Publications

31 Jan 2024
Blog Post

Career Advice from the Guests of the HBS Climate Rising Podcast

and the choices they made that helped get them where they are today. In addition, be sure to also network outside of your target industry to get exposure to more perspectives and opportunities. Climate... View Details

October 2022
Case

Beam Dental (A)

By: Rembrand Koning and Alicia Dadlani

In May 2014, Alex Frommeyer, cofounder and CEO of Kentucky-based Beam Dental, a seed-stage startup that developed connected toothbrushes that tracked brushing habits, needed to decide which strategy to pitch to a venture capital firm. The first pitch deck played to the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Presentations; Product Development; Insurance Industry; United States; Kentucky; Ohio

March 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

CalPERS' Emerging Equity Markets Principles

By: Robert G. Eccles and Aldo Sesia

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CaIPERS)—the largest public pension fund in the U.S.—had adopted a new principles-based approach to investing in emerging market equities in November 2007. Previously, CalPERS internal and external money managers were... View Details

Keywords: Values and Beliefs; Investment Return; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Emerging Markets; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Value; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; China; California

April 2011 (Revised May 2012)
Case

City Year: The Journey

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and James Weber

Throughout its first two decades, City Year, a non-profit organization, was dedicated to recruiting young adults to give a year of public service. It had passed through several growth phases but by 2010 a new challenge, and opportunity, had arisen when City Year and... View Details

Keywords: Education; Service Operations; Nonprofit Organizations; Growth and Development Strategy; Performance Efficiency; Resource Allocation

March 2007 (Revised May 2012)
Case

PRG-Schultz International

By: Paul W. Marshall and James Weber

PRG-Schultz will run out of cash within a couple of months unless the new CEO can reduce costs and restructure the company's debt. PRG was the dominant market leader in the audit recovery industry. The industry consisted of firms which employed accounting professionals... View Details

Keywords: History; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Restructuring; Cost Management; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Borrowing and Debt; Accounting Audits; Accounting Industry

28 May 2013
First Look

First Look: May 28

fund. Purchase this case: http://hbr.org/search/813157-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 113-120 NovaStar Financial: A Short Seller's Battle The NovaStar case describes the challenges faced by short seller Marc Cohodes of View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2016 (Revised October 2016)
Case

Saudi Aramco and Corporate Venture Capital

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Nathaniel Burbank

Saudi Aramco launched an internal venture capital arm in 2011, which promptly became the world's largest investor in energy related startups. In choosing to proceed, the company's New Business Development unit (NPD) wrestled with a number of challenges. How should the... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Energy Industry; Saudi Arabia

October 2010 (Revised June 2014)
Case

Volkswagen do Brasil: Driving Strategy with the Balanced Scorecard

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

A new management team at VW do Brazil develops and deploys a strategy map and Balanced Scorecard to accomplish a turnaround and cultural change after eight consecutive years of financial losses and market share declines. The team uses the strategy map to align... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Developing Countries and Economies; Management Teams; Leadership; Balanced Scorecard; Strategic Planning; Balance and Stability; Motivation and Incentives; Communication Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Auto Industry; Brazil; Germany

December 2018 (Revised May 2021)
Background Note

Making UK Energy Smarter

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

This case describes the history of the United Kingdom's domestic energy industry and the country's efforts to create a more competitive, greener, and distributed power sector. On July 24, 2017, the United Kingdom government and the industry regulator, the Office of Gas... View Details

Web

How HBS Financial Aid Can Help You Meet the Cost of Your MBA - MBA

back 50% of our students qualify for a need-based scholarship, on average it’s worth $92,000 over 2 years Students can apply to get complementary fellowship funds on top of an... View Details

24 Apr 2023
HBS Case

What Does It Take to Build as Much Buzz as Booze? Inside the Epic Challenge of Cannabis-Infused Drinks

Legalization turned cannabis into a multibillion-dollar industry seemingly overnight, but this hot new market has had more—and more unusual—growing pains than most. Many experts predict significant market expansion ahead as more states... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Consumer Products; Food & Beverage

March 2015 (Revised February 2022)
Supplement

CV Ingenuity (B): Epilogue

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Andrew Otazo

Duke Rohlen used a lea-nfunding, iconoclastic strategy for his start up for a drug eluding balloon for peripheral artery disease. His giant competitors were first movers. Did Duke obtain the funding he sought? How did his DEB fare versus that of his competitors? The... View Details

June 2002 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Studio, The

By: Walter J. Salmon and Wendy Carter

The founders and proprietors of a successful 23-year old women's apparel store are facing a critical issue. Can they grow by adding a second store that will not compete with their existing operation? If so, where should it be located, what managerial changes are... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Growth and Maturation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry

October 2022
Case

Lyra Health: Transforming Mental Health

By: Rembrand Koning and Nicole Keller

In January 2022, Lyra Health was deciding between several different alternatives to grow the business. Founded in 2015, Lyra Health, was a digital mental health platform that combined technology with human therapists and coaches to deliver high quality mental health... View Details

Keywords: Mental Health; Health Care and Treatment; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Customer Value and Value Chain; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Health Industry; Health Industry; San Francisco

October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Project Maji: Pricing Water in Sub-Saharan Africa

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Esel Çekin

In July 2021, Sunil Lalvani, founder and CEO of Project Maji, a non-profit social enterprise headquartered in Dubai that had already provided sustainable, clean water solutions to 80,000 people living in rural communities across Ghana and Kenya, was facing an important... View Details

Keywords: Water; Pricing; Nonprofit Organizations; Projects; Price; Decision Making; Social Enterprise; Growth and Development Strategy; Equity; Green Technology; Social and Collaborative Networks; Africa; Dubai

September 2019 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Blenheim Chalcot

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In April 2019, Manoj Badale and Charles Mindenhall, co-founders of Blenheim Chalcot, were contemplating how they might go about developing their portfolio. Since founding the company as an internet consultancy called netdecisions in 1998, Badale and Mindenhall had... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; United Kingdom; United States; India

22 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

The Most Important Management Trends of the (Still Young) Twenty-First Century

survivors, the future of e-commerce and other info tech industries seemed perilous. BusinessWeek.com recently ranked Amazon #6 in its annual list of most innovative companies;... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

06 Jan 2010
What Do You Think?

Is a Stringent Climate Change Agreement a Pot of Gold?

conversion of inventions into commercially viable innovation. As Allen Roberts points out, " lacking as we do a worthwhile VC industry the history of the last 100 years... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Energy; Utilities

March 2003 (Revised November 2009)
Case

Hudson Manufacturing Company

By: Paul A. Gompers and Vanessa del Valle Broussard

Concerns the decision by Brett Keith and Owen Colligan to purchase Hudson Manufacturing, a maker of heaters and air filtration units for the military. Keith and Colligan have organized a search fund and identified Hudson as a potential buyout. The decline in the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment; Pollutants; Industrial Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry