Publications

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October 1987 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Boston Fights Drugs (A): Designing Communications Research

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Describes in detail the research mounted by five individuals with a $20,000 budget to combat drug abuse among Boston's school-going population. Using the focus group methodology they discover that most of the current anti-drug advertising is useless. They create their... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Communication Intention and Meaning; Brands and Branding; Performance Evaluation; Research and Development; Segmentation; Pharmaceutical Industry; Boston

15 Nov 2013
News

25 Influential Women in the Boston Tech Community

Keywords: e-commerce; startups; Nonstore Retailers; Retail Trade

Fall 2015
Article

Doing Well by Doing Good? Community Development Venture Capital

By: Josh Lerner and Anna Kovner

This paper examines the investments and performance of community development venture capital (CDVC). We find substantial differences between CDVC and traditional venture capital (VC) investments: CDVC investments are far more likely to be in nonmetropolitan regions and... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Venture Capital

25 Sep 2019
Video

HBS Online Community Challenge: Working to End Hunger with The Greater Boston Food Bank

01 Mar 2003
News

All in a Day's Work

through a day on the job to find out: Mardie Oakes, an HBS Service Leadership Fellow at Boston Community Capital, a community development financial institution, and Paul... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Boston Community Capital; Samsung; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management; Real Estate

30 Aug 2019
News

Allocating capital to microentrepreneurs through community surveys in India

January 1993 (Revised November 1997)
Case

BayBank Boston

In 1992, the Federal Reserve released a study of mortgage lending patterns in Boston. It concluded that even when credit factors were taken into account, black and Hispanic applicants experienced higher rejection rates. Richard Pollard, chairman of BayBank Boston, had... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Ethics; Race; Mortgages; Banking Industry; Boston

18 Nov 2014
News

Creating access to capital for the Muslim community

Aamir Rehman (MBA 2004) helps institutions and Muslims around the world build wealth in ways that align with their personal beliefs and principals. (Published November 2014) View Details

December 2010 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Boston Properties (A)

By: Ryan D. Taliaferro and Aldo Sesia

Investment manager Eliza Baena confronts an apparent convertible bond arbitrage opportunity when she notices a narrowing spread between two Boston Properties (BXP) bonds, one a convertible bond and the other a straight bond, in the wake of the 2008 Lehman bankruptcy.... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Bonds; Investment

March 2022
Article

Targeting High Ability Entrepreneurs Using Community Information: Mechanism Design in the Field

By: Reshmaan Hussam, Natalia Rigol and Benjamin N. Roth

Identifying high-growth microentrepreneurs in low-income countries remains a challenge due to a scarcity of verifiable information. With a cash grant experiment in India we demonstrate that community knowledge can help target high-growth microentrepreneurs; while the... View Details

Keywords: Microentrepreneurs; Community Information; Field Experiment; Loans; Entrepreneurship; Developing Countries and Economies; Financing and Loans; Information; Mathematical Methods; India

Read Now

October 1984 (Revised November 1986)
Case

Boston Associates, L.P.

A recent business school graduate is asked to analyze three business plans (excerpted) and to make investment recommendations on each to her venture capital firm partners. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business Plan

15 Aug 2013
Video

Paths Forward: Boston

2020
Book

Capitalism at Risk: How Business Can Lead

By: Joseph L. Bower, Dutch Leonard and Lynn S. Paine

Who should take the lead in fixing market capitalism? Business—not government alone. The spread of capitalism worldwide has made people wealthier than ever before. But capitalism's future is far from assured. Pandemics, income inequality, resource depletion, mass... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Business And Society; Economic Systems; Economic Growth; Policy; Leading Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Community Relations; Corporate Strategy

November 2017 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Winning (and Losing) the Olympics: Boston 2024 (A)

By: David Fubini, Ethan Bernstein, Mark Saadine, Sarah McAra and James Barnett

Two leadership groups from Boston 2024 negotiate with government bodies, community leaders, and Olympic officials in an effort to bring the 2024 Olympics to Boston. View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Negotiation Process; Projects; Boston

05 Apr 2017
Video

Boston Women’s Leadership Accelerator

September 2021 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Community Solutions

By: Brian Trelstad and Tom Quinn

Community Solutions was an anti-homelessness nonprofit founded in 2011 after protagonist Rosanne Haggerty grew frustrated with the limited impact of traditional housing and outreach strategies. It set an ambitious goal, reached in some partner communities, of ending... View Details

Keywords: Change; Change Management; Disruption; Transformation; Communication; Communication Strategy; Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Social Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Capital Budgeting; Capital Markets; Country; Government Administration; Government Legislation; Housing; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Strategy; Knowledge Sharing; Leading Change; Resource Allocation; Mission and Purpose; Performance Evaluation; Performance Improvement; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Opportunities; Social Enterprise; Nonprofit Organizations; Human Needs; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Societal Protocols; Poverty; Welfare; Well-being; System; Equality and Inequality; Consulting Industry; Real Estate Industry; United States; New York (city, NY); Florida; Texas