Publications
Publications
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(3,096)
- Faculty Publications (598)
- October 2015
- Teaching Note
Molycorp: Financing the Production of Rare Earth Minerals (A)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield
Molycorp, the western hemisphere's only producer of rare earth minerals, was in the middle of a $1 billion capital expenditure project in its effort to become a vertically integrated supplier of rare earth minerals, oxides, and metals. Yet it had just reported lower... View Details
Keywords: Convertible Debt; Uncertainty; Competition; Startup; China; Supply ＆ Demand; Growth; Rare Earth Minerals; Discounted Cash Flows; Mining; Payoff Diagrams; Option Pricing; Capital Budgeting; Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Financial Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Vertical Integration; Valuation; Metals and Minerals; Mining Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Canada; California
- October 2015 (Revised January 2017)
- Case
UPower Technologies Inc.
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and Liz Kind
The UPower founders, Jake DeWitte and Caroline Cochran, were recent graduates from MIT's Nuclear Science and Engineering Department. They chose to attend Palo Alto–based Y Combinator's accelerator program to focus on building a "mini" nuclear reactor that would produce... View Details
Keywords: Nuclear; Nuclear Energy; Nuclear Power; Energy Markets; New Nuclear; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurial Marketing; Business ＆ Government Relations; Off-grid; Energy; Renewable Energy; Energy Generation; Energy Sources; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; United States
- October 2015 (Revised May 2016)
- Background Note
Leading and Managing Change (ABRIDGED)
By: Ryan Raffaelli
Managing change is consistently ranked as one of the most critical and difficult tasks that leaders face. This note outlines the key choices that leaders must make when engineering change. It is organized into four sections, offering guidance on how to 1) diagnose the... View Details
Keywords: Change Management
- 2015
- Book
How the Internet Became Commercial: Innovation, Privatization, and the Birth of a New Network
By: Shane Greenstein
In less than a decade, the Internet went from being a series of loosely connected networks used by universities and the military to the powerful commercial engine it is today. This book describes how many of the key innovations that made this possible came from... View Details
- July 2015
- Article
Skilled Immigration and the Employment Structures of U.S. Firms
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and William F. Lincoln
We study the impact of skilled immigrants on the employment structures of U.S. firms using matched employer-employee data. Unlike most previous work, we use the firm as the lens of analysis to account for a greater level of heterogeneity and the fact that many skilled... View Details
Keywords: Firms; Scientists; Engineers; Inventors; H-1B; Age; Employment; Immigration; United States
- June 2015 (Revised August 2016)
- Case
Apple's Future: Apple Watch, Apple TV, and/or Apple Car?
By: David B. Yoffie and Eric Baldwin
In 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook knew that Apple, despite its phenomenal success, needed to continue to innovate in new product areas in order to continue its momentum into the future. This case explores three new (actual or potential) product offerings from Apple: the... View Details
- 2015
- Book
MOVE: Putting America's Infrastructure Back in the Lead
Americans are stuck. We live with travel delays on congested roads; shipping delays on clogged railways; and delays on repairs, project approvals, and funding due to gridlocked leadership. These delays affect us all, whether you are a daily commuter, a frequent flyer,... View Details
Keywords: United States; Railroad History; Airlines; Airline Industry; Air Transportation; Passenger Transportation; Cities; Urban Planning; Freighting; Change; Leadership; Public Policy; Change Leadership; Public Finance; Infrastructure; Policy; Technological Innovation; Change Management; Leading Change; Urban Development; Project Finance; Entrepreneurship; City; Transportation; Transportation Industry; Shipping Industry; Rail Industry; Air Transportation Industry; United States
- May 2015
- Case
Venture Republic, 2011
By: W. Carl Kester and Mayuka Yamazaki
In December 2011, the founders of Venture Republic, a Japanese developer and operator of on-line search engines for shopping and travel, faced a decison about whether or not to take the company private in a management buyout transaction just three years after an... View Details
- Article
Entrepreneurship and Urban Growth: An Empirical Assessment with Historical Mines
By: Edward L. Glaeser, Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
We study entrepreneurship and growth through the lens of U.S. cities. Initial entrepreneurship correlates strongly with urban employment growth, but endogeneity bedevils interpretation. Chinitz (1961) hypothesized that coal mines near cities led to specialization in... View Details
- April 2015 (Revised October 2024)
- Case
The German Export Engine
By: Gunnar Trumbull, Jonathan Schlefer and Sophus A. Reinert
In fall of 2018, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel had logged significant successes. Germany was the largest exporter in the world, had maintained low unemployment through the 2008 financial crisis, and was gradually reforming its welfare state to meet future pension... View Details
- March 2015
- Case
Statoil: Transparency on Payments to Governments
By: George Serafeim
The Statoil case describes the challenge of increasing transparency, in extractive industries, around host county government payments. The case describes Statoil's reasoning behind voluntarily disclosing host country government payments, and the events that led to this... View Details
Keywords: Corruption; Disclosure; Disclosure Strategy; Regulation; Industry Self-regulation; Corporate Governance; Corporate Accountability; Bribery; Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Government Legislation; Cost vs Benefits; Corporate Disclosure; Mining; Mining Industry; United States
- 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
Solar Geoengineering
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Stephanie Puzio
On December 8th 2013, as Dr. David Keith was leaving the set of the Colbert Show, he couldn't help but replay the interview over and over in his mind. Did he actually get his point of view on solar geoengineering across or had he just added to the stereotype that he... View Details
- 2015
- Chapter
Leading Proactive Punctuated Change
By: Michael Tushman, Charles O'Reilly and Bruce Harreld
This chapter focuses on leading proactive punctuated change. Based on the institutional and organizational change literatures and our extended involvement with IBM between 1999 and 2008, we suggest that proactive punctuated change can be effectively managed through an... View Details
- November 2014
- Case
Napalm: From Soldiers Field to Trang Bang
By: Tom Nicholas and Jonas Peter Akins
Napalm is one of the most destructive weapons ever to be invented. Yet, at its original inception it was nothing more than a technical challenge, and it was never intended to be used in indiscriminate antipersonnel warfare. The pathway of its development by a Harvard... View Details
- Article
Digital Ubiquity: How Connections, Sensors, and Data Are Revolutionizing Business
By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani
When Google bought Nest, a maker of digital thermostats, for $3.2 billion just a few months ago, it was a clear indication that digital transformation and connection are spreading across even the most traditional industrial segments and creating a staggering array of... View Details
- October 2014 (Revised December 2018)
- Background Note
Leading and Managing Change
By: Ryan Raffaelli
Managing change is consistently ranked as one of the most critical and difficult tasks that leaders face. This note outlines the key choices that leaders must make when engineering change. It is organized into four sections, offering guidance on how to 1) diagnose the... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Adding Value Through Venture Capital in Latin America and the Caribbean
By: Josh Lerner, Ann Leamon, James Tighe and Susana Garcia-Robles
Venture capital (VC) investment has long been recognized as an engine for economic growth and development. Unlike bank loans, where the entrepreneur receives money and is left alone as long as the payments arrive on the pre-arranged schedule, venture capital... View Details
- September 2014 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Samuel Colt: An American Gun Maker
By: Tom Nicholas and Casey Verkamp
Samuel Colt not only perfected and patented the technology for a gun that could fire multiple times without reloading, but he also developed and applied early principles of mass production more completely than anyone had done before. Until the nineteenth century,... View Details
- September 2014 (Revised June 2017)
- Case
Google Inc. in 2014
By: Benjamin Edelman and Thomas R. Eisenmann
Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to selected competitors. Asks what Google should do next. View Details