Publications

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October 23, 2013
Article

Banyan Family Business Advisors On The Keys to Long-Term Resilience

By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer

Family businesses have been found to excel in resilience during economic downturns compared to publicly-traded ones. This is attributed to their focus on resilience over performance. Key qualities of resilient family firms include managing low debt, practicing... View Details

Keywords: Performance Consistency; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Family Ownership; Family Business; Values and Beliefs; Business Strategy

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Michael Joyce is a doctoral student in the Technology and Operations Management program at Harvard Business School (HBS).

Michael received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA and a... View Details

March 2016 (Revised April 2019)
Technical Note

ESG Metrics: Reshaping Capitalism?

By: George Serafeim

In the past twenty-five years, the world had seen an exponential growth in the number of companies reporting environmental, social and governance (ESG) data. Investor interest in ESG data also grew rapidly. A growing belief that increasing levels of social inequality... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Sustainability; Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Responsibilities To Society; Environment; Social Impact Investment; ESG; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Measurement and Metrics; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Accountability; Accounting; Economic Systems

October 2013
Article

Corporate Venturing

By: Josh Lerner

For decades, large companies have been wary of corporate venturing. But as R&D organizations face pressure to rein in costs and produce results, companies are investing in promising start-ups to gain knowledge and agility. The logic of corporate venturing is... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Knowledge Acquisition; Corporate Strategy; Research and Development; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention

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01 Sep 2023
News

Bless this Stress

National Geographic for Disney+/Craig Parry In the first episode of the National Geographic docuseries Limitless with Chris Hemsworth, Modupe Akinola (MBA 2001/PhDOB 2009) and the Australian actor gaze across downtown Sydney to a skyscraper in the distance, teetering... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services

12 PM – 1 PM EST, 18 Feb 2015
Webinars: Trending@HBS

U.S. Competitiveness: An Economy Doing Half Its Job

The HBS U.S. Competitiveness Projects report on the most recent alumni survey highlighted a troubling divergence in the U.S. economy. Middle- and working-class citizens are struggling, as are many small businesses. Professor Jan Rivkin will focus on aspects of the U.S.... View Details

November 2007 (Revised March 2009)
Case

OppenheimerFunds and Take-Two Interactive (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch, Andrew Hill and Kaitlyn Simpson

Describes the dilemma faced by Emmanuel Ferreira, a fund manager at OppenheimerFunds. As the largest shareholder and a long-time investor in software publisher Take-Two Interactive, Ferreira contemplates whether or not to get involved with other investors in trying to... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Shareholder Relations

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September 2019
Case

Dementia Discovery Fund

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Kathy Giusti and Sarah Gulick

The case is set in March 2019, and tells the story of the founding of the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF). The idea for the fund began in 2015, when then-Prime Minister David Cameron spoke about the importance of making breakthroughs in dementia research, and pledged... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment Funds; Mission and Purpose; Recruitment; Health Care and Treatment; Pharmaceutical Industry; Financial Services Industry; Boston; Massachusetts; London; England

July 2004 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Man Group plc

By: Andre F. Perold and Herve Duteil

In 2004, Man Group was the world's largest packager and distributor of investment vehicles tied to hedge funds. The firm had an equity market capitalization of $10 billion and funds under management of $38 billion. Man's offerings spanned a wide range of risk/reward... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Investment; Investment Return; Investment Funds; Global Strategy; Distribution; Product Development; Financial Services Industry

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October 1996 (Revised December 1997)
Case

American Cyanamid (A): Boardroom Response to a Hostile Takeover Offer

American Home Products' (AHP) $9 billion hostile takeover of American Cyanamid (Cyanamid) was the largest mergers and-acquistions transaction in 1994, and made AHP the fourth largest pharmaceutical firm in the United States. At the time of AHP's offer, Cyanamid had... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Governance; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

14 Dec 2015
News

How Accounting Can Help Build a Sustainable Economy

29 Jun 2007
First Look

First Look: June 29, 2007

benefits and vendor strategies. Divide and Conquer: Competing with Free Technology under Network Effects Authors:Deishin Lee and Haim Mendelson Periodical:Production and Operations Management Journal (forthcoming) Abstract We study how a... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

21 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 21

transparency while masking their true performance; other firms' disclosures, in contrast, are more representative of their environmental performance. What deters selective disclosure? We hypothesize that selective disclosure, a novel symbolic strategy View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2010 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Harvard Business School Executive Education: Balancing Online and Offline Marketing

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

How does a small business set its online media budget? The HBS Executive Education Division can be viewed as a small-to-medium sized business unit with annual revenues of $107 million. As we watch it change its culture, practices, and organization from offline to... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Marketing Strategy; Budgets and Budgeting; Technology Adoption; Digital Marketing; Resource Allocation; Information Technology Industry

March 2006 (Revised April 2010)
Case

China: To Float or Not To Float? (A)

By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel

On July 21, 2005 China revalued its decade-long quasi-fixed exchange rate of approximately 8.28 yuan per U.S. dollar by 2.1% to 8.11 and, at the same time, introduced a more market-based exchange rate system. Many analysts and economists were disappointed with what... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Trade; Currency Exchange Rate; Governance Controls; Policy; Growth and Development Strategy; China

January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Runa

By: Paul Gompers and Carla Larangeira

In early 2022, Courtney McColgan, founder and CEO of Runa, a human resources and payroll Software-as-a-Service platform, faced an unexpected tech market downturn. Founded in 2018, Runa catered to small and medium-sized businesses in Mexico, offering an affordable and... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Volatility; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Leadership; Management; Venture Capital; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Growth and Maturation; Latin America

Research Summary

Current Research: Issues in Corporate Governance

Effectiveness of shareholder voting

Reform of shareholder voting is a key component of legislation arising from the financial crisis of 2008. Professor Gow examines the effect of shareholder voting on corporate actions, particularly on... View Details

2012
Article

Organization Design for Business Ecosystems

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The modern corporation has long been the central focus of the field of organization design. Such firms can be likened to nation-states: they have boundaries that circumscribe citizen-employees, and they engage in production and trade. But individual corporations are... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Business Ecosystems; Distributed Innovation; Problem Solving; Property Rights; Organization Design; Networks; Integration; Competition; Organizational Design; Innovation and Management