Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,750)
- Faculty Publications (388)
- 2012
- Working Paper
No News Is Good News: CSR Strategy and Newspaper Coverage of Negative Firm Events
By: Jiao Luo, Stephan Meier and Felix Oberholzer-Gee
One of the benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs, it has been argued, is that they build up a reservoir of public good will, shielding companies in times of trouble. In this paper, we test the view that CSR provides protection from public ire by... View Details
- 2012
- Chapter
The Role of Venture Capitalists in the Acquisition of Private Companies
By: Paul A. Gompers and Yuhai Xuan
- November 2011
- Case
Pacific Grove Spice Company
By: William E. Fruhan and Craig Stephenson
Pacific Grove Spice Company is a profitable, rapidly growing manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of quality spices and seasonings. The company's business model requires significant investment in accounts receivable, inventory, and fixed assets to support sales.... View Details
- November 2011 (Revised May 2012)
- Case
SecondMarket—Providing Liquidity for Shareholders of Privately Held iContact
By: William A. Sahlman, Ramana Nanda and James McQuade
In 2011, SecondMarket was an online platform that facilitated secondary transactions of illiquid assets, including private company stock. This case explores reasons for the decline in small-cap IPOs in the United States from the 1990s to the 2000s and how the emergence... View Details
Keywords: Business and Shareholder Relations
- October 2011 (Revised August 2012)
- Case
INNOVA-MEX's Bid for ENKONTROL
By: Ramana Nanda, William R. Kerr and Carin-Isabel Knoop
In their second year, two Mexican HBS MBAs joined forces to start a search fund based in Mexico City. They had raised money to acquire an existing private company in Mexico with an initial enterprise value between $5 million and $15 million. Just seven months after... View Details
- October 2011 (Revised December 2011)
- Case
Vignette: Alternative Liquidity Options
By: Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
The growth of companies that facilitate the sales of unregistered stock, such as that granted to employees of successful but long-private companies, has raised a number of questions among regulators, investors, and company founders. This brief vignette sketches out... View Details
- October 2011 (Revised November 2011)
- Case
Verengo Solar Plus!
By: William A. Sahlman, Joseph B. Lassiter III and Liz Kind
In the three years since Bishop and Button purchased Verengo in a leveraged buyout (LBO), the company had gone through dramatic changes. Initially a residential windows and insulation firm, after the economic recession of 2008 the company switched gears and began... View Details
- 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
- May 2011
- Article
Institutional Stock Trading on Loan Market Information
By: Victoria Ivashina and Zheng Sun
Over the past decade, one of the most important developments in the corporate loan market has been the increasing participation of institutional investors in lending syndicates. As lenders, institutional investors routinely receive private information about borrowers.... View Details
- April 2011 (Revised July 2014)
- Case
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.: Driving Change Through Internal Communication
By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind
Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), confronted in 2003 with an urgent need to change how it operated externally, adopted a highly innovative approach to communicating internally. This case, set in 2010, presents an overview of the new, more interactive model of employee... View Details
- March 2011 (Revised November 2011)
- Case
Harmonic Hearing Co.
By: Howard H. Stevenson and Craig H. Stephenson
Harmonic is a small, privately held manufacturer of hearing aids. Harriet Burns and Marc Davis, two employees at Harmonic, have an opportunity to purchase the company from the founder. As well-informed insiders who understand the industry, Burns and Davis believe the... View Details
Keywords: Debts; Quantitative Analysis; Financing; Entrepreneurial Finance; Development Stage Enterprises; Small ＆ Medium-sized Enterprises; Small Business; Business Growth and Maturation; Cash Flow; Mathematical Methods; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Equity; Manufacturing Industry
- February 2011 (Revised August 2021)
- Case
Gemini Investors
By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
Gemini Investors was a private equity firm focused on small and lower middle market businesses. Gemini's target investment size was between $4 million and $6 million and a typical portfolio company had revenue of between $8 million and $30 million. In early 2015,... View Details
- February 2011 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
Sound Group China: Urban Waste Entrepreneurs
By: John D. Macomber, Chad M. Carr and Fan Zhao
Private sector entrepreneur in China with advanced solid waste management capability competes with state owned enterprises and also government policies supporting a rival technology. Wen Yibo has used engineering expertise and political savvy to build a major privately... View Details
- February 2011 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
Sarvajal: Water for All
By: John D. Macomber and Mona Sinha
Entrepreneur wrestles with business model using SMS and RFID technology, franchising, and leasing to rapidly grow off-the-grid water purification business without subsidies. The company seeks to provide potable water services to rural and urban India where the public... View Details
- January 2011 (Revised January 2012)
- Supplement
The Case of the Unidentified Healthcare Companies2010 (CW)
By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Ethan S Bernstein, Margarita Krivitski and Srinidhi Reddy
This case presents financial statements and selected rations for 14 unidentified healthcare organizations and asks that each set of financial information be matched with one of the following healthcare companies: a biotechnology firm, a community nursing company, a... View Details
- January 2011 (Revised January 2012)
- Case
The Case of the Unidentified Healthcare Companies2010
By: Richard Bohmer, Ethan Bernstein, Margarita Krivitski and Srinidhi Reddy
This case presents financial statements and selected ratios for 14 unidentified healthcare organizations and asks that each set of financial information be matched with one of the following healthcare companies: a biotechnology firm, a community nursing company, a... View Details
- 2011
- Teaching Note
Juner New Materials: On the Road to IPO (TN)
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Donglin Xia, Ning Jia and Ziqian Zhao
Juner New Materials (Juner) is a private China-based company that develops, produces, and distributes modified plastic compounds. Founded in 1995 by female serial entrepreneur Xiaomin Chen, Juner has exhibited strong performance and growth potential in the past fifteen... View Details
Keywords: Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Financial Statements; IPO; Valuation; Women Executives; China; Plastics; China
- December 2010
- Compilation
VCPE Strategy Vignettes I
By: Josh Lerner, G. Felda Hardymon, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Ann Leamon and Lisa Strope
These three vignettes present various issues around the strategy and management of venture capital and private equity firms. In one, the general partners must decide whether to invest in an intriguing opportunity that lies outside the firm's carefully developed... View Details
- December 2010
- Compilation
VCPE Strategy Vignettes II
By: Josh Lerner, G. Felda Hardymon, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Ann Leamon and Lisa Strope
These three vignettes present various issues around the strategy and management of venture capital and private equity firms. In one, a senior partner must decide how to manage an over-extended colleague and how to reduce the risk of the firm's portfolio; the second... View Details
- December 2010 (Revised January 2013)
- Case
Triple Point Technology
By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
The founding CEO of Triple Point Technology, Peter Armstrong, was considering the sale of the company. The company specialized in providing its clients with software used for transaction processing and risk management in various commodity markets. Triple Point... View Details