Publications

05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Do Managers’ Heuristics Affect R&D Performance Volatility? A Simulation Informed by the Pharmaceutical Industry

Keywords: by Francesca Gino & Gary P. Pisano; Pharmaceutical

September 2014 (Revised November 2017)
Case

Sustainability at IKEA Group

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Michael W. Toffel, Vincent Dessain and Jerome Lenhardt

By 2014, IKEA Group was the largest home furnishing company, with EUR28.5 billion of sales, and planned to reach EUR50 billion by 2020, mainly from emerging markets. At the same time, IKEA Group had adopted in 2012 a new sustainability strategy that focused the... View Details

Keywords: Furnishing; Sustainability; Supply Chain; Wood; Customer Value and Value Chain; Supply Chain Management; Environmental Sustainability; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry

September–October 2024
Article

Why Multibusiness Strategies Fail and How to Make Them Succeed

By: Bharat Anand and David J. Collis

Enterprises that own multiple businesses often have a flawed approach to strategy: They focus too much on the makeup of their portfolios and too little on enhancing the businesses in them.
Strategies for adding value to a corporation’s businesses fall on a... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Structure; Management Systems

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

2015
Working Paper

What Do Private Equity Firms Say They Do?

By: Paul A. Gompers, Steven N. Kaplan and Vladimir Mukharlyamov

We survey 79 private equity investors with combined assets under management (AUM) of over $750 billion about their practices in firm valuation, capital structure, governance, and value creation. Investors rely primarily on internal rate of return (IRR) and multiples to... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Value Creation; Private Equity; Capital Structure; Valuation; Management Practices and Processes

SSRN

Read Now

03 Oct 2011
News

Kodak's Patent Portfolio, Bankruptcy

February 2002 (Revised December 2003)
Exercise

Incentives Game, The

By: Jason R. Barro, Brian J. Hall and Jonathan Lim

This exercise provides an opportunity to gain insight about designing, negotiating, and responding to incentives. The setting is investment management. A class is divided into a certain number of investment firms. Each company has one CEO and begins with four portfolio... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Compensation and Benefits; Investment; Management

Awards

Crowell Memorial Prize

By: Lauren H. Cohen

Winner of the 2018 Crowell Memorial Prize For the Best Paper on Quantitative Investing from PanAgora Asset Management for “IQ from IP: Simplifying Search in Portfolio Choice” (with Huaizhi Chen, Umit Gurun, Dong Lou, and Christopher J. Malloy). View Details

September 2003 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Valerie Massoni

Focuses on the current IT applications portfolio and plans for the world's second largest cruise line. An IT-intensive organization, it forces students to think through how IT resources should be allocated in this dynamic environment and what kind of management system... View Details

Keywords: Management Systems; Resource Allocation; Planning; Situation or Environment; Information Technology; Air Transportation Industry

November 2014
Case

Ardian—The Sale of Diana

By: Paul A. Gompers and Michael Roberts

The case focuses on a European private equity firm—Ardian—and the process it uses to sell one of its portfolio companies, and the decisions around that sale. Key issues include the choice of an auction or acceptance of a pre-emptive bid, and the role of the portfolio... View Details

Keywords: Spin-out; Exit; Sale; Private Equity; France

October 2007 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Dove: Evolution of a Brand

By: John A. Deighton

Examines the evolution of Dove from functional brand to a brand with a point of view after Unilever designated it as a masterbrand, and expanded its portfolio to cover entries into a number of sectors beyond the original bath soap category. The development causes the... View Details

Keywords: History; Expansion; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Digital Marketing; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

05 Oct 2011
News

Raise Taxes on Venture Capital?

Christina M. Wallace

A self-described “human Venn diagram” Christina Wallace has crafted a career at the intersection of business, technology, and the arts. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business... View Details

2022
Book

Private Equity

By: Paul A. Gompers and Steven N. Kaplan

This Advanced Introduction provides an illustrative guide to private equity, integrating insights from academic research with examples to derive practical recommendations. Paul Gompers and Steven Kaplan begin by reviewing the history of private equity then exploring... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Investment Funds; Value Creation

Find at Harvard

15 Nov 2016
First Look

November 15, 2016

deployment, and management of multiple brands as a coordinated portfolio of meaning-based assets that address the needs of diverse customers in a marketplace and maximize return while minimizing risk. It... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Feb 2008
Working Paper Summaries

The Small World of Investing: Board Connections and Mutual Fund Returns

Keywords: by Lauren H. Cohen, Andrea Frazzini & Christopher Malloy; Financial Services

August 2020 (Revised October 2024)
Case

Digital Marketing at HBS Online

By: Sunil Gupta and Rajiv Lal

In July 2020, the management team of Harvard Business School Online (HBS Online) had to decide how to allocate its marketing budget for fiscal year 2021 between various digital channels and its portfolio of courses. Since its launch in 2014, HBS Online had grown to... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Marketing Channels; Brands and Branding; Business Education; Education Industry; United States; Boston

06 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Behavioral Finance—Benefiting from Irrational Investors

and the title of a second-year course he teaches at HBS. "At the foundation of finance is the idea that investors and managers act rationally, so that capital market prices reflect fundamentals and View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

January 2008
Background Note

Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs)

By: Joshua Coval and Erik Stafford

This lesson integrated Merton's (1974) contingent claims model of debt and equity claims with the CAPM, which allows us to examine the risks and pricing of credit portfolios and the derivative claims issued against them. In particular, this model is used to make... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Borrowing and Debt; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Investment Portfolio; Risk Management

2010
Article

Fretting About Modest Risks Is a Mistake

By: Matthew Rabin and Max Bazerman

Managers often engage in risk-averse behavior, and economists, decision analysts, and managers treat risk aversion as a preference. In many cases, acting in a risk-averse manner is a mistake, but managers can correct this mistake with greater reflection. This article... View Details

Keywords: Decision Biases; Risk Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Decision Making