Publications

April 1995 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Anasazi Exclusive Salon Products, Inc.

By: William A. Sahlman and Jason Green

Anasazi, a hair-care products start-up based in the Midwest, is having growing pains as it tries to develop a new distribution model for the professional hair salon industry. The company has completed several rounds of venture financing but, to continue, needs to raise... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Financial Condition; Venture Capital; Financial Strategy; Financing and Loans; Expansion; Planning; Fashion Industry; Iowa

June 2017
Article

Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol

By: Silvia Bellezza, Neeru Paharia and Anat Keinan

While research on conspicuous consumption has typically analyzed how people spend money on products that signal status, we investigate conspicuous consumption in relation to time. We argue that a busy and overworked lifestyle, rather than a leisurely lifestyle, has... View Details

Keywords: Status and Position; Perspective; North America; Europe

Find at Harvard

12 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 12, 2006

requires upfront capital investments. The more developed the local financial markets, the easier it is for credit constrained entrepreneurs to start their own firms. The increase in the number of varieties of intermediate goods leads to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2010 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Bank of America Acquires Merrill Lynch (A)

By: Robert C. Pozen and Charles E. Beresford

On December 22, 2008, Bank of America (BofA) chairman and CEO Ken Lewis convened a special board of directors meeting to review his company's pending acquisition of investment bank Merrill Lynch. Negotiations for the acquisition had begun a few months earlier, during... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Corporate Governance; Government Legislation; Crisis Management; Business and Government Relations; Banking Industry

July 1990 (Revised August 1990)
Case

Kaiser Steel Corporation, 1950

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and William Schiano

Examines Kaiser Steel's initial equity offering in 1950. The first case in a sequence that will trace the history of corporate restructurings that occurred 30 to 40 years later, in the 1980s. Subsequent cases examine foreign competition and labor unrest, hostile... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Competition; Initial Public Offering; Capital Structure; Restructuring; Capital Markets; Ownership; Steel Industry; United States

Teaching Interest

Financial Reporting and Control

By: Suraj Srinivasan

Financial Reporting and Control (FRC) covers topics about how managers can design and use performance measurement systems for external reporting and internal management to build more effective organizations. Throughout their careers, business leaders are required to... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting

August 1998
Case

General Motors Corp. (B), The : Financial Policies

By: Peter Tufano

The second in a four-part series, the case details the financial policies and practices at General Motors from 1990 to 1996. This part describes the stated financial policies of the firm, including its approach to capital structure, liability structure, equity... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Finance; Auto Industry; United States

20 Aug 2010
News

Global diversification: Anathema a decade ago, now a great strategy

19 Aug 2015
Video

American Competitiveness Worldwide: Impacts on Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs

November 2018
Case

David Hysong and SHEPHERD Therapeutics

By: Ananth Raman, John Masko and Aldo Sesia

In 2016, David Hysong, at age 27, found out he had a rare, incurable cancer. Rather than wait around to die, Hysong, a recent graduate of Harvard Divinity School, decided to launch a biotechnology company called Shepherd Therapeutics to development treatments for his... View Details

Keywords: Cancer; Therapeutics; Drugs; Health Care and Treatment; Business Startups; Product Development; Financing and Loans; Growth and Development Strategy; Problems and Challenges

April 1975 (Revised November 1984)
Case

Enzone Petroleum Corp.

By: Thomas R. Piper

A large integrated oil company is debating whether to switch from a single hurdle rate to multiple hurdle rates for project analysis purposes. Raises questions on: 1) determination of the cost of equity; 2) the usefulness of multiple hurdle rates to adjust for project... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Cost; Investment Return; Equity; Capital Budgeting; Energy Industry

06 Jun 2016
News

Your Investment Tool Is Failing You

12 Feb 2025
Video

Who owns it? The Ownership Project on how property rights shape business

November 2004 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Marvel Enterprises, Inc.

By: Anita Elberse

The management team of Marvel Enterprises, known for its universe of superhero characters that includes Spider-Man, the Hulk, and X-Men, must reevaluate its marketing strategy. In June 2004, only six years after the company emerged from bankruptcy, Marvel has amassed a... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Business Model; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Opportunities; Growth and Development Strategy; Rights; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

November 1994
Case

Spectrum Equity Investors, L.P.

Brion Applegate and Bill Collatos had already started a fund-raising campaign for their new venture-capital fund when the principals of a prestigious Wall Street investment bank asked them to become the two senior partners of an in-house $150 million fund. The case... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Personal Development and Career; Entrepreneurship

2020
Working Paper

Do Judge-Lawyer Relationships Influence Case Outcomes?

By: Tianwang Liu and David Hao Zhang

We examine whether law school alumni relationships between the lawyers and judges affect case outcomes. We show that in the context of medical malpractice lawsuits in Florida, the plaintiff lawyer sharing the same law school as the judge increases the chances of... View Details

Keywords: Law; Relationships; Judgments; Outcome or Result

Read Now

12 PM – 1 PM EDT, 06 Apr 2016
Webinars: Career

Pitching to Venture Capitalists? Learn from an Expert

Are you pitching--or getting ready to pitch--a new business idea? Sounds easy, but it is complicated and tricky. Join Ray Rothrock (MBA 1988), Partner Emeritus at Venrock, as he shares lessons from his more than 25 years of experience in the venture capital business... View Details

December 2011
Article

How Do Acquirers Retain Successful Target CEOs? The Role of Governance

By: Julie Wulf and Harbir Singh

The resource-based view argues that acquisitions can build competitive advantage partially through retention of valuable human capital of the target firm. However, making commitments to retain and motivate successful top managers is a challenge when contracts are not... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Mergers and Acquisitions; Acquisition; Equity; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Contracts; Performance; Governance; Legal Services Industry