Publications

January 2022
Case

Walmart USA—Searching for Growth

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Maria P. Roche

In 2022, Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart, and his team looked back at a difficult but ultimately successful past year. The global pandemic had posed enormous challenges, but the company had weathered the storm successfully, raising same-store sales growth,... View Details

Keywords: Health Pandemics; Growth and Development Strategy; Sales; Business Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Retail Industry

2024
Working Paper

Does the Case for Private Equity Still Hold?

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Philipp Chvanov

Private Equity (“PE”) received a 10-fold increase in capital flows since the Great Financial Crisis (“GFC”) Investors sought higher nominal returns relative to those they could obtain in the public capital markets. This paper questions the fundamental assumptions... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Financial Markets

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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

January 1999 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Mobile Communications Tokyo, Inc.

Describes a young Japanese telecommunications equipment and software company. The founder and president, Hatsuhiro Inoue, has just seen revenues double over the last two years and expects further rapid growth. The company currently has three product lines:... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Initial Public Offering; Financial Markets; Telecommunications Industry; Tokyo; United States

February 1992 (Revised April 1993)
Case

Acid Rain: The Southern Co. (A)

By: Forest L. Reinhardt

The Southern Co., an electric utility, is planning its compliance with the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. The Act established a system of tradeable permits for sulfur dioxide emissions. The company must decide whether to install pollution control equipment and... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Business Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Cost vs Benefits; Financial Management; Strategic Planning; Investment Return; Government Legislation; Wastes and Waste Processing; Utilities Industry; Energy Industry; United States

January 2004 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Gold Hill Venture Lending

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

David Fischer is trying to raise $200 million for a first-time venture debt fund that will be affiliated with Silicon Valley Bank, a major technology lender. Despite his lengthy experience in venture lending, the process is proving difficult. He and his partners are... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Value Creation; Venture Capital; Partners and Partnerships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment Funds; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

20 Oct 2010
Op-Ed

Export Competitiveness: Reversing the Logic

export is what has often been understood as "export competitiveness". In this thinking, exports become the target and ultimate goal of economic policy. While the crisis has increased the demand for growth strategies, it has also View Details

Keywords: by Christian Ketels

July 2018 (Revised January 2021)
Case

RunKeeper

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

The case examines the focus of an early stage company and how venture capital can distort a founder’s view. It encompasses issues such as financing, understanding the founders’ definition of success/failure, defining and pivoting a business model, and determining the... View Details

Keywords: Early Stage Funding; Pivot; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Model; Health Industry

May 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Going to the Oracle: Goldman Sachs, September 2008

By: Clayton S. Rose and David Lane

On September 23, 2008, in the midst of an historic crisis in the U.S. financial markets, Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. Goldman CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, said: "We are pleased that given our longstanding relationship, Warren... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Capital Structure; Financial Liquidity; Financial Markets; Investment; Performance Capacity; Financial Services Industry; United States

July 2011 (Revised September 2018)
Case

Nashton Partners and Its Search Fund Process

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Nashton Partners was a search fund founded by two HBS MBA's that raised $500,000 to finance a search for a company that they could purchase and then run for the next five to ten years. The case examines the search fund structure, the two-year search, and two potential... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Capital Structure; Financing and Loans; Investment Funds; Partners and Partnerships

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

01 Dec 2006
What Do You Think?

How Important Is Quality of Labor? And How Is It Achieved?

jobs as well as labor, most agreed with author Gregory Clark's thesis that "labor quality," not just low cost, is a major driver of capital flows that leads to economic prosperity. This raised... View Details

Keywords: by by Jim Heskett

September 2011
Case

AXA Private Equity: The Diana Investment

By: Michael J. Roberts and William A. Sahlman

The case focuses on an investment made by AXA Private Equity, a French manufacturer of food ingredients. The investment is made at the height of the financial markets, and financed with significant debt. Soon thereafter, the financial crisis impacted the company's... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Ethics; Investment; Financial Crisis

April 2000 (Revised July 2000)
Case

Ameritrade Holding Corporation

By: Lisa K. Meulbroek

Some of the senior managers at Ameritrade, an Internet brokerage firm, are selling their holdings in the firm. Why are the managers selling, how will it affect shareholders, and what should the CEO do about it? The CEO is concerned that the market will interpret... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Internet and the Web; Stock Options; Risk Management; Financial Services Industry

2020
Working Paper

Is Accounting Useful for Forecasting GDP Growth? A Machine Learning Perspective

By: Srikant Datar, Apurv Jain, Charles C.Y. Wang and Siyu Zhang

We provide a comprehensive examination of whether, to what extent, and which accounting variables are useful for improving the predictive accuracy of GDP growth forecasts. We leverage statistical models that accommodate a broad set of (341) variables—outnumbering the... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Elastic Net; GDP Growth; Machine Learning; Macro Forecasting; Short Fat Data; Accounting; Economic Growth; Forecasting and Prediction; Analytics and Data Science

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October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Project Maji: Pricing Water in Sub-Saharan Africa

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Esel Çekin

In July 2021, Sunil Lalvani, founder and CEO of Project Maji, a non-profit social enterprise headquartered in Dubai that had already provided sustainable, clean water solutions to 80,000 people living in rural communities across Ghana and Kenya, was facing an important... View Details

Keywords: Water; Pricing; Nonprofit Organizations; Projects; Price; Decision Making; Social Enterprise; Growth and Development Strategy; Equity; Green Technology; Social and Collaborative Networks; Africa; Dubai

May 2020
Article

The Creation and Evolution of Entrepreneurial Public Markets

By: Shai Bernstein, Abhishek Dev and Josh Lerner

This paper explores the creation and evolution of new stock exchanges around the world geared towards entrepreneurial companies, known as second-tier exchanges. Using hand-collected novel data, we document the proliferation of these new stock exchanges that were... View Details

Keywords: Stock Exchanges; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Initial Public Offering; Capital; Entrepreneurial Finance