Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,592)
- Faculty Publications (374)
- April 2015 (Revised April 2022)
- Case
Bankruptcy in the City of Detroit
By: Stuart Gilson, Kristin Mugford and Annelena Lobb
The June 2013 bankruptcy of the city of Detroit, Michigan was, at the time, the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. Detroit had struggled for years with a weakening tax base, high unemployment, a heavy debt load and increasing retiree costs. These... View Details
Keywords: Chapter 9; Chapter 11; Bankruptcy; Municipal Finance; Restructuring; Financial Liquidity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; City; Government Administration; Public Sector; Financial Crisis; Financial Management; Failure; Labor Unions; Urban Development; Budgets and Budgeting; Decision Making; Demographics; Economics; Finance; Public Administration Industry; Michigan; Detroit
- March 2015
- Case
BOLT: Seed Venture Capital Firm
By: William A. Sahlman and Robert F. White
BOLT is a different kind of seed venture capital firm built to serve the needs of early-stage startups at the intersection of hardware and software.
In the past decade, the cost of entrepreneurial experimentation has dropped dramatically, particularly in web... View Details
In the past decade, the cost of entrepreneurial experimentation has dropped dramatically, particularly in web... View Details
- February 2015 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
AltSchool: School Reimagined
By: John J-H Kim, Kyla Wilkes and Christine S. An
Max Ventilla and his team launches in 2013 AltSchool, a new network of tech-savvy independent K-8 "micro-schools." AltSchool is born out of Ventilla's frustration with the education options available for his young daughter. During his search, Ventilla comes to the... View Details
Keywords: Education Technology; School Models; Product Development; Entrepreneurship; Talent Development And Retention; Social Impact Investment; Information Technology; Business Model; Education; Business Startups; Customization and Personalization; Growth and Development Strategy; Education Industry; United States
- January 2015
- Case
Marie Trellu-Kane at Unis-Cité: Establishing Youth Service in France
By: Julie Battilana, Michel Anteby and Anne-Claire Pache
Marie Trellu-Kane is trying to decide how Unis-Cité should respond to French President Jacques Chirac's announcement in 2005 of a new national voluntary civil service program. Since 1994, Trellu-Kane and her co-founders had been creating and overseeing a civil service... View Details
- January 2015 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)
By: George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Shannon Gombos
The sustainable investing market was a recent phenomenon in the first decade of the 21st century. However, an increasing number of investors began to integrated Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues in investment decisions. At Barclays Capital, Omar Selim... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; ESG; Social Business; Entrepreneurs; Scaling; Emerging Market Entrepreneurship; Not For Profit; Entrepreneurial Finance; Mentoring; Business Networks; Hybrid Nonprofit Funding; Investing; Investment Management; Asset Management; Values and Beliefs; Religion; Personal Development and Career; Business Startups; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry; Europe; Germany; United Kingdom
- January 2015 (Revised April 2015)
- Case
Zeal: Launching Personalized and Social Learning
By: John J-H Kim and Christine S. An
Set in 2014, this case follows John Danner and his team at Zeal as they consider their product development strategy. In February 2013, serial entrepreneurs John Danner and Sanjay Noronha co-found Zeal, an education technology start up providing a web-based, mobile... View Details
- December 2014 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Codecademy: Monetizing a Movement?
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Lisa C. Mazzanti
Codecademy, an open-platform, online community for learning computer programming, launched in 2011. By 2014, the company had raised a total of $12.5 million in funding and was, on many fronts, an overwhelming success. However, there were still no revenues. The founders... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Startup Management; Technology; Computer Programming; Coding; Online Education; Monetization; Online Communities; Marketplaces; Internet and the Web; Education; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Technology Industry; Education Industry
- November 2014
- Case
BRAC in 2014
By: Tarun Khanna, Rachna Tahilyani, Reeti Roy and Aldo Sesia
In the early 1970s BRAC was a startup nongovernmental organization (NGO) working in Bangladesh. By 2014, it was the world's largest NGO. It had a strong presence in Bangladesh and had begun to deliver social development programs in nine other countries. Its founder and... View Details
- August 2014
- Article
What Makes Annuitization More Appealing?
