Publications

Find at Harvard

George Serafeim is the Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he co-leads the Climate and Sustainability Impact Lab in the Digital, Data, and Design Institute. He teaches the course "Risks, Opportunities and... View Details

Keywords: asset management; insurance industry; automobiles; industrial goods; fashion; food; green technology

September 2005 (Revised November 2006)
Case

AmorePacific: From Local to Global Beauty

By: Pankaj Ghemawat, Carin-Isabel Knoop and David Kiron

Suh Kyung-Bae, the President and CEO of AmorePacific, a South Korean cosmetics company, was an ardent globalizer. In its home market, AmorePacific had held off major multinational players such as L'Oreal and Estee Lauder and had engaged them in markets around the... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Local Range; Global Range; Global Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; South Korea

March 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

FinTech Hive at DIFC: Creating a Fintech Ecosystem in Dubai

By: Marco Di Maggio and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2019 as Raja Al Mazrouei, executive vice president of FinTech Hive (the Hive) at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the first and largest financial technology accelerator in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region, contemplates her... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Emerging Markets; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Management; Information Technology; Growth Management; Financial Markets; Financial Institutions; United Arab Emirates; Middle East; Dubai

2014
Working Paper

Making the Numbers? 'Short Termism' & the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster

By: Hazhir Rahmandad, Nelson P. Repenning and Rebecca Henderson

Much recent work in strategy and popular discussion suggests that an excessive focus on "managing the numbers"―delivering quarterly earnings at the expense of longer term investments―makes it difficult for firms to make the investments necessary to build competitive... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Competitive Advantage

Read Now

2024
Working Paper

Appropriate Entrepreneurship? The Rise of China and the Developing World

By: Josh Lerner, Junxi Liu, Jacob Moscona and David Yang

Global innovation and entrepreneurship has traditionally been dominated by a handful of high-income countries, especially the US. This paper investigates the international consequences of the rise of a new hub for innovation, focusing on the dramatic growth of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Economic Growth; China

Read Now

July 2009 (Revised September 2009)
Case

The Blackstone Group: Merlin Entertainment

The Blackstone Group had conducted a roll-up of theme parks and attractions business in Europe. It was considering how to generate liquidity for its investors. Blackstone entered the theme parks and attractions business in Europe by acquiring a majority stake in... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Cost vs Benefits; Private Equity; Financial Liquidity; Investment Return; Risk Management; Leasing; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Europe

March 2020 (Revised March 2024)
Case

CIAM: Home-Grown Shareholder Activism in France

By: Charles C.Y. Wang, Tonia Labruyere and Vincent Dessain

The case discusses the strategy of CIAM, a French activist investment firm, involved in a case of a buy-out of minority shareholders in the telecommunications sector. Altice NV, an international telecommunications company based in the Netherlands that owned more than... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Private Equity; Strategy; Valuation; Investment Activism; Financial Services Industry; France

July 2012
Case

Droga5: Launching Jay-Z's Decoded

By: Anita Elberse and Kwame Owusu-Kesse

In 2010, David Droga and Andrew Essex, co-founders of advertising agency Droga5, hope to convince both John Meneilly, manager of hip-hop star Shawn Carter—better known as Jay-Z—and a partner in Carter's company Roc Nation and Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Entertainment; Advertising Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

April 1992 (Revised February 1996)
Case

CFM International, Inc.

In April 1987 the management team of CFM International, Inc. (CFMI) was considering developing a new jet engine for the Airbus A340. The withdrawal of a competitor's engine had created an unforeseen opportunity for CFMI to re-enter a competition it had apparently lost... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Partners and Partnerships; Investment; Globalized Markets and Industries; Manufacturing Industry; Air Transportation Industry

Career Coach

Phil Wong

cross-sector and cross-asset class team focused on data-driven decision making, and launching an internal portfolio analytics platform. Phil’s journey to becoming a HBS career coach included work with Professor Perlow’s Crafting Your Life... View Details

Keywords: Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking; Investment Banking

October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Fantuan

By: Feng Zhu and David Lane

In 2023, CEO Randy Wu was considering the optimal growth strategy for Fantuan, a restaurant food delivery platform that had expanded from its 2014 founding in Vancouver, Canada to serve the Chinese demand for Asian cuisine in urban markets across Australia, Canada, the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Customer Focus and Relationships; Diasporas; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Growth Management; Business Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Canada; United Kingdom; Australia

June 2008 (Revised February 2013)
Case

Vignettes on Governance of Private Equity Firms

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Ann Leamon and Eugenia Adofo

In a series of vignettes, Nigella Hardy-Smyth of an international development agency that invests in emerging markets private equity firms must decide how to handle various situations that arise. As a member of the Limited Partner Advisory Board of each of the five... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Investment Funds; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Managerial Roles; Emerging Markets; Partners and Partnerships

Web

Application Process - MBA

Application Process Start Your HBS Journey Connect with Us Sign up College Students Who Are We Looking For? Class Profile Application Process 2+2 Program International Applicants Reapplicants Policies Need-based Application Fee Waiver... View Details

Career Coach

Ridas Rimkus

Ridas is an international student originally coming from Lithuania. He has lived in 4 countries: Lithuania, the UK, Switzerland, and the US. His educational background is in engineering and energy sciences, however his working experience... View Details

08 Sep 2010
First Look

First Look: September 8, 2010

determinant of choices than fairness, and iii) agents display a marked propensity to work for principals with similar distributional concerns. Working PapersReport on the State of Available Data for the Study of International Trade and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Ray A. Goldberg

A native of North Dakota, Dr. Goldberg received his A.B. from Harvard University in 1948, his MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1950 and his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Minnesota in 1952.

... View Details

Keywords: agribusiness; agriculture; fast food; food; food processing; forest products; grocery; high technology; information; restaurant; retailing; soft drink; textiles; tobacco; transportation; wholesale; wine

2012
Working Paper

Finding the God Particle of the Sustainability Business Case: Greener Pastures for Shareholder Value

By: Marc L Bertoneche and Cornis van der Lugt

The start of the 2000s saw a flurry of international publications on "the business case" for sustainability, seeking to map out the returns on investment and to differentiate recommended actions from cases of corporate philanthropy. Reports by business organisations... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Environmental Sustainability

SSRN

Read Now

May 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Case

The Crisis at Tyco - A Director's Perspective

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Aldo Sesia

In 2002, Wendy Lane had been a member of the board of directors at Tyco International a little more than a year when the company's CEO Dennis Kozlowski and other top executives were accused of fraud, which ultimately led to resignations, imprisonments, lawsuits, and... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Reputation; Governing and Advisory Boards; Crisis Management; Accounting Audits; Problems and Challenges; Risk Management; Finance; Managerial Roles; Lawsuits and Litigation; Service Industry; United States