Publications

September 2023
Teaching Note

Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'

By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 323-057. Patagonia’s change of ownership from a privately held company to a perpetual purpose trust and 501(c)(4) nonprofit in order to use the company’s profit to fight the environmental crisis and be a model for future businesses. View Details

December 2008 (Revised March 2009)
Case

Rosetree Mortgage Opportunity Fund

By: Victoria Ivashina and Andre F. Perold

In December 2008, in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Rosetree Capital Management was evaluating the purchase of a pool of U.S. residential mortgages. The firm had formed an investment vehicle to acquire troubled residential mortgages... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Mortgages; Investment; Housing; Valuation; United States

16 Aug 2016
First Look

August 16, 2016

relationship with another global SCF bank. Purchase this case: https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/216039-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 716-076 Managing the European Refugee Crisis In 2016,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2009 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Societe Generale (A): The Jerome Kerviel Affair

By: Francois Brochet

This case illustrates the tension/balance that firms with complex and risky business models must consider in designing their internal controls. It describes the environment in which a derivatives trader engaged in massive directional positions on major European stocks... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Problems and Challenges; Complexity; Cost Management; Balance and Stability; Business Model; Design; Stocks; Crisis Management; Financial Markets; Consulting Industry; Europe

January 2002 (Revised March 2011)
Case

Finland and Nokia: Creating the World's Most Competitive Economy

By: Michael E. Porter and Orjan Solvell

Finland, with a special language and culture, has developed as a country in between the west (the Nordic region and Europe) and the east (especially its neighbor Russia). In the 1980s, a process started of moving out of an investment-driven economy into an... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Economic Growth; Growth and Development Strategy; Industry Clusters; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy; Telecommunications Industry; Finland

08 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated

all-hands-on-deck mode. At the same time, the crisis brings the opportunity to interrogate business practices. Managers should continually connect their employees’ efforts to the organization’s higher-level... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

01 Nov 2020
Research & Ideas

Good Leadership Is an Act of Kindness

of the simplest words and gestures often gets lost when CEOs and managers are in perpetual crisis management mode, struggling with layoffs, remote work technology, market woes,... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Susan Seligson

March 2005 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Capital Controls in Chile in the 1990s (A)

By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel

In 1991, Chile adopted a framework of capital controls focused on reducing the massive flows of foreign investment coming into the country as international interest rates remained low. Capital inflows threatened the Central Bank's ability to manage the exchange rate... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Capital; Governance Controls; Business and Government Relations; Chile

October 2003 (Revised November 2003)
Case

Foremostco, Inc. (A)

Describes the rocky transition from an outdated, nonintegrated information system to a new customized system built by programmers in a small, IT-dependent foliage company that distributes plant material. The old system has increasingly become a "burning platform," but... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Information Technology; Crisis Management; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

July 1996 (Revised January 1997)
Case

Northwest Airlines: Brush with Bankruptcy (A)--November 1992

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Davis Dyer

Deals with Northwest's financial crisis between the fall of 1992 and the following spring. Northwest's leaders face the problem of how to meet an impending $600 million payment on the 1989 LBO loan when the airline had run out of cash. Concludes by outlining options... View Details

Keywords: Air Transportation; Restructuring; Leveraged Buyouts; Crisis Management; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financial Strategy; Financial Crisis; Air Transportation Industry; United States

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25 Aug 2014
HBS Case

Starbucks Reinvented

untested arenas that define the company as it exists today. "This case distills 20 years of my thinking about the most important lessons of strategy, leadership, and managing in turbulence in the frame of a very relevant... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Food & Beverage

June 2024
Article

Counterparty Risk and Counterparty Choice in the Credit Default Swap Market

By: Wenxin Du, Salil Gadgil, Michael Gordy and Clara Vega

We investigate how market participants price and manage counterparty credit risk using confidential trade repository data on single-name credit default swap (CDS) transactions. We find that counterparty risk has a modest impact on the pricing of CDS contracts but a... View Details

Keywords: Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Market Participation; Risk and Uncertainty; Price; Financial Markets; Credit

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August 2012 (Revised November 2017)
Case

Turkey—A Work in Progress?

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

For the past 10 years, Turkey has grown its real GDP at about 6% annually. This came after a huge debt crisis in 2001-02, wherein Turkey had to borrow $16 billion more from the IMF and comport with its difficult conditionality. Today, Turkey is a middle-income country,... View Details

Keywords: Turkey; Economy; Macroeconomics; International Relations; Growth and Development Strategy; Turkey

August 2021
Case

Zoom Video Communications: Building a Culture of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion During COVID-19

By: Karen G. Mills, Scott Duke Kominers, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu, George Gonzalez and Gabriella Elanbeck

Keywords: Diversity Management; Diversity Training; Cultural Change; Cultural Diversity; Inclusion; Inclusive Growth; Inclusive Hiring; Hiring; Hiring Of Employees; Recruiting; Performance Management; Change Leadership; Race And Ethnicity; Racial Bias; Racial Disparity; Racial Injustice; Racial Tensions; Racism; Organization; Organization Process; Organization Structure; Structural/institutional Racism; Leadership And Change Management; Leadership And Managing People; Leading; Gender Bias; Discrimination; Inequalities; Inequality; Social Change; Employee Attitude Development And Empowerment; Employee Bonding; Employee Empowerment; Employee Engagement; Employee Fairness; Employee Morale; Employee Performance Management; Employee Relations; Company Culture; Company Values; Values; COVID-19 Pandemic; Demographics; Diversity; Age; Ethnicity; Gender; Business Processes; Change Management; Change; Race; Human Capital; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Jobs and Positions; Job Interviews; Leadership; Leading Change; Management; Management Teams; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Style; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Culture; Happiness; Prejudice and Bias; Satisfaction; Equity; Identity; Leadership Style; Values and Beliefs; Technology Industry; United States

May–June 2015
Article

Dead Weight: How Greece Wound up Trapped in the European Union

By: Debora L. Spar

In the early 1990s, Greece fell far afield of the economic criteria laid out by the Maastricht Treaty, the EU's founding document. In 1999, when the European monetary union was launched, Greece failed to meet the criteria again, but managed to squeeze into the body two... View Details

Keywords: EU; Geopolitics; Economic Conditions; Economy; Financial Crisis; Greece; European Union

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March 2001 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Venture Capital Vignettes

By: G. Felda Hardymon

Presents three fictionalized but realistic situations in which a venture capitalist may find himself. One situation requires crisis intervention to quell a dispute between a vice president of sales and a CEO; another poses the problem of working out the composition of... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Crisis Management; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Teams; Executive Compensation; Situation or Environment; Employee Relationship Management; Problems and Challenges; Financial Services Industry