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Publications
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- Faculty Publications (384)
- 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
- September 2013
- Teaching Note
Gary Hirshberg and Stonyfield Farm
By: Nancy F. Koehn and Nora N. Khan
Gary Hirshberg and Stonyfield Farm is the story of one entrepreneur's vision and journey to create a market-leading, environmentally responsible business founded on the principles of product quality, organizational alignment and sustainability. A former... View Details
- August 2013 (Revised October 2013)
- Case
Modern Family Planning: The Business of Circle Surrogacy
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Blake Landro
The business of surrogacy, a boutique practice with client costs upwards of $100,000, allowed couples and individuals from a variety of backgrounds, ages, and sexual orientations to build families. This case examines Circle Surrogacy (CS), one of the premier surrogacy... View Details
- August 19, 2013
- Article
Coddled Relatives Can Kill a Family Business
By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer
Keywords: Family Business
- July 9, 2013
- Article
Why Fights Erupt in Family Businesses
By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer
Lack of boundaries and formal structure create potential for nasty (and lasting) disagreements. View Details
- July 24, 2013
- Article
Family Business: How to Spot a Patriarch Problem
By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer
In this article, the authors discuss the concept of a "problem patriarch" in family businesses, using the example of Carl, a successful leader who undermined the talent he hired. Carl started a struggling $10 million automotive parts distributor and turned it into a $2... View Details
- June 2013
- Case
Hess Corporation
By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kathleen Durante
On January 29, 2013, Elliott Management, a hedge fund run by Paul E. Singer, which owned 4.5% of Hess Corporation stock, put forward a slate of five independent directors it wanted elected to improve the company's performance. Elliott argued that Hess lacked focus and... View Details
- June 20, 2013
- Article
The Tyranny of Minority Shareholders
By: Josh Baron and Henry Foley
The article discusses challenges arising from minority ownership in the context of the proposed Empire State Building IPO. It emphasizes the complexities that minority shareholders can introduce in business decisions when families take their assets public. The article... View Details
- May 2013 (Revised June 2014)
- Case
Getit
By: Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani
Sidharth Gupta, CEO of Getit Infomediary Ltd, had just received a term sheet from Helion Venture Partners (Helion), one of India's independent venture capital firms, offering to invest Rs 200 million in return for an equity stake in the company. His dream of... View Details
- March 27, 2013
- Article
Downton Abbey: Real Life Lessons for Trust & Estate Advisors
By: Josh Baron and Devin Bird
The article discusses how the TV series "Downton Abbey" reflects challenges and opportunities faced by business families. The show's storyline, centered around the aristocratic Crawley family and their estate, parallels real-world situations where business families... View Details
- March 2013
- Article
The Unintended Consequences of Ownership Transfer Planning
By: Josh Baron and Marion McCollom Hampton
The article discusses the challenges of passing down family businesses across generations, highlighting complexities in executive succession and estate planning. It emphasizes how emotional factors, complicated family dynamics, and unintended consequences influence... View Details
- February 2013 (Revised March 2013)
- Case
Agero: Enhancing Capabilities for Customers
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This case illustrates the importance of choosing a primary customer as the basis for organization design. Cross Country Group managers adjusted resource allocation, organization design and performance measures over time to transform Cross Country Group from an... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Gap; Entrepreneurship; Auto Industry; Insurance; Performance Management; Performance Measurement; Performance Measures; Performance Pressure; Decisions; Family Business; Resource Allocation; Organizational Design; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Evaluation; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry
- December 2012 (Revised July 2015)
- Supplement
Nalli Silk Sarees (B)
By: V.G. Narayanan, Namrata Arora and Vidhya Muthuram
Presents the company's perspective using an interview format. Ramnath K. Nalli, vice chairman of Nalli Silk Sarees Private Limited, and his daughter, Lavanya Nalli (HBS MBA 2011), the fifth generation entrepreneur to be involved in the family business, discuss customer... View Details
- November 2012 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
Learning Resources: A Hands-On Toy Company Deals with New Challenges and Opportunities
By: Boris Groysberg and Anahita Hashemi
Learning Resources is a family-owned educational toy company that, by late 2011, was facing a myriad of challenges, including increased competition, entry into new markets, new distribution methods, rising costs of production in China, and changing customer behavior.... View Details
Keywords: Leading Teams; Strategy Formulation; Strategy And Execution; Innovation; Corporate Culture; Industry Analysis; Organizational Alignment; Entrepreneurs; Sales Channels; Leadership; Strategy; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Family Business; Entrepreneurship; Product Design; Sales; Retail Industry; United States
- November 2012
- Case
Sugar Bowl
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Alisa Zalosh
Shelby Givens, a recent business school graduate, returned home to Raleigh, North Carolina, to help rescue her family's ailing and outdated bowling alley, Westlake Lanes. Although she cut costs and addressed inefficiencies, moving the business from near-bankruptcy to... View Details
- Article
The Future of Economic, Business, and Social History
By: G. Jones, Marco H.D. van Leeuwen and Stephen Broadberry
Three leading scholars in the fields of business, economic, and social history review the current state of these disciplines and reflect on their future trajectory. Geoffrey Jones reviews the development of business history since its birth at the Harvard Business... View Details
Keywords: Economic History; Business History; History; Asia; Africa; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America
- August 2012 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
Elia Nuqul and the Making of a Middle Eastern Business Group (A)
By: Geoffrey Jones and Lana Ghanem
The case is concerned with Elia Nuqul, the founder of Jordanian-based Nuqul Brothers, a large diversified business group. It shows how Nuqul, a Christian Palestinian whose family was forced to flee to Jordan after the creation of Israel in 1948, built a business in his... View Details
- July 2012 (Revised November 2012)
- Case
Dragonfly Corporation
By: Howard H. Stevenson and Jim Sharpe
After 3 years of losses and under legal threats from their landlord, a husband and wife team are faced with shutting the company down, buying time with the landlord or turning to their parents for additional funds. Despite opening a new location and seeing that sales... View Details
- July 2012 (Revised May 2024)
- Supplement
Lyric Dinner Theater (B)
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Jim Sharpe
Supplements the (A) Case. Deborah Denenberg reflects on the results and actions taken during the 12 months following her first 6 months on the job. View Details
- July 2012 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Lyric Dinner Theater (A)
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Jim Sharpe
Looking back at five years of losses, Rivka Belzer, a newly minted MBA, steps into her family owned business with their mandate to turn it around or close it. In her first six months, she has made a number of changes, with mixed results, but is beginning to show a... View Details