Publications

March 2019
Case

Mahindra Finance

By: V.G. Narayanan and Tanvi Deshpande

Mahindra Finance is a non-banking lender operating mainly in the rural and semi-urban areas of India. Set up in 1991, the company had grown to become a market leader with assets of $8.5 billion and a presence in 3,30,000 villages across India. Since most of Mahindra's... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Business Model; Volatility; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Credit; Financing and Loans; Service Delivery; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry; India

01 Apr 2000
News

Getting the Message

astronomical -- as much as $33 billion worldwide by 2004, according to Forrester Research, a consulting firm specializing in e-commerce. Industry observers are shy to predict just what the future of advertising will look like, but they... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

April 2006 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Best Buy Co., Inc.: Customer-Centricity

By: Rajiv Lal, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Irina Tarsis

With FY2005 sales of $27.3 billion, Richfield, Minn.-based Best Buy Co., Inc. was the leading retailer of consumer electronics, home-office products, and related services in North America. Its operations included the distinct store formats Best Buy, Future Shop in... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Service Operations; Business Earnings; Financial Crisis; Failure; Business Model; Leadership; Segmentation; Value Creation; Electronics Industry; United States; Canada; Mongolia

November 1985 (Revised August 1997)
Case

Harnischfeger Corp.

By: Krishna G. Palepu

Presents an analysis of Harnischfeger's quality of earnings, and the investment potential of the company's stock in light of the company's turnaround strategy. View Details

Keywords: Financial Condition; Revenue; Stock Shares; Profit; Economic Growth; Financial Reporting; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Safety; Utilities Industry

October 1991 (Revised September 1998)
Case

Maxwell Appliance Controls

By: Robert S. Kaplan

A profitable manufacturing division of a large company is looking for new ways to identify sources of productivity improvements. Led by its senior finance officer, an activity-based cost system is developed to identify activities performed for its highly varied product... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Management Teams; Quality; Performance Improvement; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges; Production; Manufacturing Industry

Find at Harvard

25 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 25

ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America Globalizing Latin American Beauty By: Jones, G. Abstract—This article discusses the growth over time of the beauty industry in Latin America and its bias towards celebrating whiter rather than... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

07 Dec 2015
Research & Ideas

The Rise of Personalized Entrepreneurial Finance and Other VC Trends

industries in different ways. Venture capital, for example, was once mostly reserved for institutional investors backed by endowments and pension funds. Today, it increasingly includes individual investors who are using technological... View Details

Keywords: Re: Josh Lerner; Financial Services; Banking

July 2014 (Revised October 2014)
Case

McKinsey & Co. - Protecting its Reputation (A)

By: Jay Lorsch and Emily McTague

On Tuesday March 15, 2011, all 1,200 global Partners of McKinsey & Co. gathered at the Gaylord National Hotel & Convention Center near Washington, DC for their annual Partners' conference. The atmosphere was tense as Partners, in addition to their normal agenda,... View Details

Keywords: Board; McKinsey; Consulting Firms; Risk; Risk Assessment; Partnerships; Insider Trading; Confidentiality; Personal Investing; Reputation; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Management Practices and Processes; Risk Management; Consulting Industry; United States; California

01 Apr 2014
First Look

First Look: April 1

centers. It uses a transfer-pricing system designed to account for interdependencies between profit centers and to induce coordination. Further, profit center managers are incentivized with own-level residual income measures. The use of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 1987 (Revised December 1996)
Case

Patten Corp.

By: Krishna G. Palepu

Forbes Magazine criticized the revenue recognition policy of Patten Corp. As a result, the company's stock price dropped by a significant amount. The students are asked to discuss if the criticism by Forbes is justified, and if not, what the company should do. View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Financial Statements; Budgets and Budgeting; Problems and Challenges; Financial Condition; Spending; Revenue; Planning; Quality; Stocks; Journalism and News Industry

01 Apr 2002
News

Breakthrough International Negotiation

managing conflict, and building momentum. The authors guide readers through detailed accounts of complex negotiations involving North Korea, Bosnia, the Middle East, and Kuwait, raising questions and providing commentary at critical... View Details

Keywords: Michael Watkins; Susan Rosegrant; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Publishing Industries (except Internet)

04 Mar 2014
First Look

First Look: March 4

weeks or days. Publisher's link: http://hbr.org/2014/03/manage-your-work-manage-your-life/ar/1 August 2013 International Journal of Industrial Organization Search Diversion and Platform Competition By: Hagiu, Andrei, and Bruno Jullien... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 May 2013
News

Looking Through Glass, Historically

creative years—Westmoreland was assigned 31 patents. At one time, an estimated 150,000 glassworkers were employed in Czechoslovakia, earning one-fifth of what their American counterparts did. Nevertheless, for many years, the American glassware View Details

Keywords: Visual arts; crafts; glass making; Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Manufacturing

10 Mar 2021
News

New Releases: Alumni and Faculty Books, Podcasts

Cash By Christopher Kawaja (MBA 2004) and Shannon Matthiesen Independently published Most of us know how to balance the immediate needs of a checking account or to invest long term for our retirement plans. But financial advice falls... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Publishing Industries (except Internet)

March 2009
Case

Bausch & Lomb, Inc.: Pressure to Perform (A)

By: Robert L. Simons

This case breaks the existing (and still available) Bausch & Lomb, Inc.: Pressure to Perform case into an (A) and a (B) case. The (A) case describes the revenue recognition concerns as of early-1994 and the organizational context within which the decisions were made. View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Revenue; Accounting; Management Practices and Processes; Situation or Environment; Earnings Management; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States

April 2023
Case

Strive Asset Management

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Lynn S. Paine and Aldo Sesia

Strive Asset Management, which launched in 2022, was actively targeting several leading U.S. companies in the upcoming 2023 proxy voting season to stop acquiescing to those large asset managers and other institutional shareholders who were pressing those companies to... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Shareholder Activism; Asset Management; Investment Funds; Corporate Governance; Risk Management; Climate Change; Diversity; Equity; Financial Services Industry; United States