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- May–June 2021
- Article
Why Start-ups Fail
If you’re launching a business, the odds are against you: Two-thirds of start-ups never show a positive return. Unnerved by that statistic, a professor of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School set out to discover why. Based on interviews and surveys with hundreds...
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- January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Into the Raging Sea: Final Voyage of the SS El Faro
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Mel Martin
Captain Michael Davidson of the container ship SS El Faro was determined to make his planned shipping trip on time—but a hurricane was approaching his intended path. To succeed, Davidson and his fellow officers must plot a course to avoid the storm in the face of...
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- December 2020 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
IBM Watson at MD Anderson Cancer Center
By: Shane Greenstein, Mel Martin and Sarkis Agaian
After discovering that their cancer diagnostic tool, designed to leverage the cloud computing power of IBM Watson, needed greater integration into the clinical processes at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the development team had difficult choices to make. The Oncology...
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Keywords:
Decision Making;
Innovation Strategy;
Knowledge Management;
Knowledge Use and Leverage;
Operations;
Failure;
Information Technology;
Applications and Software;
Health Care and Treatment;
Product Development;
Health Industry;
Information Technology Industry;
Technology Industry;
United States;
Houston;
Texas
- 2020
- Working Paper
Determinants of Early-Stage Startup Performance: Survey Results
To explore determinants of new venture performance, the CEOs of 470 early-stage startups were surveyed regarding a broad range of factors related to their venture’s customer value proposition, product management, marketing, technology and operations, financial...
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- 2020
- Working Paper
Novel Risks
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard and Anette Mikes
All organizations practice some form of risk management to identify and assess routine risks in their operations, supply chains, strategy, and external environment. These risk management policies, however, fail in the presence of novelty. Novel risks arise from...
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- January 2020
- Article
How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?
By: Paul A. Gompers, William Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan and Ilya A. Strebulaev
We survey 885 institutional venture capitalists (VCs) at 681 firms to learn how they make decisions across eight areas: deal sourcing, investment selection, valuation, deal structure, post-investment value-added, exits, internal firm organization, and relationships...
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- October 2019 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Dulcie Madden (A)—Growth or Exit?
By: Shikhar Ghosh, Christopher Payton and Shweta Bagai
This is part of a three-case series that follows Dulcie Madden's journey as a founder over five years. Case (A) is about managing growth and cash flow; Case (B) is about the exit decision and conditions on a sale; Case (C) shows Madden dealing with adversity and the...
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Keywords:
Entrepreneurial Management;
Family;
Family Conflicts;
Founders' Agreements;
Growth And Development;
Hardware;
VC;
Scaling;
Start-up;
Female Ceo;
Risk Assessment;
Entrepreneurship;
Growth Management;
Equity;
Cash Flow;
Success;
Failure;
Acquisition;
Business Model;
Information Technology;
Valuation;
Family and Family Relationships;
Information Infrastructure;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Technology Industry;
United States
- September 2019 (Revised December 2019)
- Supplement
Anthony Soohoo: Retrospection on Dot & Bo
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Allison M. Ciechanover and George Gonzalez
The case describes the final year of the once-promising furniture e-tailer, Dot & Bo, that included a challenging fundraising market, troubles with logistics and operations, and a team tragedy. The founder looks back at the experience and shares his learnings about...
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- December 2018
- Case
The Global-Local Tension: Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao Leading with 'International Values and Local Roots' (A)
By: Tsedal Neeley
Vittorio Colao, CEO of telecommunication giant Vodafone, must respond to reports of disturbing accounting practices at two of Vodafone’s operating companies. In one case, €60 million have been misreported due to a series of failures to check manual accounting...
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- December 2018
- Supplement
The Global-Local Tension: Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao Leading with 'International Values and Local Roots' (B)
By: Tsedal Neeley
Vittorio Colao, CEO of telecommunication giant Vodafone, must respond to reports of disturbing accounting practices at two of Vodafone’s operating companies. In one case, €60 million have been misreported due to a series of failures to check manual accounting...
