkpen Abstract—The globalization of state-owned multinational companies (SOMNCs) has become an important phenomenon in international business (IB), yet it has received scant attention in the literature. We explain how the analysis of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

Excessive Executive Pay: What’s the Solution?

directors accountable to company owners." Major business groups lost no time denouncing the reform measures as vehicles for ceding enormous power to a small number of special-interest investors, namely,... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

03 Mar 2014
HBS Case

Decommoditizing the Canned Tomato

of the Case Research and Writing Group. “No one believed that you could create a brand in tomatoes—a commodity!” The case details how, during an economic downturn, a small business in its fourth generation... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Agriculture & Agribusiness; Food & Beverage; Retail

24 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Busting Six Myths About Customer Loyalty Programs

markets is a sector notorious for its lack of differentiation between players. Once location has played out its magic, retailers tend to get squeezed in a business characterized by the infernal duo of low margin and high fixed cost. In... View Details

Keywords: by Marcel Corstjens & Rajiv Lal; Retail; Consumer Products

24 Jun 2002
Research & Ideas

Building ’Brandtopias’—How Top Brands Tap into Society

Customers value some of the most powerful brands in the world primarily for their "cultural value": They provide imaginative resources that people use to build their identities. These are what Harvard Business School professor... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

05 Aug 2008
First Look

First Look: August 5, 2008

Nalls Harvard Business School Case 808-167 Barry Nalls describes lessons learned during his 25-year career-his rise at GTE and shorter-lived ventures—and how these prepared him to found MASERGY, a telecommunications start-up. Even as a... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

09 Sep 2024
HBS Case

McDonald’s and the Post #MeToo Rules of Sex in the Workplace

dalliances of leaders, a kiss is never just a kiss. “A board’s oversight over culture and respect in the workplace has become much more important than it was prior to #MeToo.” A series of Harvard Business School case studies unfurls the... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman; Food & Beverage

April 2025
Case

Giving Up on a Passion: Elizabeth Rowe at the Boston Symphony Orchestra

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Maisie Wiltshire-Gordon and Alexis Lefort

For 20 years, Elizabeth Rowe was a world-renowned principal flutist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. But in 2024, Rowe decided to leave her position to pursue a new full-time career as a leadership coach. At 50, Rowe was well under the typical retirement age, and,... View Details

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18 Dec 2012
First Look

First Look: December 18

PublicationsHarder Than I Thought: Adventures of a Twenty-First Century Leader Authors:Austin, Robert D., Richard L. Nolan, and Shannon O'Donnell Publication:Harvard Business Review Press, 2012 Abstract Being a great leader today is... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

27 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Manly Men, Oil Platforms, and Breaking Stereotypes

Harvard Business School professors often travel into the field to conduct business research, but it's a safe bet none have had the experience of Professor Robin Ely. She and coauthor Debra Meyerson of... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Energy; Utilities

17 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Why Global Brands Work

Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes a blog on marketing issues, called Marketing Know: How, for Harvard Business Online. It is reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge.Ford has finally woken up to... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Auto

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