Publications

January 2023
Teaching Note

MicroStrategy’s Investment in Bitcoin

By: C. Fritz Foley, Celine Chammas and Donal O'Cofaigh

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 222-048. View Details

Keywords: Bitcoin; Corporate Strategy; Acquisition; Investment Portfolio; Capital Structure; Equity

2017
Working Paper

Rethinking Measurement of Pay Disparity and its Relation to Firm Performance

By: Ethan Rouen

I develop measures of firm-level pay disparity and examine their relation to firm accounting performance. Using comprehensive compensation data for a large sample of firms, I find no statistically significant relation between the ratio of CEO-to-mean employee... View Details

Keywords: Pay Disparity; Pay Ratio; CEO Pay Ratio; Income Inequality; Executive Compensation; Wages; Equality and Inequality; Business Ventures; Performance

SSRN

Read Now

1996
Chapter

Commercial Technology: Imaginative Understanding of User Needs

By: D. A. Leonard and J. Doyle

Keywords: Information Technology; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Perception; Business Ventures

January 2002 (Revised April 2002)
Case

Martin Smith: May 2002

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

Martin Smith, a recent HBS graduate, has just begun working with a leveraged buyout firm. His first assignment is to evaluate three different deals and make recommendations to the partners. As he studies the deals, he realizes that each has different merits and... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Personal Development and Career; Financial Strategy; Partners and Partnerships

January 1995 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Pharmaceutical Industry in the 1990s, The

Describes the pharmaceutical industry in the 1990s, with particular emphasis on the mergers between American manufacturers and prescription-benefits managers (PBMs). PBMs are distributors with unprecedented access to information on patient and physician... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Distribution; Mergers and Acquisitions; Knowledge Management; Distribution Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

December 2004
Article

Old Rules and New Realities: Corporate Tax Policy in a Global Setting

By: Mihir A. Desai and James R. Hines Jr.

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Taxation; Policy; Business Ventures

SSRN

November 1997 (Revised February 1998)
Case

Finansol

By: James E. Austin, Roberto Gutierrez, Marc Labie and Enrique Ogliastri

Finansol, created to provide loans to micro-entrepreneurs, encountered considerable difficulties after rapidly growing to become the biggest micro-enterprise lender in Colombia. Major restructuring was required to rescue it. View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Microfinance; Crisis Management; Problems and Challenges; Social Enterprise; Financial Services Industry

October 2001 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Club Med (C): The "Re-New" Plan

By: Frances X. Frei, Daniel Rethazy and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

Supplements the (A) and (B) cases. View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Industry Structures; Competitive Advantage; Organizational Culture; Cost; Customer Satisfaction; Accommodations Industry; United States

September 2000 (Revised November 2000)
Case

GetConnected.com

By: Rajiv Lal, Nilanjana R. Pal and Jodi L. Prins

Describes the situation faced by GCI.com in April 2000, soon after raising $12 million for their new venture. After hiring an advertising agency, management needs to decide on the nature of the advertising campaign to target the right set of customers with the right... View Details

Keywords: Advertising Campaigns; Business Startups; Business or Company Management; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Corporate Strategy; Web Services Industry

May 1997 (Revised June 2003)
Case

Prestige Telephone Company

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

An independent regulated telephone company has established a computer services subsidiary that seems to remain unprofitable. Managers must determine whether it is profitable or not and consider changes in pricing or promotion that might improve profitability. A... View Details

Keywords: Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Profit; Cost vs Benefits; Business Subsidiaries; Telecommunications Industry

July 2016
Case

Cataumet Boats, Inc.

By: W. Earl Sasser and Mark Davis

Jaime Giancola, an MBA student, has recently completed an operations management course in which aggregate production planning (APP) was one of the topics. She believes that her family's business, Cataumet Boats, which her grandparents started and which her mother and... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Family Business; Production; Cost Management; Transportation; Customer Satisfaction

07 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Obama’s Clean Power Plan: Can Nuclear Power Beat the Global Threat of Coal?

receive credits for emission reductions related to new nuclear power plants - including both those under construction and those still in prototype stages. Harvard Business School Professor Joe Lassiter believes nuclear power is an... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities

15 May 2020
News

New Menu

the next 10 years deploying everything I've learned—the mistakes I've made, the experiences I've had—on making this world a better place." For Ive, that meant turning all his business know-how toward addressing climate change and other... View Details

01 Sep 2011
News

‘Green’ Trailblazers

Palo Alto, CA Business management software, solutions, and services Lionel Bony (MBA 2006) Rocky Mountain Institute Snowmass and Boulder, CO Nonprofit research and educational foundation aiming to foster efficient and sustainable use of... View Details

Keywords: Health, Social Assistance; Management; Architectural, Engineering, and Related Services; Professional Services

November 2000
Case

Dean Foods

By: Ray A. Goldberg, David E. Bell, Ann Leamon and Kim Slack

After 50 years of successful growth, mostly by acquisition, Dean Foods, the nation's second-largest dairy processor, has established a division to develop and market branded products nationally. Can a $4 billion company rely on a $300 million growth vehicle? Is this... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Divisions; Transition; Food; Goods and Commodities; Brands and Branding; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Product Development; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry

Prior to starting the Hardison and Stewart Oil Company, the entity that later became Union Oil, Stewart engaged in several unsuccessful business ventures in the oil industry. At Union Oil, however, Stewart... View Details

Keywords: Utilities & Energy

July 2023
Case

Honeycomb

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Kumba Sennaar

Honeycomb, an audio app enabling seniors to record stories and save family memories, suddenly draws interest from a younger user demographic. The co-founders consider pivoting to better serve this new user demographic. How should they think about strategy, brand, and... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Operations; Business Startups; Customer Focus and Relationships; Age; Brands and Branding; Technology Industry; United States