Publications

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Research Summary

Corporate Restructuring and Business Insolvency: Economic Impact and Best Practices

By: Stuart C. Gilson

Stuart C. Gilson is studying how severe financial distress impacts corporate policies and economic resource allocation. He is also studying how managers can best respond to financial distress in order to preserve and grow value. He is undertaking this research... View Details

Program

Growing as a Purposeful Leader

(beyond the four walls of the business), and how they should lead (not as superheroes and not just as good business leaders, but also as great human leaders). In this program,... View Details

Fall 2013
Article

Shifts in U.S. Federal Reserve Goals and Tactics for Monetary Policy: A Role for Penitence?

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper considers some of the large changes in the Federal Reserve's approach to monetary policy. It shows that, in some important cases, critics who were successful in arguing that past Fed approaches were responsible for mistakes that caused harm succeeded in... View Details

Keywords: Central Banking; Policy; United States

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Great business leaders possess more than celebrated traits like charisma and an appetite for risk. They have "contextual intelligence"—a profound ability to understand the Zeitgeist of their times and harness it to create successful organizations. Based on a... View Details

14 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

Clay Christensen’s Milkshake Marketing

an entire brand around a particular job-to-be-done. Quite simply, purpose branding involves naming the product after the purpose it serves. Kodak, for example, has seen great... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Service; Consumer Products; Food & Beverage

2021
Article

To Thine Own Self Be True? Incentive Problems in Personalized Law

By: Jordan M. Barry, John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers

Recent years have seen an explosion of scholarship on “personalized law.” Commentators foresee a world in which regulators armed with big data and machine learning techniques determine the optimal legal rule for every regulated party, then instantaneously disseminate... View Details

Keywords: Personalized Law; Regulation; Regulatory Avoidance; Regulatory Arbitrage; Law And Economics; Law And Technology; Law And Artificial Intelligence; Futurism; Moral Hazard; Elicitation; Signaling; Privacy; Law; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Information Technology; AI and Machine Learning

SSRN

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July 2022 (Revised September 2024)
Case

York Capital and Enovix

By: William Vrattos, Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In June 2020, Jeremy Blank prepared for a meeting with his fellow partners at York Capital to discuss an investment he had championed in Enovix, a company developing a state-of-the-art, silicon-based battery. Early-stage technology companies, like Enovix, were not... View Details

Keywords: Investment Evaluation; Partners and Partnerships; Investment Portfolio; Judgments; Opportunities

July 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Teaching Note

MC Tool

By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld

Sean Witty and Jason Premo acquired MC Tool, a machine shop located in South Carolina in 2007 with the intent to transform it into a precision manufacturer. Witty and Premo were able to more than double revenue to $6 million in their first year of managing MC by... View Details

Keywords: Small ＆ Medium-sized Enterprises; Small Business; Production; Transformation; Problems and Challenges; Financial Condition; Business Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; United States

13 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 13

PublicationsRegulation and UK Retailing Productivity: Evidence from Microdata Authors:Jonathan Haskel and Raffaella Sadun Publication:Economica (September 2011) Abstract We explore the effects of planning regulation on View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Jul 2009
First Look

First Look: July 21

evolution of audit committees, and the laws and regulations that have affected their role over time. Purchase this case: http://hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=409016 Target Corporation: Ackman versus View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

03 Oct 2023
What Do You Think?

Do Leaders Learn More From Success or Failure?

us to be garbage. There was no relationship. While that in itself might have been a useful finding, it disappointed us. What to do? Throw out more than a year of work and a great deal of data? We were experiencing what felt like failure.... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

January 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Case

U.S. Steel: Proposed Acquisition by Nippon Steel

By: Willy Shih

The case setting is the proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, which elicited a great deal of controversy. The purpose of the case is to look at the history of the American steel industry since World War II and understand how the steel minimill operators... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business History; Technological Innovation; Business Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Steel Industry; United States

January 2006
Case

Jack Strang at SequenceLabs

By: Mukti Khaire, John J. Gabarro and Lynda M. Applegate

How can entrepreneur manage his firm if things go wrong despite having a great idea, a solid team, and financial backing? Jack Strang founded a biotech firm with his friend Peter Evans, to develop molecular pathway-based "cures" for metabolic disorders. The idea was... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Venture Capital; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Growth and Maturation; Failure; Biotechnology Industry

16 Dec 2008
First Look

First Look: December 16, 2008

Working PapersSilent Saboteurs: How Implicit Theories of Voice Inhibit the Upward Flow of Knowledge in Organizations Authors:James R. Detert and Amy C. Edmondson Abstract This article examines, in a series of three studies, how people... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2004 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Cox Communications, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Jonathan Gibbons

Cox Communications, the third largest U.S. cable television system operator, is confronting strategy decisions in mid-2004. Cox managers must decide whether to speed its deployment of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which offers capital and operating costs savings... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Information Technology; Competition; Product Development; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States

02 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

10 Trends to Watch in 2024

The lightning-fast ascent of generative AI isn’t the only sea change on the horizon for businesses in the new year. The global economy is in flux as war, climate change, trade issues, and infrastructure problems demand attention. Many companies continue to struggle to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

What You Don't Know About Making Decisions

Most executives think of decision making as a singular event that occurs at a particular point in time. In reality, though, decision making is a process fraught with power plays, politics, personal nuances, and institutional history. Leaders who recognize this make... View Details

February 2001 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Ducati & Texas Pacific Group - A "Wild Ride" Leveraged Buyout

Describes the attempt of Texas Pacific Group (TPG), a buyout firm, to purchase a controlling stake in Ducati Motor, the world's leading high-performance motorcycle company, based in Bologna, Italy. Ducati is part of Cagiva Group, a family-controlled industrial group.... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Leveraged Buyouts; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Manufacturing Industry; Motorcycle Industry; Texas; Italy