Publications

January 2003 (Revised March 2003)
Case

Southwest Airlines 2002: An Industry Under Siege

By: James L. Heskett

The company's management is faced with long-term questions regarding the rate and manner of growth in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and general industry malaise. View Details

Keywords: Cost; Product; Risk and Uncertainty; Growth and Development; Air Transportation Industry

09 Jan 2012
News

Location, Location, Location: The Strategy of Place

07 Nov 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Business and Sustainability: New Business History Perspectives

Keywords: by Ann-Kristin Bergquist

March 2024
Case

East Rock Capital: 'Talent Is the Best Asset Class'

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott and Izzy Yeoh

Adam Shapiro and Graham Duncan launched East Rock Capital, LLC in 2006 with a seed investment from Stuart Miller, executive chairman of Lennar Corporation. East Rock managed long-term assets for high-net-worth families, primarily working with external managers who had... View Details

Keywords: Alternative Assets; Hiring; HNW Products And Services; Recruiting; Hedge Funds; Wealth Management; Asset Management; Private Equity; Financial Institutions; Marketing Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Financial Services Industry; United States

February 2023 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk

By: Andy Wu and Goran Calic

Late afternoon on Friday, October 27th, 2022, Elon Musk was the center of attention at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. The night before, Musk officially took the company private and became Twitter’s majority shareholder, finally ending a months-long acquisition... View Details

Keywords: Elon Musk; Twitter; Acquisition; Revenue; Advertising; Social Media; Business or Company Management; Public Opinion; Job Cuts and Outsourcing

September 2012 (Revised February 2013)
Case

micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India

By: William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

mHS is a social enterprise for the provision of affordable housing in India. After India's microfinance industry collapses, mHS needs to reposition itself for continued operations and long-term growth. View Details

Keywords: India; Loans; Development; Micro Finance; Entrepreneurship; Housing; Social Enterprise; Poverty; India

March 2018
Article

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

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

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: Capability; Short-termism; System Dynamics; Tipping Point; Business or Company Management; Earnings Management; Resource Allocation

Find at Harvard

13 Feb 2011
News

Long live fixed-rate 30-year mortgages!

16 Sep 2020
Blog Post

Turning a Moment into a Movement: How the Anti-Racism Fund Co-Founders are Fighting Racism and Encouraging Other Companies to Do Their Part

around issues of racism in the US and make long-term change. The team transformed the Anti-Racism Fund GoFundMe project into a nonprofit organization, ARF, and then set off to make that organization the best it could be. The Future of ARF... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

September 1992 (Revised September 2004)
Background Note

Liabilities and Time

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

An introduction to accounting for liabilities. Both current liabilities and long-term debts are described, and illustrations of bond interest calculations and financial reporting formats are included. View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Legal Liability

30 Nov 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Short-Termism, Shareholder Payouts, and Investment in the EU

Keywords: by Jesse M. Fried and Charles C.Y. Wang

20 Jun 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover: Lessons in Strategic Change

Keywords: Re: Andy Wu; Technology

The Value of Diversification, with Paolo Sodini

What is the value of diversification in long-term asset management? Luis M. Viceira, Professor at the Harvard Business School. Paolo Sodini, Professor of Finance at Stockholm School of Economics. View Details

March 2020 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Generation Investment Management

By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Sarah Mehta

By January 2020, sustainable investment firm Generation Investment Management (Generation), founded in London in 2004, had grown from a shared vision among seven founders to a 90-person firm managing $27 billion in public and private equity. Throughout its history,... View Details

October 2014 (Revised September 2017)
Case

The National Football League and Brain Injuries

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Matthew G. Preble

The National Football League (NFL) was both the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. and a major economic entity, taking in roughly $10 billion a year in revenue. However through the early twenty-first century, an increased understanding of the long-term effects of... View Details

Keywords: Employee Safety; Safety; Employees; Sports; Health; Ethics; Sports Industry; United States

March 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Case

Layoffs in the Tech Industry: 2022–2023

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Marilyn Morgan Westner

This case examines the mass layoffs that swept through the tech industry (2022-2023) through the lens of four companies: Twitter, Stripe, Meta, and Google. How these companies implemented workforce change through mass layoffs raises critical questions applicable beyond... View Details

Keywords: Layoffs; Human Resource Management; Workforce Reductions; Ethics; Human Resources; Management; Values and Beliefs; Employee Relationship Management; Resignation and Termination; Compensation and Benefits; Technology Industry; United States; United Kingdom

Research Summary

Customer Management in Business-to-Business Markets

By: Das Narayandas

Das Narayandas is engaged in ongoing research on vendor firms' management of long-term customer relationships. The initial phase of his research involved identifying vendors that stood to benefit from long-term relationships with select sets of customers and... View Details

November 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Summa Equity: Building Purpose-Driven Organizations

By: George Serafeim

In 2015, Reynir Indahl left top Nordic private equity firm Altor Equity Partners to found Summa Equity (Summa). After long contemplation following the financial crisis, Indahl was convinced the financial system was producing negative externalities and that the current... View Details

July 2015 (Revised March 2016)
Teaching Note

Uber and Stakeholders: Managing a New Way of Riding

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Daniel Fox

This case provides a vehicle to analyze stakeholder relations as a company grows, particularly in the context of new business models that challenge established industries. It introduces the dilemmas posed by rapid growth, new technologies, regulatory uncertainty, and... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business or Company Management; Entrepreneurship; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Innovation and Invention; Transportation Industry