Publications

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January 2017 (Revised December 2017)
Case

Carmichael Roberts: To Create a Private Equity Firm?

By: Steven Rogers and Kenneth J. Cooper

Carmichael Roberts, a rare African-American venture capitalist, considered leaving his general partnership in a private equity firm near Boston and setting up his own in 2015. He weighed whether the timing was right, with the economy still not fully recovered from the... View Details

Research Summary

Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

By: Karen Mills

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details

Research Summary

The Ownership and Trading of Debt Claims in Chapter 11 Restructurings (with Victoria Ivashina and David Smith)

This paper explores a novel data set that identifies over 71,000 investors holding debt claims of 136 companies filing for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection during the period of 1998 through 2009. We investigate how concentration in debt ownership relates to... View Details

October 2024
Case

Parexel: Scaling Up and Industry Dynamics

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Ben Creo

Through the lens of biopharmaceutical contract research organization (CRO) PAREXEL, this case traces the evolution of the firm as it reinvents itself in response to the transformation of the CRO sector from a small, secondary cluster of firms into a major player with... View Details

Keywords: Research; Innovation and Invention; Business Model; Transformation; Globalization; Information Technology; Competitive Advantage; Pharmaceutical Industry

2021
Chapter

Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

By: Karen G. Mills and Annie Dang

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Fintech; Artificial Intelligence; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Capital; Success; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science

2017
Working Paper

Economic Uncertainty and Earnings Management

By: Luke C.D. Stein and Charles C.Y. Wang

In the presence of managerial short-termism and asymmetric information about skill and effort provision, firms may opportunistically shift earnings from uncertain to more certain times. We document empirically that when financial markets are less certain about a firm's... View Details

Keywords: Discretionary Accruals; Uncertainty; Implied Volatility; Earnings Response Coefficient; Risk and Uncertainty; Earnings Management; Financial Markets

SSRN

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January 2015 (Revised March 2015)
Case

San Francisco, 2015 #tech #inequality

By: Clayton Rose, Allison Ciechanover and Kunal Modi

In December 2013 a group of angry protesters blocked one of the commuter buses provided by the large Silicon Valley firms (known as "Google buses") which was stopped in San Francisco on its way to the company's headquarters 40 miles south. The protests were a tangible... View Details

Keywords: Income Inequality; Economic Inequalty; Technology; Silicon Valley; Income Characteristics; Equality and Inequality; Technology Industry; United States; California; San Francisco

2010
Other Unpublished Work

Top Executive Background and Corporate M&A: The Case of Former Investment Bankers

By: Francois Brochet and Kyle Welch

We study the M&A activity of firms with top executives whose employment history includes experience in a Wall Street firm, especially those with investment banking background ("IB executives"). In terms of strategy, controlling for firm-level effects, we document that... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Reputation; Investment Banking; Financial Reporting; Mergers and Acquisitions; Social and Collaborative Networks; Goodwill Accounting; Power and Influence; Banking Industry

April 2024 (Revised August 2024)
Case

The Engine

By: Joshua Lev Krieger, Jim Matheson, Fiona Murray and Nicholas Christman

The Engine, a venture capital firm founded by MIT to fill a gap in the technology funding landscape by commercializing breakthrough science and technology. Led by managing partner and CEO Katie Rae, the Engine's unique approach involved an unusually longer fund life,... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Entrepreneurial Finance; Financial Services Industry

15 Aug 2023
HBS Case

(Virtual) Reality Check: How Long Before We Live in the 'Metaverse'?

development of virtual-reality technologies. In October 2021, Facebook changed its name to Meta and announced it would spend $10 billion a year to “bring the metaverse to life.” Other tech firms that have invested funds in... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Technology; Computer; Information Technology

08 Jul 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Delegation in Multi-Establishment Firms: Adaptation vs. Coordination in I.T. Purchasing Authority

Keywords: by Kristina McElheran

Research Summary

Bricks and Clicks: The Effect of Store Assortment on E-tail Format (with R. Lal and E. Ofek)

An often neglected aspect in existing studies of the Internet selling process is the high volume of product returns. Such returns reflect a major logistic expenditure on behalf of companies that sell over the net. The problem is reduced when consumers shop in physical... View Details

April 2021
Case

The Clean Network and the Future of Global Technology Competition

By: Meg Rithmire and Courtney Han

In May 2019, amidst of an ever-worsening trade war between the U.S. and China, President Donald Trump added Chinese telecom giant Huawei to the Department of Commerce’s “entity list,” essentially forbidding American firms from doing business with the company. Huawei,... View Details

Keywords: 5G; Telecommunications; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Trade; Competition; International Relations; Telecommunications Industry; China

June 18, 2019
Article

Research: Investors Reward Companies That Talk Up Their Digital Initiatives

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Wilbur Chen

A study of how companies disclose their digital initiatives on earnings calls and written communications finds that more firms are using these technologies, that financial markets reward companies that disclose such initiatives, but that financial performance... View Details

Keywords: Digital Technologies; Disclosure; Investment; Performance Improvement

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January 2019 (Revised March 2021)
Case

SoundCloud: Subscription Streaming?

By: Ashish Nanda, Eric Van den Steen, Andy Wu, Jeffrey Boyar and Bonnie Bennett Slater

Established in 2007, SoundCloud already boasted the second largest number of active music listeners among all streaming services and was recognized as the go-to platform for new artists by early 2014. Yet, its founders were questioning the robustness of the firm’s... View Details

February 2002 (Revised April 2002)
Case

Chengwei Ventures and the hdt* Investment

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Bo Feng, cofounder and principal in Chengwei Ventures, one of the first sovereign venture capital firms in China, is trying to decide on the proper business model for hdt, the product of a merger between two portfolio companies. This case discusses the best way for the... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Relationship Management; Sovereign Finance; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Entrepreneurship; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Markets; Business Model; Financial Services Industry; China

March 2000
Background Note

Venture Capitalist as Entrepreneur, The

By: Robert J. Robinson and Noam T. Wasserman

Introduces students to negotiations between venture capitalists (VCs) and the limited partners who provide the VCs' capital. Also discusses negotiations between VCs and other VCs, including those within a VC firm itself. Explores interests, sources of negotiating... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Venture Capital; Capital; Negotiation Tactics; Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry