Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,444)
- Faculty Publications (228)
- September 2004 (Revised February 2007)
- Case
Hedging Currency Risks at AIFS
By: Mihir A. Desai, Vincent Dessain and Anders Sjoman
The American Institute for Foreign Studies (AIFS) organizes study abroad programs and cultural exchanges for American students. The firm's revenues are mainly in U.S. dollars, but most of its costs are in eurodollars and British pounds. The company's controllers review... View Details
- July 2004 (Revised January 2007)
- Case
H&R Block and "Everyday Financial Services"
By: Peter Tufano and Daniel Schneider
H&R Block, the U.S. market leader in tax preparation services, must decide whether to offer financial services to its low-income clients. H&R Block is facing increased competition from branded and nonbranded tax preparers, and the number of returns prepared by the... View Details
- March 2004 (Revised October 2013)
- Case
Innocents Abroad: Currencies and International Stock Returns
By: Mihir A. Desai, Kathleen Luchs, Elizabeth A. Meyer and Mark Veblen
What do international stocks contribute to the portfolio of a U.S. investor? How do currencies interact with stock price movements in determining the benefits of international diversification? This case helps students compare the risks and returns of foreign stock... View Details
Keywords: Diversification; International CAPM; CAPM; Home Bias; Currency Risk; Exchange Rate Risk; International Stock Market Returns; United States; Currency Exchange Rate; Stocks; Financial Markets; International Finance; Investment Return; Currency; Risk and Uncertainty; Emerging Markets; Investment Portfolio; Financial Services Industry; United States; Australia; Canada; China; Germany; India; Japan; United Kingdom
- March 2004 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Shurgard Self-Storage: Expansion to Europe
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Indra Reinbergs
Shurgard, a U.S.-based firm that rents storage facilities to consumers and small businesses, is considering financing options for rapid expansion of its European operations. Five years after entering Europe, Shurgard Europe has opened 17 facilities in Belgium, France,... View Details
- December 2003 (Revised April 2004)
- Case
Sherif Mityas at A.T. Kearney (A): Negotiating a Client Service Predicament
By: Ashish Nanda
Sherif Mityas, recently promoted as project manager at A.T. Kearney, faced a client service challenge in his very first project experience. Mityas had been working closely for six weeks with the management team of the U.S. subsidiary of a Japan-headquartered consumer... View Details
- Article
Why Hospitals Don't Learn from Failures: Organizational and Psychological Dynamics That Inhibit System Change
By: A. Tucker and A. Edmondson
The importance of hospitals learning from their failures hardly needs to be stated. Not only are matters of life and death at stake on a daily basis, but also an increasing number of U.S. hospitals are operating in the red. This article reports on in-depth qualitative... View Details
- July 2003 (Revised April 2005)
- Case
Branding Citigroup's Consumer Business
By: Rohit Deshpande and Carin-Isabel Knoop
In Spring 1998, Citicorp and Travelers merged to create a financial powerhouse that united the bank with Travelers' consumer finance and brokerage businesses, including Salomon Smith Barney and Primerica. It was the first U.S. financial services company to combine... View Details
- March 2003 (Revised October 2003)
- Case
Campbell Soup Company: Transforming for the 21st Century
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Jamie Ladge
In July 2001, Campbell Soup's newly appointed CEO, Douglas R. Conant, addressed a group of Wall Street analysts and unveiled his plan to kick-start growth. His plan called for organizational renewal and revitalization, redesign of core customer-facing processes... View Details
- March 2003 (Revised August 2005)
- Case
National Parks Conservation Association
By: Forest L. Reinhardt and Briana Huntsberger
The National Parks Conservation Association seeks to help the U.S. National Park Service increase its efficiency by incorporating principles of business management so that American national parks will be better managed. Its efforts raise fundamental questions about the... View Details
- February 2003 (Revised January 2006)
- Case
AIT Group Plc
By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
A U.S. venture capital firm has just learned that the deal structure for purchasing an illiquid U.K. software firm is unacceptable to institutional investors. The group must decide if it still wants to go through with the deal. This decision hinges on whether the... View Details
- October 2002 (Revised December 2003)
- Case
eShip-4U
By: Roy D. Shapiro and Timothy M. Laseter
eShip is a small Israeli start-up with a potentially exciting new concept for the residential package-delivery value chain--the Automatic Delivery Machine (ADM). Much like today's ubiquitous ATMs, ADMs would allow consumers to have parcels delivered to a nearby ADM... View Details
- September 2002 (Revised November 2002)
- Case
Transformation at the IRS
By: Amy C. Edmondson, Frances X. Frei and Corey B. Hajim
Describes the service transformation occurring at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Plagued by a history of poor service, enormous complexity, and an insular employee base, the 100,000-person organization grapples with a turnaround process that attempts to change... View Details
- June 2002 (Revised July 2002)
- Case
NTT DoCoMo: Marketing i-mode
By: Youngme E. Moon
i-mode is a wireless Internet service offered in Japan by NTT DoCoMo. In just three years, the service has won over 30 million subscribers and achieved a 60% share of Japan's mobile Internet market, making it the most successful mobile data service in the world. It is... View Details
- April 2002 (Revised March 2006)
- Background Note
Economics of Retail Banking Note
By: Frances X. Frei and Dennis Campbell
Explains the financial operations of retail banking, highlighting profitability challenges facing the industry. For U.S. banks, it is quite common for more than half of the customer base to be unprofitable and to have relatively few customers make up the vast majority... View Details
Keywords: Customers; Economics; Cost; Banks and Banking; Profit; Revenue; Service Operations; Banking Industry; United States
- January 2002 (Revised January 2003)
- Case
Finova Group, Inc. (A), The
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Perry Fagan
Finova Group, a $14 billion commercial finance company, filed for Chapter 11 in early March 2001, in what was one of the largest U.S. bankruptcy filings of all time and the largest corporate bond default since the Great Depression. While in Chapter 11, Finova became... View Details
- January 2002 (Revised April 2002)
- Case
Space Data Corporation
By: Alan D. MacCormack and Jay Wynn
Space Data Corp. plans to partner with the U.S. National Weather Service to place transceivers on weather balloons and thereby create a national mobile communications network. The company is in the late development stages and is planning to launch a regional test that... View Details
- December 2001
- Case
SinoSecurities.com
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Fred Young
Describes a complex software project that has run into difficulties. Students must decide whether to press forward, stop the project, or reconfigure it. Illustrates many of the similarities to challenges facing U.S. and Chinese companies in this difficult arena. View Details
- September 2001 (Revised October 2002)
- Case
Virgin Group, The: Filling in the Value Gap
By: Frances X. Frei, Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar and Corey B. Hajim
Chronicles the successes and failures of the Virgin Group. By examining these examples, students discover attributes of Virgin's overall service concept, which, at its core, competes on quality rather than on price. Students are challenged to consider how Virgin might... View Details
- February 2001 (Revised January 2002)
- Case
Tracmail
By: Paul W. Marshall, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Suma Raju
Tracmail, an online customer service company based in India, is trying to handle support services (e-mail and chat) for companies worldwide. In its quest to break into global markets, Tracmail is contemplating a joint venture with a U.S. call center. Tracmail is also... View Details
- October 2000 (Revised February 2007)
- Case
Harvard Management Company and Inflation-Protected Bonds, The
By: Luis M. Viceira
In March 2000, the board of The Harvard Management Co. (HMC) approved significant changes in the policy portfolio determining the long-run allocation policy of the Harvard University endowment. These changes included a sharp reduction of the allocation to U.S. equities... View Details