Publications

May 2002 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Yangcheng: AES in China

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

AES, an American electric power company with 141 plants worldwide, is just completing construction of a 2,100-MW plant in China--the largest ever. The project, a joint venture with five local companies, has several environmental, ownership, and operational issues as... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Joint Ventures; Foreign Direct Investment; Environmental Sustainability; Problems and Challenges; Energy Industry; China

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12 PM – 1 PM EST, 15 Jan 2015
Webinars: Trending@HBS

High Impact Women Entrepreneurs: Insights from Pioneers who are Changing the Game

During this webinar, Professor Lynda Applegate, faculty chair of the HBS Owner/President Management program, will discuss new research that is developing profiles and case studies on women entrepreneurs who founded new ventures that have become successful high-growth,... View Details

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Angels Face the Innovator’s Dilemma

The venture capital industry is ripe for disruption: just like other leading mainstream companies have been for years, according to HBS professor Clayton M. Christensen. As a keynote speaker at the conference and author of the managerial... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services

May 2025
Case

The Future of the BBC: Public Ownership vs. Privatization

By: Henry McGee

With viewership of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in decline, the country’s Culture Minister must recommend a new funding model for the venerated public institution which will allow the broadcaster to succeed in an increasingly competitive media environment. View Details

Keywords: Television Entertainment; Cooperative Ownership; State Ownership; Privatization; Public Ownership; Competition; Business Model; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United Kingdom

September 2019 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Blenheim Chalcot

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In April 2019, Manoj Badale and Charles Mindenhall, co-founders of Blenheim Chalcot, were contemplating how they might go about developing their portfolio. Since founding the company as an internet consultancy called netdecisions in 1998, Badale and Mindenhall had... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; United Kingdom; United States; India

27 Jan 2009
First Look

First Look: January 27, 2009

debut at a prominent industry conference, coverage on the front page of the New York Times' Business section, and the raising of a large round of financing from a top-tier venture capital firm. His attempts... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

11 Jul 2013
News

Avoid the Deadly Temptations that Derail Innovators

02 Nov 2020
Blog Post

WE RISE

When Hayley Barna (MBA 2010) launched the beauty startup Birchbox in 2010, she expected fundraising would be a challenge. Every entrepreneur knows the long odds: By some estimates, less than 1 percent of new companies receive that coveted... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital / Private Equity; Venture Capital / Private Equity; Venture Capital / Private Equity

January 2006 (Revised December 2006)
Case

Toyota Motor Corporation: Launching Prius

By: Forest L. Reinhardt, Dennis A. Yao and Masako Egawa

In 1995, Hiroshi Okuda, president of Toyota Motor Corp., considers whether to push for a more aggressive launch of the Toyota Prius--an automobile that incorporates Toyota's new and technically advanced hybrid power train. This launch decision allows discussion of the... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Product Launch; Transportation; Brands and Branding; Manufacturing Industry; Green Technology Industry; Auto Industry; Japan

For the past two decades, Michael Porter's work has towered over the field of competitive strategy. On Competition, Updated and Expanded Edition brings together more than a dozen of Porter's landmark articles from the Harvard Business Review. Five are new... View Details

August 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

PalmSource 2005

By: David B. Yoffie and Barbara Mack

PalmSource is facing stiff competition from handheld, wireless handheld, and smart phone vendors in 2005. In addition, changes in leadership and corporate structure have altered its relationship with its leading customer--PalmOne. Although Palm renews its license with... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy; Alliances; Software; Market Participation; Wireless Technology; Trends; Working Conditions; Change Management; Information Technology Industry; United States

June 2007 (Revised June 2011)
Case

TA Energy (Turkey): A Bundle of International Partnerships

By: William R. Kerr, Daniel J. Isenberg and Ant Bozkaya

Stimulates discussion of entrepreneurship in emerging economies, especially for entrepreneurs returning to their home countries to start businesses with global technologies and partners. Focuses on the partnership tensions between global firms and local... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Developing Countries and Economies; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Globalized Firms and Management; Partners and Partnerships; Conflict and Resolution; Turkey

2020
Book

Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World

By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

In industry after industry, data, analytics, and AI-driven processes are transforming the nature of work. While we often still treat AI as the domain of a specific skill, business function, or sector, we have entered a new era in which AI is challenging the very... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Technological Innovation; Change; Competition; Strategy; Leadership; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; AI and Machine Learning

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May 1996 (Revised March 2005)
Case

Bombardier TEG (A)

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Takia Mahmood

Bombardier, a Canadian manufacturer of passenger railcars and market leader in the United States, faces aggressive competition from a new entrant, U.S.-owned Morrison Knudsen, that has come into the industry with closely related capabilities in engineering and... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Goals and Objectives; Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Rail Transportation; Manufacturing Industry; Rail Industry; Canada; United States

Vikram S. Gandhi is the Gerald P. Kaminsky Senior Lecturer of Business Administration in the General Management Unit. He has developed and teaches two new courses in the Elective Curriculum of the MBA Program. The first is a finance and investing course, Sustainable... View Details

Keywords: financial services

2018
Book

American Fair Trade: Proprietary Capitalism, Corporatism, and the 'New Competition,' 1890–1940

By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

American Fair Trade explores the contested political and legal meanings of the term fair trade from the late nineteenth century through the New Deal era. This history of American capitalism argues that business associations partnered with regulators to... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Competition; Policy; Fairness; History; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States

December 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Case

iyzico: Fundraising in Emerging Markets (A)

By: Marco Di Maggio and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2016 as Barbaros Ozbugutu, co-founder and CEO of the Istanbul-based payment technology start-up iyzico, contemplates the offers the company received for its Series C round. The case then describes iyzico’s origins and provides a detailed overview of... View Details

Keywords: Iyzico; Fundraising; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Private Sector; For-Profit Firms; Management; Information Technology; Growth Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Offer; Decision Making; Turkey