Publications

February 2025
Teaching Note

India Stack: Digital Public Infrastructure for All

By: Tarun Khanna

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 724-371. View Details

Keywords: Digital Transformation; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Asia; South Asia; India

January 2025 (Revised March 2025)
Case

In 2025, CEO Dr. Sania Nishtar and her team consider the lessons the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunizations (GAVI) learned from the pandemic. GAVI successfully brought COVID-19 vaccines to large swaths of the undeveloped and under-developed world by pooling... View Details

Keywords: Pharmaceutical Industry; Africa

January 2025
Case

Jaipur Literature Festival 2024

By: Tarun Khanna and Kanika Jain

The Jaipur Literature Festival had evolved from a modest gathering in 2006 into one of the world’s most significant literary events. It was known for its principle of egalitarian access, allowing people from various social backgrounds to come together and engage with... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Management; Media; Strategy; Asia; South Asia

November 2024
Case

Ather Energy: The Future of Mobility

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Kannan Srinivasan and Malini Sen

Ather Energy, India’s third-largest electric scooter maker by volume, was founded in 2013. Five years later, the start-up launched its first electric scooter, Ather 450, which was powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), to navigate... View Details

Keywords: Energy Policy; Climate Change; Alternative Energy; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Transportation; Transformation; Green Technology; Technology Adoption; Communication Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Asia; India

September 2024 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Aramco: Navigating the Energy Transition

By: Tarun Khanna and Gizem Cihan Dincsoy

In March 2024, Amin Nasser, president, and CEO of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), had just delivered a speech about the future of energy at a global energy conference. The world was behind schedule in meeting long-term climate change goals. The global shift... View Details

Keywords: Energy Transmission; Oil ＆ Gas; Economic Diversification; Corporate Strategy; Leadership; Business Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Transition; Environmental Sustainability; Diversification; Energy Industry; Saudi Arabia

August 2024
Case

Zipline: Expanding the World's Largest Autonomous Drone Delivery Network

By: Tarun Khanna and George Gonzalez

Zipline initially established the world's largest logistics network in Rwanda and Ghana by delivering medical supplies to hospitals via automated drones from a centralized hub. The company is now looking to expand to the U.S. home delivery market and designed a... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Logistics; Expansion; Air Transportation; Business Model; Rwanda; Ghana; United States

Spring 2024
Article

One Aspirational Future for India’s Higher Education Sector

By: Tarun Khanna

Several recent encouraging experiments in Indian higher education suggest a plausible aspirational path toward a more salubrious future than that suggested by an otherwise struggling system. Four case studies of privately conceived and funded universities each exhibit... View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; India

Read Now

November 2023
Case

Biocon Biologics, 2023

By: Tarun Khanna and Radhika Kak

September 2023
Article

Judging Foreign Startups

By: Nataliya Langburd Wright, Rembrand Koning and Tarun Khanna

Can accelerators pick the most promising startup ideas no matter their provenance? Using unique data from a global accelerator where judges are randomly assigned to evaluate startups headquartered across the globe, we show that judges are less likely to recommend... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship And Strategy; Global Strategy; Entrepreneurial Financing; Innovation; International; Entrepreneurship; Judgments; Business Startups; Geographic Location; Growth and Development Strategy

Find at Harvard

August 2023
Teaching Note

Newlab: Scaling an Innovation Engine

By: Tarun Khanna and Felicia Belostecinic

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 723-364. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Social and Collaborative Networks; Global Range; Partners and Partnerships; Networks; Growth and Development Strategy; Opportunities; Brooklyn

July 2023
Teaching Note

Zipline: The World’s Largest Drone Delivery Network

By: Tarun Khanna and Felicia Belostecinic

Teaching Note for HBS Case 721-366, "Zipline: The World’s Largest Drone Delivery Network." View Details

Keywords: Design Thinking; Emerging Markets; Strategy; Innovation and Invention

January 2023
Article

Firm-Induced Migration Paths and Strategic Human-Capital Outcomes

By: Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna and Victoria Sevcenko

Firm-induced migration typically entails firms relocating workers to fill value-creating positions at destination locations. But such relocated workers are often exposed to external employment opportunities at their destinations, possibly triggering turnover. We... View Details

Keywords: Worker Relocation; Turnover; Firm-induced Migration; Smaller Towns; Employee Mobility; Geographic Mobility; Migration; Clusters; Employees; Geographic Location; Performance; Opportunities; Retention; Human Capital; Talent and Talent Management

November, 2022
Article

Role of Context in Knowledge Flows: Host Country versus Headquarters as Sources of MNC Subsidiary Knowledge Inheritance

By: Mike Horia Teodorescu, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna

We respond to calls in the strategy and international business literature for elucidating how multinational subsidiaries develop contextual intelligence in host countries and how they use the local context as a source of valuable opportunities for learning. Applying... View Details

Keywords: MNCs; Knowledge Flows; Innovation; Gravity Model; Absorptive Capacity; Multinational Firms and Management; Business Subsidiaries; Knowledge Management; Business Headquarters; Innovation and Invention

Find at Harvard

August 2022
Case

BRAC: Working-from-Home in Emerging Markets

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna

August 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

NewLab: Scaling an Innovation Engine

By: Tarun Khanna and George Gonzalez

Silicon Valley-veteran Shaun Stewart is the CEO of NewLab, a dynamic technology hub headquartered in the storied Brooklyn Navy Yard. Founded in 2016, NewLab fostered a community of entrepreneurs, corporate and government partners, and investors, all seeking to apply... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Social and Collaborative Networks; Global Range; Partners and Partnerships; Networks; Growth and Development Strategy; Opportunities; Brooklyn

August 13, 2022
Article

A Historic Opportunity for Universal Health Coverage in India

By: Vikram Patel, Shubhangi Bhadada, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Arnab Mukherji, Tarun Khanna and Gagandeep Kang

The milestone of India's 75th anniversary of independence on Aug 15, 2022, offers an opportunity to reassert the country's commitment to realising universal health coverage (UHC). The first such effort predates independence, with the 1946 Bhore Committee report.... View Details

Keywords: Universal Health Coverage; COVID-19 Pandemic; Health Care and Treatment; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Health Industry; India

Find at Harvard

Read Now

2022
Book

Making Meritocracy: Lessons from China and India, from Antiquity to the Present

By: Tarun Khanna and Michael Szonyi

How do societies identify and promote merit? Enabling all people to fulfill their potential, and ensuring the selection of competent and capable leaders are central challenges for any society. These are not new concerns. Scholars, educators, and political and economic... View Details

Keywords: Merit; Meritocracy; Society; Government and Politics; History; Power and Influence; Leadership; Competency and Skills; China; India

2022
Interview

Prime Venture Partners Podcast: #104 Tarun Khanna, Professor, Harvard Business School, on Creating the Conditions to Create, The Value Of Trust & The Power of Diversity

By: Tarun Khanna and Shripati Acharya

Tarun Khanna, Professor at the Harvard Business School chats with Shripati Acharya, Managing Partner Prime Venture Partners regarding: Creating the Conditions to Create, State of Entrepreneurship: India vs China, The Value of Trust in Entrepreneurship, Working with... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Trust

2022
Article

Science-based Entrepreneurship in India: A Policy Glass (as yet) Quarter-Full

By: Tarun Khanna

India is celebrated for a resurgence of de novo entrepreneurship in recent decades. Entrants have engaged in creative risk-taking to provide market-based solutions for private or social needs despite not being scions of wealthy industrial or business families. In this... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Science; Policy; Investment