Research
Research
- January 2021
- Case
Saham Group: It's In the Genes
By: Christina R. Wing and Gamze Yucaoglu
| The case opens in August 2020 as Moulay Mhamed Elalamy (Mhamed), CEO of the Saham Group (the Group), a pan-African investment company that operates a variety of businesses out of Morocco, contemplates the Group’s identity, its investment strategy, and how to navigate...
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- January 2021
- Teaching Material
Barbara Krakow Gallery (B): Art and the Pandemic
By: Jose B. Alvarez and David Lane
| Updates (A) case by describing the early impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the art market, the renaming of the gallery as the Krakow Witkin Gallery, and the response of its partners and staff to the pandemic.
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- January 2021
- Case
Carnival Corporation: Cruising Through COVID-19
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah Abbott
| In 2020, in response to Covid-19, the cruise industry paused. Carnival was the largest cruise operator, and CEO Arnold Donald positioned the company to survive.
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- January 2021
- Case
mPharma (A)
By: Rembrand Koning, John D. Macomber, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal
| mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business...
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- January 2021
- Case
Serum Institute of India (SII) : Racing to Save Lives During a Pandemic
By: Rohit Deshpandé, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla
| The CEO of Serum Institute of India (SII), a $12.8 billion Indian Family business is faced with a risky choice between principles and profit. SII is the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world and Adar Poonawalla, the CEO and son of the founder has to decide how...
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- January 2021
- Case
TCS: From Physical Offices to Borderless Work
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Malini Sen
| Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a multinational IT services company headquartered in Mumbai, is a subsidiary of one of India’s most reputed conglomerates, the Tata Group. In 2020, TCS was valued at $144.7 billion, the highest for any company in the IT sector,...
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- January 2021
- Case
Jumia's Path to Profitability
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Gamze Yucaoglu
| The case opens in September 2019 as Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, co-founders and co-CEOs of Jumia, the leading Pan-African e-commerce platform, are contemplating the company’s path to profitability in the aftermath of a fragile investor sentiment, as the company...
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- Winter 2021
- MIT Sloan Management Review
How Would-Be Category Kings Become Commoners
By: Rory McDonald and Keith Krach
| Category creation is the holy grail in business, but more often than not, the very companies that establish lucrative new markets don’t end up being the category kings. Why? Many executives undermine their own ventures’ standing by misinterpreting and misfiring on...
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- December 2020
- Case
Komatsu and Smart Construction
By: Rajiv Lal, David J. Collis and Akiko Saito
| Komatsu, Japan's leading construction equipment manufacturer, is considering investing in a digital platform "Smart Construction" that will digitise the entire work process on a construction site, allowing for substantial reductions in cost and time while improving...
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- December 2020
- Case
PG&E and the First Climate Change Bankruptcy
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
| In early 2020, the California-based utility PG&E filed a second amended plan of reorganization. PG&E had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the face of more than $30 billion of legal claims brought against it for its alleged role in causing California wildfires. The...
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- December 2020
- Research Policy
Different Founders, Different Firms: A Comparative Analysis of Academic and Non-academic Startups
By: Maria P. Roche, Annamaria Conti and Frank T. Rothaermel
| What role do differences in founders' occupational backgrounds play in new venture performance? Analyzing a novel dataset of 2,998 founders creating 1,723 innovative startups in biomedicine, we find that the likelihood and hazard of achieving a liquidity event are...
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- December 2020
- Teaching Material
France Télécom (B): A Wave of Staff Suicides
| In the B case we learn that at least 19 France Telecom employees took their own lives between 2006 and 2009, 12 others attempted suicide, and eight suffered from serious depression for reasons reportedly related to work. Some of these deaths occurred in public places,...
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- December 2020
- Case
France Télécom (A): A Challenging Restructuring
| These cases explore the impacts of industry shocks, resulting corporate actions that had a devasting impact on employees, and the legal conviction of corporate leaders for “institutional harassment." This case series follows the evolution of France Telecom from a...
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- 2020
- Working Paper
Biased Sampling of Early Users and the Direction of Startup Innovation
By: Ruiqing Cao, Rembrand Koning and Ramana Nanda
| Using data from a prominent online platform for launching new digital products, we document that the composition of the platform's ‘beta testers’ on the day a new product is launched has a systematic and persistent impact on the venture's success. Specifically, we use...
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- November 2020
- Case
Holaluz: Taking on the Spanish Energy Market
By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Oded Koenigsberg, Elena Corsi and Emer Moloney
| In 2020, the three cofounders of Holaluz, a newcomer to Spain’s electricity retail market, is preparing to launch a new offering: installing and managing solar panels on households' roofs at no extra cost for the consumer, who would still benefit from the energy...
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