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January 2025
Case

The Vision of Wonder

By: Michael S. Kaufman and Daniella Bertolotti

Serial entrepreneur Marc Lore successfully disrupted three marketplaces—trading cards, diapers (founded Diapers.com and eventually sold to Amazon for more than $500 million) and ecommerce (founded Jet.com competing directly with Amazon and eventually sold to Walmart... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Exit or Shutdown; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Technology Industry

Fall 2024
Article

The Problem of Good Conduct Among Financial Advisers

By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru

Households in the United States often rely on financial advisers for investment and savings decisions, yet there is a widespread perception that many advisers are dishonest. This distrust is not unwarranted: approximately one in fifteen advisers has a history of... View Details

Keywords: Personal Finance; Behavioral Finance; Trust; Financial Services Industry

Fall 2024
Article

Redemption Mechanisms in Poison Pills: Evidence on Pill Design and Law Firm Effects

By: Olivier Baum and Guhan Subramanian

We present the first evidence on the incidence of “trip wire” versus “last look” poison pills. Using a hand-collected data set of 130 poison pills implemented and/or amended between January 1, 2020 and March 31, 2023, we find that pills are almost evenly divided... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Negotiation Tactics; Contracts

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Winter–Spring 2024
Article

Grand Bargain: Negotiating Toward a Better Middle East

By: James K. Sebenius

How can sophisticated negotiation bring about a more peaceful and prosperous Middle East? While a "grand bargain" to accomplish this lofty goal may seem implausible, the potential value of such an agreement would be vast for most Israelis, Palestinians, and key... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; War; Conflict and Resolution; Israel; West Bank

July 2024
Article

Chatbots and Mental Health: Insights into the Safety of Generative AI

By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp, Zeliha Uğuralp and Stefano Puntoni

Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers. Due to the ‘black box’ nature of the algorithms, it is impossible to predict in advance how these conversations will unfold. Behavioral research provides little insight into potential safety... View Details

Keywords: Autonomy; Chatbots; New Technology; Brand Crises; Mental Health; Large Language Model; AI and Machine Learning; Behavior; Well-being; Technological Innovation; Ethics

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2024
Chapter

Corporations as the Central Institutions of Society

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

Mark Twain observed that, “Prediction is very difficult—particularly when it involves the future,” and he was right. One way to reduce the risk of becoming an infamous forecaster—like the experts who told us the Internet would quickly collapse, that Apple would never... View Details

Keywords: Trends; Business and Government Relations; Organizations; Power and Influence; Society

2024
Book

Deals: The Economic Structure of Business Transactions

By: Guhan Subramanian and Michael Klausner

Drawing on real-life cases from a wide range of industries, two acclaimed experts offer a sophisticated but accessible guide to business deals, designed to maximize value for your side.

Business transactions take widely varying forms—from multibillion-dollar... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Contracts

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February 2024
Teaching Note

Data-Driven Denim: Financial Forecasting at Levi Strauss

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 224-029. Levi Strauss & Co. (“Levi Strauss”) partnered with the IT services company Wipro to incorporate more sophisticated methods, such as machine learning, into their financial forecasting process starting in 2018. The decision to... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting; Regression; Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence; Apparel; Corporate Finance; Forecasting and Prediction; AI and Machine Learning; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

February 2024
Case

Innovation Strategy at Stanley Black & Decker: Setting the Direction for Growth

By: David L. Ager and Antonio Manuel Oftelie

On July 1, 2022, Don Allan was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Stanley Black & Decker (SBD). Although Allan had been with the firm for 23 years, most recently serving as President and Chief Financial Officer, he recognized that he was stepping into his new role as... View Details

Keywords: Health Pandemics; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Growth Management; Business and Stakeholder Relations

2024
Working Paper

Contributing to Growth? The Role of Open Source Software for Global Startups

By: Nataliya Langburd Wright, Frank Nagle and Shane Greenstein

How does participating in open source software (OSS) communities spur entrepreneurial growth? To address this question, we analyze novel data matching accounts from GitHub—the largest OSS hosting platform—to the universe of global software venture-backed firms... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Open Source Distribution; Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Human Capital; Valuation; Corporate Strategy

January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
Exercise

Travelogo: Understanding Customer Journeys

By: Eva Ascarza, Nicolas Padilla and Oded Netzer

In late May 2023, Sarah Merino, the newly appointed manager of the Customer Insights group at Travelogo—an online travel booking platform—initiates a comprehensive analysis of clickstream data to understand the varied behaviors and needs of their users. In preparation... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Analysis; Analytics and Data Science; Marketing Strategy; Segmentation; Consumer Behavior; Travel Industry; United States

December 2023
Case

TikTok: The Algorithm Will See You Now

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

In a world where attention is a scarce commodity, this case explores the meteoric rise of TikTok—an app that transformed from a niche platform for teens into the most visited domain by 2021—surpassing even Google. Its algorithm was a sophisticated mechanism for... View Details

Keywords: Social Media; Applications and Software; Disruptive Innovation; Business and Government Relations; International Relations; Cybersecurity; Culture; Technology Industry; China; United States; India

November 2023
Case

Gabon Special Economic Zone

By: John Macomber and Wale Lawal

Tropical rain forest covers about 80% of the West African nation of Gabon, part of the Congo Basin and the "lungs of the world." Gabon is one of the first nations to earn revenue from carbon sequestration...as long as the rain forest remains intact. There are... View Details

Keywords: Economic Development; Forestry; Wood; Carbon Credits; Supply Chain; Economic Growth; Developing Countries and Economies; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Government Administration; Business and Government Relations; Strategy; Forest Products Industry; Africa; Gabon

February 2023 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Hey, Insta & YouTube, Are You Watching TikTok?

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee

In early 2023, the entertainment app TikTok reached close to 1 billion users globally, placing it 4th behind the leading social networks of Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Featuring a sophisticated recommendation engine, TikTok mastered the art of keeping users... View Details

Keywords: Social Media; Applications and Software; Business Model; Competition; Organizational Change and Adaptation

January 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Case

Replika: Embodying AI

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Shweta Bagai and Marilyn Morgan Westner

Replika was a virtual AI companion that provided a way for people to process their emotions, build connections in a safe environment, and get through periods of loneliness. The chatbot fulfilled a user's need for a friend, romantic partner, or purely an emotional... View Details

Keywords: AI; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Human Needs; California

December 2022 (Revised June 2023)
Case

Hacking the U.S. Election: Russia's Misinformation Campaign

By: Shikhar Ghosh

The case discusses the relatively low technology approach used by Russia to influence the U.S. Presidential Election in 2016. Although political parties manipulating the media was not a new phenomenon, the Russians ran a broad, well-financed, and sophisticated social... View Details

Keywords: Political Elections; International Relations; Social Media; Power and Influence; Information; Russia; United States

2022
Article

Pills in a World of Activism and ESG

By: Guhan Subramanian and Caley Petrucci

Easterbrook and Fischel’s The Economic Structure of Corporate Law advances their now famous passivity thesis, which posits that managers should remain passive in the face of an unsolicited tender offer for the company’s shares. Consistent with the broader... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Governance Controls; Business and Shareholder Relations

August 2022
Case

In-Q-Tel: Innovation On A Mission

By: Joshua Lev Krieger and Josh Lerner

In 2022, the leaders of In-Q-Tel (IQT) considered what was next for the unique mission-driven organization. Since 1999, IQT had one mission: to be the most sophisticated source of strategic technical knowledge and capabilities to the U.S. government and its allies. IQT... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; National Security; Technological Innovation; Research; Geopolitical Units; Risk Management; Recruitment; Growth and Development Strategy; Venture Capital; Knowledge Management; Information Industry; Banking Industry

May 2022 (Revised June 2024)
Case

LOOP: Driving Change in Auto Insurance Pricing

By: Elie Ofek and Alicia Dadlani

John Henry and Carey Anne Nadeau, co-founders and co-CEOs of LOOP, an insurtech startup based in Austin, Texas, were on a mission to modernize the archaic $250 billion automobile insurance market. They sought to create equitably priced insurance by eliminating pricing... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Equality and Inequality; Prejudice and Bias; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Relationship Management; Price; Insurance Industry; Financial Services Industry

December 2021
Case

Slice Labs: Creating a Fraud-free Online Insurance Platform

By: Amit Goldenberg, Max Bazerman and Ruth Page

"Slice Labs: Creating a Fraud-Free Online Insurance Platform" engages students with the challenge of how to influence other parties to not engage in fraud in the context of digital insurance. The case is centered around Slice, a digital insurance company that was... View Details

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