Publications

September 2009 (Revised September 2010)
Case

Avid Radiopharmaceuticals and Lighthouse Capital Partners

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Ann Leamon

In fall 2008, a venture lender must decide whether to make a loan to Avid, a small but promising venture-backed life sciences firm. In reviewing her proposal, Cristy Barnes considers the company's characteristics and how they differ from a typical investment. At the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Financing and Loans; Investment; Financial Services Industry; Health Industry

06 Dec 2013
News

Valley of good works

January 2023
Case

Kavnia Coffee

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Kumba Sennaar, Sarah Mehta and Jiyoon Han

Case on a coffee hardware startup where a series of experiments and pivots led founder to conclude that the venture was no longer viable. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Operations; Business Startups; Failure; Business Exit or Shutdown; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

October 2018 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Safecast: Bootstrapping Human Capital to Big Data

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephanie Marton

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46pm, a 9.1-on-the-Richter-scale, six-minute long earthquake unleashed a tsunami that ravaged the Tohoku region of Japan, damaging the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power facility and releasing sufficient radioactive material into the air and ocean... View Details

11 Feb 2022
News

Get to Know Past NVC Winners: Vaxess

Hyunjin Kim

Hyunjin Kim is a doctoral candidate in the Strategy unit at Harvard Business School. Her research explores how the increased availability of... View Details

Keywords: information technology industry; internet; energy; retailing

May 1998 (Revised October 1998)
Case

Komatsu and Dresser: Putting Two Plus Two Together

By: Ashish Nanda

In 1987, Komatsu Ltd., looking to expand its presence in the U.S. earth-moving equipment (EME) industry, enters into a 50-50 joint venture with Dresser. The management of the Komatsu Dresser joint venture faces difficulty in bringing the two halves together. The rift... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Machinery and Machining; Restructuring; Joint Ventures; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Construction Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Japan; United States

December 2002 (Revised December 2017)
Background Note

Teaching Old Companies New Tricks: The Challenge of Managing New Streams Within the Mainstream

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Describes the challenge of starting new ventures or new activities in established companies, especially if they diverge from the mainstream of ongoing commitments. Fledgling ventures require a different kind of management that acknowledges their uncertainty, intensity,... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Teaching; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Organizations; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Corporate Strategy

10 May 2017
Research & Ideas

Amazon Web Services Changed the Way VCs Fund Startups

to recent research. Enter the era of “spray and pray,” where venture firms over the last decade have seeded more firms than previously, but with less upfront investment of time and money. As someone who teaches entrepreneurial finance,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Banking; Financial Services; Information Technology

02 Mar 2017
News

Short Termism: Steady On Now

Article

Sizing Up Entrepreneurial Potential: Gender Differences in Communication and Investor Perceptions of Long-Term Growth and Scalability

By: Laura Huang, Priyanka D. Joshi, Cheryl J. Wakslak and Andy Wu

Female entrepreneurs have been found to face disadvantages as compared with male entrepreneurs, especially in acquiring the financial resources they need to sustain and grow their ventures. Across three studies, we examine how disparities in funding outcomes may be due... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Finance; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Communication; Perception

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15 Mar 2022
News

Get to Know Past NVC Winners: RapidSOS

November 1994 (Revised December 1995)
Case

Scripps Research Institute, The: November 1993 (Abridged)

By: Josh Lerner

In November 1993, Dr. Richard Lerner, president of the Scripps Research Institute, faces the challenge of maintaining his organization's financial and scientific vitality. A proposed cooperative venture with Sandoz has attracted considerable criticism. Meanwhile, a new... View Details

Keywords: Joint Ventures; Financing and Loans; Policy; Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Problems and Challenges; Research; Nonprofit Organizations

Article

Multilateral Matching

By: John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers

We introduce a matching model in which agents engage in joint ventures via multilateral contracts. This approach allows us to consider production complementarities previously outside the scope of matching theory. We show analogues of the first and second welfare... View Details

Keywords: Matching; Stability; Competitive Equilibrium; Core; Networks; Competition; Joint Ventures; Balance and Stability; Groups and Teams; Entrepreneurship

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Teaching Interest

Managing Corporate Entrepreneurship

Professors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

To stay on top, corporations must learn to continuously create, grow, and profit from completely new ways of doing business. They must simultaneously pursue both excellence in their existing business and... View Details

July 2003 (Revised September 2003)
Case

Refinancing of Shanghai General Motors (A), The

By: Mihir A. Desai and Mark Veblen

The CFO of General Motors' joint venture in Shanghai, Shanghai General Motors (SGM), wants to refinance almost $900 million of project finance it raised to begin operations. The highest priority is improving the terms of the financing with regard to costs and specific... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Multinational Firms and Management; Joint Ventures; Financing and Loans; Auto Industry; Shanghai