Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(2,757)
- Faculty Publications (320)
Page 1 of 320
Results →
- January 2025
- Case
Cyber Oversight: SolarWinds Board of Directors
By: Lynn S. Paine
In 2020, just two years after its IPO, information technology company SolarWinds discovered that it was the victim of an attack on its information systems by Russian hackers. The incident, known as the Sunburst attack, was costly for the company, and certain... View Details
- November–December 2024
- Article
How to Avoid the Agility Trap
By: Jianwen Liao and Feng Zhu
Agility is all the rage in strategy circles these days. According to conventional wisdom, organizations should rapidly react to technological advances, new market dynamics, and shifting consumer preferences. But in practice this is nearly impossible to pull off,... View Details
- November 2024
- Article
Stakeholder Amnesia in M&A Deals
By: Caley Petrucci and Guhan Subramanian
Public companies have increasingly embraced environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in the course of everyday business. However, these ESG considerations are virtually non-existent in merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions. Elon Musk’s recent acquisition... View Details
- 2024
- Book
Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You
By: Teresa M. Amabile, Lotte Bailyn, Marcy Crary, Douglas T. Hall and Kathy E. Kram
Retirement, as a major life transition, can be both thrilling and challenging in unexpected ways. Written by acclaimed authors in the fields of business leadership, careers, and work, this book goes beyond the typical financial and health-related advice on retirement,... View Details
Keywords: Retirement
- September 2024
- Case
Open Door Legal: Universal Legal Access
By: Brian Trelstad, Taylor Greenthal and Sarah Mehta
This case is about Open Door Legal (ODL), a San Francisco-based civil legal aid nonprofit. CEO Adrian Tirtanadi founded the organization in 2012 with a mission to achieve universal access to legal representation for all city residents. By 2024, ODL had opened four... View Details
- September–October 2024
- Article
Working Around the Clock: Temporal Distance, Intrafirm Communication, and Time Shifting of the Employee Workday
By: Jasmina Chauvin, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tommy Pan Fang
This paper examines the effects of temporal distance generated by time zone separation on communication in geographically distributed organizations. We build on prior research, which highlights time zone separation as a significant challenge, but argue that employees... View Details
- March 2024
- Case
Funderbeam: Teaming Up or Going Alone?
By: Paul A. Gompers, Elena Corsi and Orna Dan
Funderbeam, a global platform founded in Estonia to enable start-ups to run private syndications and secondaries while offering liquidity for private equity investors, was at a crossroads. Over its ten-year run, the company had expanded its services and areas of... View Details
Keywords: Decision Making; Business Exit or Shutdown; Transition; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Law; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financing and Loans; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Ownership Stake; Expansion; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry; Estonia; Republic of Ireland; United Kingdom; Singapore
- March 2024 (Revised June 2024)
- Case
Governing OpenAI (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine, Suraj Srinivasan and Will Hurwitz
In late November 2023, OpenAI’s new board of directors took stock of the situation. The company, which sought to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI)—computer systems with capabilities exceeding human abilities—was looking to regain its footing after a chaotic... View Details
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Board Of Directors; Board Decisions; Board Dynamics; Corporate Boards; Governance Changes; Governance Structure; Leadership Change; Legal Aspects Of Business; Nonprofit Governance; Strategy And Execution; Technological Change; AI and Machine Learning; Corporate Governance; Leadership; Management; Mission and Purpose; Technological Innovation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Resignation and Termination; Ethics; Nonprofit Organizations; Open Source Distribution; Partners and Partnerships; Technology Industry; San Francisco; United States
- 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
Business transactions take widely varying forms—from multibillion-dollar... View Details
- February 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Johnson Security Bureau: Building Multigenerational Success
By: Henry McGee, Annelena Lobb and David Muoser
Jessica Johnson-Cope, CEO of Johnson Security Bureau (JSB), pondered options for scaling the firm. JSB was the oldest Black-owned security firm in New York, and among the oldest Black-owned security firms in the United States. It provided mostly unarmed security guards... View Details
