Publications

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2025
Working Paper

Why Companies Thrive Or Die: Ownership and the Path to Perpetuation

By: Josh Baron

Why do some companies continue to thrive for decades and others die after an initial run of success? Much like an airplane accident, company failure is generally the consequence of cascading effects that combine together to overwhelm a previously effective strategy.... View Details

Keywords: Ownership Type; Outcome or Result

2023
Book

Deeply Responsible Business: A Global History of Values-Driven Leadership

By: Geoffrey Jones

Corporate social responsibility has entered the mainstream, but what does it take to run a successful purpose-driven business? This book examines leaders who put values alongside profits to showcase the challenges and upside of deeply responsible business. Should... View Details

August 25, 2022
Article

Find the Right Pace for Your AI Rollout

By: Rebecca Karp and Aticus Peterson

Implementing AI can introduce disruptive change and disfranchise staff and employees. When members are reluctant to adopt a new technology, they might hesitate to use it, push back against its deployment, or use it in limited capacity — which affects the benefits an... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Change Management

August 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Altos Ventures (A)

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In December 2012, Altos Ventures General Partners Han Kim, Anthony Lee, and Ho Nam met to discuss the future of the firm. Altos had already adjusted its strategy multiple times. It began as a U.S.-focused venture capital investor whose first two funds were backed by a... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Venture Capital; Investment Portfolio; Partners and Partnerships

June 2021
Case

Mobileye 2021: Robotaxi and/or Consumer AV?

By: David B. Yoffie, Danielle Golan and Nicole Tempest Keller

In March 2021, Amnon Shashua, co-founder and CEO of Israel-based Mobileye, was preparing to meet with Intel’s new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, to review plans for the future. Mobileye had been acquired by California-based Intel in 2017, but still operated independently.... View Details

Keywords: Technology Companies; Robotics; Autonomous Vehicles; Strategy; Decision Making; Transportation; Technological Innovation; Technology Industry; Auto Industry; Transportation Industry; Israel

September 2017 (Revised January 2019)
Case

Public Entrepreneurs? Picking a Path

By: Mitchell Weiss and Matthew Segneri

Direct entry into government remained an uncommon post-HBS path, with only 1%–2% of recent classes going directly into the public sector. But, for public-minded MBAs, government wasn’t the sole province for public problem-solving. MBAs could join or launch companies... View Details

February 2017
Background Note

Decision Analysis

By: George Wu and Kathleen McGinn

Describes decision analysis, a systematic approach for analyzing decision problems. A running example illustrates problem structuring (decision trees), probability assessment, endpoint evaluation, “folding back the tree” as a method of analysis, and sensitivity... View Details

Keywords: Decision Analysis; Decision Trees; Probability; Decision Making; Analysis

October 2016 (Revised April 2018)
Case

JCPenney: Back in Business

By: Elie Ofek, K. Shelette Stewart and Christine Snively

In 2016, JCPenney was in the midst of a multi-year turnaround after coming dangerously close to bankruptcy. Under CEO Marvin Ellison, the company had identified three strategic objectives—a focus on omnichannel, private label goods, and increasing revenue per... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Customer Management; Omnichannel; Turnarounds; Private Label; Promotions; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Customer Relationship Management; Goals and Objectives; Competition; Retail Industry; United States

May–June 2015
Article

Dead Weight: How Greece Wound up Trapped in the European Union

By: Debora L. Spar

In the early 1990s, Greece fell far afield of the economic criteria laid out by the Maastricht Treaty, the EU's founding document. In 1999, when the European monetary union was launched, Greece failed to meet the criteria again, but managed to squeeze into the body two... View Details

Keywords: EU; Geopolitics; Economic Conditions; Economy; Financial Crisis; Greece; European Union

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March 2015 (Revised May 2018)
Case

JPMorgan Chase: Tapping an Overlooked Talent Pool

By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly

By the spring of 2014, the pilot had come to an end for JPMorgan Chase's ReEntry Program, a program designed for women coming back to the workforce after a period of time away. Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of Asset Management, and her team had to evaluate whether or not... View Details

Keywords: Women; Training; Leadership; Motherhood; Talent and Talent Management; Experience and Expertise; Diversity; Gender; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Human Capital; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Programs; Financial Services Industry; United States

September 2014 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Fast Ion Battery

By: Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Stephanie Puzio

John Davidson, a partner at Ware Street Capital (WSC) and a board member at Fast Ion Battery, had just received a phone call from Don Lerner at Bluelock Ventures telling him that Bluelock would not participate in the $5M bridge financing for Fast Ion Battery. Lerner's... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Real Options; Term Sheets; Clean Technology; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital

2014
Book

Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World

By: John P. Kotter

Based on the award-winning article in Harvard Business Review, from global leadership expert John Kotter. It's a familiar scene in organizations today: a new competitive threat or a big opportunity emerges. You quickly create a strategic initiative in response and... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Organizational Structure

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Article

Hinged Dissections Exist

By: Timothy G. Abbott, Zachary Abel, David Charlton, Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine and Scott Duke Kominers

We prove that any finite collection of polygons of equal area has a common hinged dissection. That is, for any such collection of polygons there exists a chain of polygons hinged at vertices that can be folded in the plane continuously without self-intersection to form... View Details

Keywords: Folding; Reconfiguration; Hinge; Plygon; Refinement; Mathematical Methods

2009
Article

Acting Globally but Thinking Locally? The Enduring Influence of Local Communities on Organizations

By: Christopher Marquis and Julie Battilana

We develop an institutionally oriented theory of how and why local communities continue to matter for organizations in a global age. Since globalization has taken center stage in both practitioner and academic circles, research has shifted away from understanding... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Business and Community Relations; Local Range; Civil Society or Community; Power and Influence

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2007
Working Paper

Acting Globally but Thinking Locally? The Influence of Local Communities on Organizations

By: Christopher Marquis and Julie Battilana

We develop an institutional theory of how local communities continue to matter for organizations, and why community factors are particularly important in a global age. Since globalization has taken center stage in both practitioner and academic circles, research has... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Local Range; Globalization; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Community Relations; Power and Influence

August 2007 (Revised February 2008)
Case

Pinnacle Ventures

By: Michael J. Roberts, William A. Sahlman and Elizabeth Kind

Describes a prospective "venture debt" loan to a new venture from the perspective of Patrick Lee, a principal at Pinnacle Ventures. Forces students to grapple with the nature of financial risk in the start-up firm and assess the prospective risks and returns to a... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Venture Capital; Investment Return; Business Startups; Financial Services Industry