Publications

29 Nov 2004
Research & Ideas

Caves, Clusters, and Weak Ties: The Six Degrees World of Inventors

Six degrees of separation seems to work well for B-list actors—but does it have anything to say about innovation and business? HBS associate professor Lee Fleming believes it does, and his work looks... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Publishing

January 2021
Supplement

mPharma (B)

By: Rembrand Koning, John D. Macomber, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal

mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Health; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Ghana

Career Coach

Zoe Sun

Zoe wants to help students, particularly international students who require visa sponsorship, understand opportunities available in the private equity industry and in finance industry more broadly. Having worked in Asia-focused private... View Details

2018
Working Paper

Diagnostic Bubbles

By: Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli, Spencer Yongwook Kwon and Andrei Shleifer

We introduce diagnostic expectations into a standard setting of price formation in which investors learn about the fundamental value of an asset and trade it. We study the interaction of diagnostic expectations with two well-known mechanisms: learning from prices and... View Details

Keywords: Bubbles; Price Bubble; Mathematical Methods

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October 2019
Case

Kaspi.kz IPO

By: Victoria Ivashina and Esel Çekin

This case follows Kaspi.kz, a private equity (Baring Vostok) co-owned retail bank in Central Asia that evolved into a fintech, payments and e-commerce company. It provides insights into private equity financing, portfolio company management, and initial public offering... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Private Equity; Initial Public Offering; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Central Asia

September 2013 (Revised June 2014)
Case

Rana Plaza: Workplace Safety In Bangladesh (A)

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

On April 24, 2013 the Rana Plaza factory building collapsed in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Over 1,100 people were killed in the worst industrial accident since the Union Carbide plant gas leak in Bhopal, India. Most of the victims worked for garment factories,... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Public Health; Safety; Workplace; Human Rights; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Bangladesh

January 2021
Case

mPharma (A)

By: Rembrand Koning, John D. Macomber, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal

mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Acquisition; Health; Business Model; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Ghana

February 2001 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Warnaco Group, Inc. (A)

By: David F. Hawkins

Warnaco's history of nonrecurring charges is traced from 1990 through 2000 along with the stock market and security analysts' response to these charges. Teaching Purpose: To expose students to the accounting for a variety of new recurring accounting items. View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Financial Reporting; Restructuring; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

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01 Jul 2010
News

Two cheers for Sarbanes-Oxley

February 2008
Supplement

EFI, Inc. (C)

By: David B. Godes and Lauren Barley

This is a follow-on case to EFI, Inc. (A) and (B). It reports on the sales force's response to the new plan and provides some data as to their performance in the quarters immediately following the implementation of the new plan. View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Information Technology Industry

November 2013 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Valuing Yahoo! in 2013

By: Luis M. Viceira and Atul Khosla

In late July 2013, Danielle Engle, Managing Director of Clairemont Capital, was contemplating what to do about a large investment her fund had in the stock of Yahoo! Inc. In mid-2012, Clairemont had invested nearly $75M in Yahoo! after the tech company settled a highly... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Decision Making; Investment Activism; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Valuation

October 2008 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Apple's Core

By: Noam T. Wasserman

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are best friends who enjoy pulling pranks together and talking about electronics. After several small collaborations, Jobs pitches Wozniak on starting a company together to sell computers based on Wozniak's design for a personal computer.... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Equity; Managerial Roles; Partners and Partnerships; Conflict Management

March 2019 (Revised June 2019)
Supplement

Gender and Free Speech at Google (C)

By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Sarah Mehta

This case reveals Google’s response to a list of employee demands aiming to combat sexual misconduct in the workplace. This case should accompany the (A) and (B) cases, “Gender and Free Speech at Google” (318-085) and (319-085). View Details

Keywords: Free Speech; Ethnicity; Gender; Race; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Labor; Employment; Lawsuits and Litigation; Technology Industry; United States; California

March 2002 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Price of Light, The: Privatization, Regulation and Valuation in Brazil

Asks students to produce a valuation for Rio Light, a Brazilian power company that is state owned and to be sold in March 1996. If successful, the privatization would bring in over $2 billion to the Brazilian treasury. But success was far from assured. Members of the... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Energy Generation; Privatization; Corporate Governance; Energy Industry; Brazil

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July 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Clair

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Marcos Quirno

Clair was founded with a simple mission: to expedite America’s workers access to their hard-earned wages. In the headwinds of the COVID-19 pandemic, the startup had successfully raised a seed round of $4.5 million, and within two years the earned wage access (EWA)... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Ewa; Lending; Technology; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Social Enterprise; Business Strategy; Business Model; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital; Profit; Financial Services Industry; United States

28 Jan 2025
Video

The business leaders leading Europe’s green transition

05 May 2020
Video

Narayana Murthy

Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of the India-based software company Infosys, explains his belief that compassionate capitalism is the best solution to poverty, and makes the case for a broad stakeholder view of... View Details

Video

Adib AlZamil

Adib AlZamil, CEO of Zamil Group Holding Company, explains how the group's governance was shared among his siblings and relates how they passed down leadership responsibilities from one generation to the next. View Details

Summer 2023
Article

(Un)principled Agents: Monitoring Loyalty after the End of the Royal African Company Monopoly

By: Anne Ruderman and Marlous van Waijenburg

The revocation of the Royal African Company's monopoly in 1698 inaugurated a transformation of the transatlantic slave trade. While the RAC’s exit from the slave trade has received scholarly attention, little is known about the company’s response to the loss of its... View Details

Keywords: Slavery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business History; Monopoly; History; Business and Government Relations

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