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- November 2018
- Case
Swissgrid: Enterprise Risk Management in a Digital Age
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes
Kurt Meyer, chief risk officer of Swissgrid, the Swiss national electricity transmission system operator, reflects on the risk management system he installed after the deregulation and liberalization of the European energy market. With 41 connections to other European...
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- July 2018
- Teaching Note
Ron Johnson: A Career in Retail
By: Ryan Raffaelli
In April 2013, Ron Johnson (HBS '84) stepped down after just 18 months as CEO of J.C. Penney. In his brief tenure, Johnson, an acclaimed retailer respected for his innovation and success in shaping the retail image at Target and Apple, introduced dramatic departures...
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- December 2016
- Supplement
Ron Johnson: A Career in Retail
This is a video supplement, to be used when teaching the Ron Johnson case. See abstract:
In April 2013, Ron Johnson (HBS '84) stepped down after just 18 months as CEO of J.C. Penney. In his brief tenure, Johnson, an acclaimed retailer respected for his... View Details
In April 2013, Ron Johnson (HBS '84) stepped down after just 18 months as CEO of J.C. Penney. In his brief tenure, Johnson, an acclaimed retailer respected for his... View Details
- October 2016
- Case
Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit?
By: Thomas Eisenmann, Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton
Sunil Nagaraj, Triangulate's founder had spent a few years trying to launch a dating application that matched users based on their behavior on social media. Based on input from advisors, the company changed its focus from a B2B site to a B2C dating site with a unique...
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- Working Paper
How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?
By: Paul A. Gompers, William Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan and Ilya A. Strebulaev
We survey 885 institutional venture capitalists (VCs) at 681 firms to learn how they make decisions across eight areas: deal sourcing, investment selection, valuation, deal structure, post-investment value-added, exits, internal firm organization, and relationships...
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- August 2016 (Revised March 2018)
- Case
Videojet (A)
In 2005 Craig Purse, the CEO of Videojet, a company recently acquired by the conglomerate Danaher, is dealing with the unexpected failure of a new high-tech printer just launched in the market. The new product exemplified the first real instance in which the Videojet...
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- August 2016
- Supplement
Videojet (B)
In 2005 Craig Purse, the CEO of Videojet, a company recently acquired by the conglomerate Danaher, is dealing with the unexpected failure of a new high tech printer just launched in the market. The new product exemplified the first real instance in which the Videojet...
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- July 2015 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
Ron Johnson: A Career in Retail
In April 2013, Ron Johnson (HBS '84) stepped down after just 18 months as CEO of J.C. Penney. In his brief tenure, Johnson, an acclaimed retailer respected for his innovation and success in shaping the retail image at Target and Apple, introduced dramatic departures...
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Keywords:
Leadership;
Leadership Development;
Legal Industry;
Procurement;
Professional Service Firms;
Pricing;
Organizational Behavior Modification;
Change Management;
Innovation Leadership;
Situation or Environment;
Failure;
Management Teams;
Brands and Branding;
Competition;
Retail Industry;
United States
- April 2015 (Revised April 2022)
- Case
Bankruptcy in the City of Detroit
By: Stuart Gilson, Kristin Mugford and Annelena Lobb
The June 2013 bankruptcy of the city of Detroit, Michigan was, at the time, the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. Detroit had struggled for years with a weakening tax base, high unemployment, a heavy debt load and increasing retiree costs. These...
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Keywords:
Chapter 9;
Chapter 11;
Bankruptcy;
Municipal Finance;
Restructuring;
Financial Liquidity;
Insolvency and Bankruptcy;
City;
Government Administration;
Public Sector;
Financial Crisis;
Financial Management;
Failure;
Labor Unions;
Urban Development;
Budgets and Budgeting;
Decision Making;
Demographics;
Economics;
Finance;
Public Administration Industry;
Michigan;
Detroit
- December 2014
- Article
Team Reflexivity as an Antidote to Team Information Processing Failures
By: M. C. Schippers, A. C. Edmondson and M. A. West
This article proposes that team reflexivity—a deliberate process of discussing team goals, processes, or outcomes—can function as an antidote to team-level biases and errors in decision making. We build on prior work conceptualizing teams as information-processing...
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