Small Business - Publications - Faculty & Research

31 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

From SpinPop to SpinBrush: Entrepreneurial Lessons from John Osher

the more eclectic business careers of the last few decades. His entrepreneurial journey culminated (at least temporarily) in the sale of his electric toothbrush company to Procter & Gamble for almost a half-billion dollars. Not bad... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Consumer Products

06 Nov 2015
Blog Post

Casey Gerald: Becoming a Leader at HBS

creatively in the world. I think that was one small manifestation of the larger surprise of Harvard Business School for me-- so many of us are worried that we will have to pretend to be someone else when we... View Details

05 Aug 2021
Blog Post

Closing the Education Gap with Kei Takatsuka (MBA 2022)

Growing up in the countryside of Japan, Kei Takatsuka (MBA 2022) attended a small school with fifty other students. She had good friends and teachers and never imagined something might be missing until she moved to Nagoya, Japan for... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Technology; Entrepreneurship

29 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

For Entrepreneurs, Blown Deadlines Can Crush Big Ideas

out of cash before solving the problem, Harvard Business School researchers write in Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight, recently published in the Strategic Management Journal. For startups trying to hang on until their next... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

21 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Company?

their work.” “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.” The spy manual struck a chord with Stefan H. Thomke, the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

07 Feb 2005
What Do You Think?

If You Blink, Will You Miss?

blink. As Skip Corsini put it, "I believe a person with the attention span of a hummingbird who really knows his or her business is better prepared to deal with the world as it has become than someone who has to have every single... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

29 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 29, 2008

whom were above median wealth. This finding suggests that an important part of the positive relationship between personal wealth and entrepreneurship may be driven by the fact that wealthy individuals with lower ability can start new View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

04 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

Don’t Lose Money With Customers

Investors diligently manage financial portfolios to maximize returns on their assets; yet corporate managers who invariably proclaim their business customers to be "valuable assets" rarely manage their relationships with them... View Details

Keywords: by Peter K. Jacobs

24 Apr 2020
Op-Ed

Lessons from the NFL: Virtual Hiring, Leadership, Building Teams and COVID-19

Prospects from small schools are being hurt even more. The first ever HBCU Combine was cancelled, many college pro days were cancelled, and with the NFL cancelling in-person interviews the hurdles faced by HBCU and other View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Abbott , Boris Groysberg, Tali Groysberg, and Abhijit Naik; Sports

02 Mar 2016
News

David Moss is Rewriting History

standardized test writers, textbook publishers, and students. But lost in these debates is a much more fundamental question: Is history just a series of dates and events? While the debate rages over what to teach students about American history, Harvard View Details

Keywords: April White

11 Jun 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching the Next Generation of Energy Executives

You may think that being an energy executive—especially a manager in a leading oil company—might be the easiest job around. Just flip the production switch, and watch gas prices head toward $4 a gallon. But students enrolled in Harvard Business School professor Forest... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

16 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

The Outside-In Approach to Customer Service

women traverse their stores. In addition, Best Buy acquired Geek Squad to broaden its footprint into installation of equipment. The company applied the same concerted effort toward serving other valuable customer segments it had discovered, including View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products

24 Feb 2003
Research & Ideas

In Troubled Africa, Botswana Flowers

small and still relatively poor—it can't compare to the Chinese market, say, or to Brazil. But it has a very stable government, a solid financial and physical infrastructure, and a welcoming investment climate. It has vast potential as a... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell

08 Mar 2004
Research & Ideas

Secret to Success: Go for “Just Enough”

success over the top. You may be immune to the grosser forms of celebration—how many really believed Dennis Koslowski's financial excesses at Tyco were a sign of good business leadership?—but culture is a strong shaper of worldview. These... View Details

Keywords: by Laura Nash & Howard Stevenson

30 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 31, 2006

small open economy, final goods production is carried out by foreign and domestic firms, which compete for skilled labor, unskilled labor, and intermediate products. To operate a firm in the intermediate goods sector, entrepreneurs must... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

22 Sep 2023
News

Capital Connection

Vernon Beckford (MBA 2013) saw the gap almost immediately. From the beginning of his career in commercial real estate finance—first at Credit Suisse and then later at CW Capital and Global Atlantic Financial Group—Beckford observed Wall Street’s obsession with... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; Real Estate

17 Jul 2012
First Look

First Look: July 17

identified and classified in terms of specifying, allocating, and utilizing capacity. The first two categories reflect challenges faced by infrastructure providers; the last category, challenges faced by airlines. Building Effective View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

07 Jan 2015
Research & Ideas

The Quest for Better Layoffs

A few years ago, Sandra J. Sucher received worried emails from two MBA students in her first-year Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA) class at Harvard Business School. Elana Green (now Elana Silver) and David Rosales (both HBS... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Manufacturing

17 Apr 2017
Research Event

The Most Pressing Issues for Platform Providers in the Sharing Economy

The so-called chicken-and-egg problem is arguably the most discussed and most obvious business dilemma in the sharing economy. Platform providers–like Uber, Airbnb, or Etsy–rely on both consumers and producers to create and sustain a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Service

20 Jul 2015
Blog Post

My Journey to Working with At Night Management / PRMD Music

From the time I arrived at HBS, I knew that my path to finding a summer internship wouldn’t be very traditional. Although I’ve managed to find others that share my career interests, working in the music industry remains an uncommon path out of View Details

Keywords: Entertainment / Media / Sports

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