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and Stephen P. Zeldes
We conduct and analyze two large surveys of hypothetical annuitization choices. We find that allowing individuals to annuitize a fraction of their wealth increases annuitization relative to a situation where annuitization is an "all or nothing" decision. Very few... View Details
- July 2014
- Teaching Note
Homestrings, Inc.: Diaspora-Based Financing and the Crowd Funding of Development
By: William R. Kerr and Penelope Rossano
- June 2014 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Kathy Giusti and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Joshua D. Margolis and Matthew G. Preble
What do you do when your rising professional career is cut short by an unexpected cancer diagnosis? Kathy Giusti shifted careers, built a new organization that transformed how cancer research is done, and now faces the challenge of sustaining the organization and its... View Details
Keywords: Philanthropy; Philanthropy Funding; Entrepreneurship; Health Care; Management Styles; Personalized Medicine; Health Care Outcomes; Cancer; Cancer Care In The U.S.; Personal Care; Leadership; Leading Change; Social Entrepreneurship; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health Care and Treatment; Leadership Style; Management Style; Management Skills; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Health; Health Industry; United States; Canada; Spain
- June 2014 (Revised January 2017)
- Case
Focus Financial Partners and the U.S. RIA Industry in 2014
By: Luis Viceira and Emily A. Chien
In the Spring of 2014, Rudy Adolf, CEO and founder of Focus Financial, and the two other co-founders of the firm are considering alternative growth strategies to solidify Focus Financial's position as a leading aggregator of independent wealth management firms in the... View Details
- 2014
- Chapter
Who Uses the Roth 401(k), and How Do They Use It?
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Using administrative data from twelve companies that added a Roth 401(k) option between 2006 and 2010, we describe the characteristics of Roth contributions. Approximately one year after the Roth is introduced, 9% of 401(k) participants have positive Roth balances.... View Details
- March 2014 (Revised February 2015)
- Case
Loki Capital Management
By: Joseph B. Fuller, Shikhar Ghosh and Matthew Preble
In December 2013, Michael Kane was preparing to launch his start-up's first hedge fund. While pleased with the development of the business, he wanted to address a few lingering issues before going any further. He debated whether or not to fire the company's chief... View Details
- March 2014 (Revised September 2015)
- Case
ACA and the Union Bank Acquisition
By: Josh Lerner and Nathaniel Burbank
Okey Enelamah is the CEO of the African Capital Alliance (ACA), a private equity firm based in Nigeria. ACA has spent more than a year arranging a $500 million consortium bid to acquire and recapitalize Union Bank, Nigeria's sixth largest bank. Several weeks before the... View Details
- 11 Mar 2014
- Other Presentation
The Looming Challenge of U.S. Competitiveness
Professor Porter evaluated US competitiveness and its implications for Philadelphia. Host Dr. Mercedes Delgado, Assistant Professor of Strategic Management within the Fox School of Business, is a co-researcher on Professor Porter's work on innovation clusters and... View Details
- 11 Mar 2014
- Interview
The Looming Challenges of US Competitiveness: Implications for Philadelphia
The third installment of the Fox School's Innovation Leadership Speaker Series featured Professor Michael E. Porter, William Lawrence University Professor, Harvard Business School. Dr. Porter addressed the factors driving innovation and competitiveness in a given... View Details
- February 2014
- Background Note
Raising Startup Capital
By: Jeffrey Bussgang
Entrepreneurs typically focus their full energies on business-building. But raising capital is a core part of building a valuable business. Developing expertise in raising capital is more than a necessary evil, it is a competitive weapon. Master it and you will be in a... View Details
Keywords: Fund Raising; Venture Capital Term Sheet; Venture Creation/development; Venture Investing; Venture Philanthropy; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurs; Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act; Non-equity Financing; Convertible Notes; Convertible Debt; Debt Financing; Raising Capital; National Venture Capital Association; Venture Capital Firm Compensation; Crowdfunding; Crowd-funding; Startup; Start-up; Startup Management; Startups; Angel Investors; Angels; Accelerator; Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Financial Services Industry; United States
- February 2014 (Revised May 2014)
- Background Note
Finding the Money: An Overview of Infrastructure Finance Challenges and Opportunities
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Daniel Fox
This overview describes how the United States funds and finances infrastructure investment to maintain its economic competitiveness. It considers the roles of taxpayers, users, government allocators and lenders, and private investors in the infrastructure funding... View Details
- January 2014
- Case
Steven Carpenter at Cake Financial (Abridged)
Steven Carpenter reflects on the successes and failures of his recent venture, Cake Financial. Carpenter had just sold the four-year-old startup and was at work on a new business plan. But first, he wanted to understand why Cake Financial, a service that allowed users... View Details