Research - Global Initiative - Harvard Business School

2021
Working Paper

The Business of K-12 Education in China

This working paper examines the evolution of K-12 education in China, especially between 1985 and the present day, drawing extensive interviews with participants in the educational sector. China has been hugely successful in reaching almost 100 percent literacy,...

October 2021
Case

CrisisReady: Private Data for Public Good

By: Tarun Khanna and James Barnett

In October 2021, CRISISREADY.io considers how and if it should scale operations.

October 2021
Case

Diversifying P&G’s Supplier Base (A)

By: Kris Ferreira, Kym Lew Nelson, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Sarah Mehta

In February 2003, P&G hosted two meetings—one with its largest woman- and minority-owned suppliers and one with its largest non-minority-owned suppliers. Attendees in each meeting heard the same message: P&G was keen to grow its commitment to inclusive supply chains,...

October 2021
Teaching Material

Diversifying P&G’s Supplier Base (B)

By: Kris Ferreira, Kym Lew Nelson, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Sarah Mehta

This (B) case accompanies the (A) case of the same title.

October 2021
Case

Project Maji: Pricing Water in Sub-Saharan Africa

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Esel Çekin and Dilyana Karadzhova Botha

In July 2021, Sunil Lalvani, founder and CEO of Project Maji, a non-profit social enterprise headquartered in Dubai that had already provided sustainable, clean water solutions to 80,000 people living in rural communities across Ghana and Kenya, was facing an important...

October 2021
Case

The Opioid Settlement and Controversy Over CEO Pay at AmerisourceBergen

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged had contributed to the nationwide...

October 2021
Article
World Bank Economic Review

Changing Gambling Behavior through Experiential Learning

By: Shawn A. Cole, Martin Abel and Bilal Zia

This paper tests experiential learning as a debiasing tool to reduce gambling in South Africa, through a randomized field experiment. The study implements a simple, interactive game that simulates the odds of winning the national lottery through dice rolling....

October 2021
Article
Management Science

Directors' Perceptions of Board Effectiveness and Internal Operations

By: J. Yo-Jud Cheng, Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Rajesh Vijayaraghavan

We contribute to the growing literature on the effectiveness of corporate boards by examining the effect of two insights that have been largely unexplored in prior studies that use public data. First, since boards’ responsibilities are wide-ranging, more holistic...

September 2021
Teaching Material

Merging American Airlines and US Airways (A) and (B)

By: David G. Fubini, Patrick Sanguineti and Carin-Isabel Knoop

This teaching note provides recommendations for instructors interested in teaching the cases "Merging American Airlines and US Airways" (A) and (B) (HBS nos. 417-054 and 418-036), including both one-day and two-day teaching options.

September 28, 2021
Article
Harvard Business Review (website)

A Guide to Implementing the 4-Day Workweek: Working Less Can Reduce Employees' Stress—Without Sacrificing Productivity

By: Ashley Whillans and Charlotte Lockhart

As organizations continue to explore a variety of flexible work options, one promising avenue is the four-day workweek: The standard 40 hours per week is reduced to 32 hours, with the same pay and the same productivity expectations. Research suggests reducing hours can...

September 2021
Case

Harambe: Mobilizing Capital in Africa

By: Anywhere (Siko) Sikochi, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Francesco Tronci

Harambe was a non-profit organization whose mission was to build an ecosystem to identify promising young African entrepreneurs and provide them access to training, markets, capital, and support networks. From 2007 to 2021, Harambe had grown to a network of 367...

2021
Working Paper

When to Go and How to Go? Founder and Leader Transition in Private Equity Firms

By: Josh Lerner and Diana Noble

Leadership transition in private equity firms is an understudied field, despite the important, albeit controversial, role such firms play in developed economies. We analyzed 260 firms in an empirical study, supplemented by qualitative interviews with a small sample of...

September 2021
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...

September 2021
Teaching Material

GHN and AhaMove: Last-Mile Delivery in Vietnam

By: Kris Ferreira, Joel Goh and Dawn H. Lau

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 619-051.

September 2021
Case

Sawiris Foundation for Social Development

By: Brian Trelstad and Alpana Thapar

Founded in 2001 by the Sawiris family, one of the wealthiest families in Egypt, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD) invested in human capital and provision of basic social services for the most marginalized Egyptians. In 2015, Noura Selim’s (MBA 2013)...

September 2021
Case

Brown Capital Management

By: Luis M. Viceira, Emily R. McComb and Sarah Mehta

Set in July 2021, this case looks at several growth strategies under consideration at Brown Capital, the second-oldest Black-owned asset management firm in the U.S. Since its 1983 founding, Baltimore-based Brown Capital has specialized in small company growth...

September 2021
Case

On the Bubble: Startup Bootstrapping

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Tom Quinn and Annelena Lobb

Bubble was a software company in the low-code/no-code market, making tools that allowed users without traditional programming backgrounds or technical skills to build software. The case covers cofounder Joshua Haas’s engineering background, as he experienced a high...

September 2021
Case

Publicis Groupe 2021: Changing Nearly Everything

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Tonia Labruyere and Vincent Dessain

After a leadership change at the French advertising company Publicis, new CEO Arthur Sadoun has to navigate changes due to digitalization and a pandemic.

September 2021
Case

Birchal: Equity Crowdfunding in Australia

By: Scott Kominers and Alexandru Nichifor

September 2021
Teaching Material

Hester Pharmaceuticals (B): Securing Supply

By: Dante Roscini and John Masko

In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a rise in “reshoring” sentiment in the U.S., Hester Pharmaceuticals had to decide whether to build a new plant for its new oncology drug Akrozumab in Germany or in the U.S., or whether it should hire a contract manufacturing...