- November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Technical Note
Customer Data Privacy
By: Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei Huang
This note provides an overview of the evolving landscape of customer data privacy in 2023. It highlights two pivotal aspects that make privacy a central concern for businesses: building and maintaining customer trust and navigating the intricate regulatory... View Details
- 2023
- Book
How the Harvard Business School Changed the Way We View Organizations
By: Jay W. Lorsch
The story of the field of organizational behavior (which overlaps considerably with the origin story of Harvard Business School) and how it created the “medical model” of systems thinking—anchored in the practices of listening, observing, testing, and only then... View Details
Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Systems Thinking; Medical Model; Organizations; Behavior; System; History
- October 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
McDonald's Board of Directors (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
In October 2019, the McDonald’s Corporation board of directors, chaired by Enrique Hernandez, Jr., gathered to learn the results of their outside counsel’s investigation into the conduct of the CEO. On the surface, the iconic fast-food chain was thriving as growing... View Details
Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Chair; Board Decisions; Business Ethics; Corporate Boards; Fast Food; Franchising; Legal Aspects Of Business; Legal Battle; Legal Settlement; Misconduct; Regulation; Reorganization; Restaurant Industry; Sexual Harassment; Shareholders; Stakeholder Management; Strategy And Execution; Turnaround; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Culture; Executive Compensation; Leadership; Management; Ethics; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Food and Beverage Industry; Illinois; United States
- October 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
Loris
By: Shunyuan Zhang, Das Narayandas, Stacy Straaberg and David Lane
In December 2022, Loris’s executive team considered their go-to-market strategy. Loris was an artificial intelligence (AI) software startup for the customer service industry with two products on the market: 1) Agent Assist which provided customer service agents (CSAs)... View Details
- September 2023
- Teaching Note
Esquel Group
By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit
Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 307-076 and 322-058. These cases focus on the experience of China's largest shirt manufacturer, Esquel Group, and how it manages various aspects of government relations in China and abroad. The A case identifies a wide variety of social... View Details
- September 2023 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
Going Mobile-First? The Digital Transformation of Davivienda Bank in Colombia
By: Jorge Tamayo and Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago
Set in 2017, this case describes the digital transformation strategy of Davivienda— a leading player in Colombia’s commercial banking and one of the companies belonging to Grupo Bolívar, a major Colombian financial conglomerate. The case also describes the pioneer role... View Details
Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Information Technology; Digital Strategy; Digital Transformation; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Banking Industry; Latin America; Central America; South America; Colombia
- August 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
DexAI
By: Jo Tango and Christina Wallace
During a challenging fundraising environment, the DexAI founders received two term sheets with nearly identical economic terms but very different legal ones. The entrepreneurs had to navigate: representations and warranties (their personal guarantees that the company's... View Details
- August 2023
- Case
WayCool: Reimagining the Food Supply Chain
By: Paul Gompers and Kairavi Dey
Founded in 2015, WayCool, is an Indian agri-tech start-up that built a B2B operation acquiring fruits and vegetables from product-specific agriculture companies and small-holding farmers. It sold them to business customers, such as local retail stores, restaurants, and... View Details
- 2023
- Book
The State and Capitalism in China
By: Meg Rithmire, Margaret M. Pearson and Kellee S. Tsai
This element explains China's political economic evolution from state socialist economy to a reform era state capitalism model to a more politicized, risk management approach we call "party-state capitalism." We emphasize the internal and external sources of perceived... View Details
- June 2023
- Case
Dan McCrum - Unmasking Wirecard
By: Jonas Heese, Charles C.Y. Wang, Tonia Labruyere and Carlota Moniz
Dan McCrum, an investigative journalist for the Financial Times, had spent the past six years fighting to expose German payment processing firm Wirecard. The company had enjoyed years of exponential growth and was viewed by several investors as the poster child of... View Details