Publications

August 2000
Case

Project ACHIEVE - January 2000

By: H. Kent Bowen and Elizabeth Kind

Education services target public schools to assist the school with technology and services that will improve their communication with students, parents, and the community. There is also the goal of increasing scores of measured learning. How does a small company do... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Service Delivery; Learning; Interactive Communication; Measurement and Metrics; Performance Consistency; Business and Community Relations; Expansion; Technology Adoption; Education Industry

May 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Breaking the Buck

By: Robert C. Pozen and Elizabeth Leonard

After an incredibly volatile six months since Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, Finbar McCall contemplated his options. As the investment manager of RPG Prime Reserve Fund, Inc. (RPGXX), McCall had just heard the news that the U.S. Treasury was extending the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Financial Crisis; Financial Management; Insurance; Investment Funds; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Financial Services Industry

August 2009 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Swire Beverages: Implementing CSR in China

By: Christopher Marquis, G.A. Donovan and YiKwan Chu

Swire Beverage, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in China, recently created a corporate social responsibility (CSR) organization to oversee environmental, community, health and safety initiatives at the companies' nine bottling plants in China. The case considers... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Design; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Non-Governmental Organizations; Food and Beverage Industry; China

09 May 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 9

May 2017 Journal of Financial Economics The Value of Trading Relations in Turbulent Times By: Di Maggio, Marco, Amir Kermani, and Zhaogang Song Abstract—This paper investigates how dealers’ trading relationships shape their trading... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2018
Case

Robert K. Steel at Wachovia (A)

By: Gautam Mukunda, Nien-hê Hsieh and David Lane

In September 2008, Robert Steel presided over the sale of Wachovia, a top U.S. bank, less than three months after becoming its CEO. Wachovia’s exposure to risky home loans led depositors and creditors to flee the bank on Friday, September 26, after the FDIC seized and... View Details

October 2015 (Revised July 2017)
Case

OMV Petrom: Investment as Partnership—When It Takes Three to Tango

By: Dante Roscini, Emer Maloney and Daniela Beyersdorfer

Petrom was privatized by the Romanian state in 2004 and acquired by Austrian oil company OMV, with the state retaining a 20.6% stake in the company. The situation was particularly challenging for the foreign investor since the sector in which the company operated was... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Privatization; Acquisition; Foreign Direct Investment; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; Austria; Romania

July 2007
Case

Kroger Union Negotiations 2005

By: Dennis A. Yao and Mary L. Shelman

A stylized version of the negotiations between Kroger Company and its local unions during 2005. Management faces a sequence of individual negotiations with local unions in addition to meeting the new competitive challenges presented by Wal-Mart's expansion in the... View Details

Keywords: Labor and Management Relations; Labor Unions; Reputation; Wages; Management; Negotiation Participants; Negotiation Style; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry

07 Aug 2006
Research & Ideas

Whatever Happened to Caveat Emptor?

Trumbull, that unfettered marketplace has "virtually disappeared." "Today, arguably no other economic actor in the advanced industrial countries—not the investor, not the worker, not the welfare recipient—enjoys a more thorough set of... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

23 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Setting the Stage: A Young Scholar at HBS

accounts. But, by the early twentieth century a large industry had emerged that provided basic financial services to the public. In the 1930s the modern regulatory framework for this industry was created. In... View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard; Banking; Financial Services

February 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Digital Media Group: The Shanghai Bid

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

In December 2008, Thomas G. Tsao, acting CEO of Digital Media Group (DMG), a venture-backed provider of technology and media used primarily in subways, must decide how to structure the company's bid for the advertising concession in Shanghai's 13 existing and planned... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Corporate Accountability; Business or Company Management; Bids and Bidding; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Competitive Strategy; Advertising Industry; Advertising Industry; Shanghai

05 Dec 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Walmart Defying Economic Gravity?

Original Article There is a body of research that seeks to relate economics to human biology. It's usually associated with the notion that the life cycles of businesses parallel stages of biological life: birth, rapid growth, maturity,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

20 Jan 2022
Blog Post

Lessons Learned from My HBS Career Journey in Environmental Sustainability

an engineer at Tesla, where I worked in manufacturing and design engineering. I loved my time there and am proud that I played a small role in helping drive the automotive industry towards electrification. Most importantly, I learned... View Details

Web

Advanced Negotiation: Great Dealmakers, Diplomats, and Deals - Course Catalog

State Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton describe critical moments in their negotiations with Vladimir Putin, etc. In the arts and sports : Music industry lawyer John Branca negotiates the purchase of the Beatles catalog;... View Details

01 Sep 2018
News

New Ways to Stay Connected

students’ excitement about the HBS alumni experience. CAEC also helps shape and communicate opportunities related to alumni engagement, volunteerism, and philanthropy. “CAEC opened my eyes to how HBS begins to nurture an ongoing... View Details

01 Jan 2004
News

Barbara Hackman Franklin, MBA 1964

years. "President Bush felt strongly about normalizing relations with China and opening that market to American business," says Franklin. "My mission to Beijing to reconvene the Joint Commission was a win-win situation. The sanction was... View Details

June 2010 (Revised September 2013)
Case

IDFC India: Infrastructure Investment Intermediaries

By: John D. Macomber and Viraal Balsari

Indian financial intermediary matching international capital to local infrastructure decides how to balance range of services, risk-adjusted return, margin pressure, and nation building. IDFC was chartered with partial ownership from the Indian government to help... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Infrastructure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; State Ownership; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Financial Services Industry; India

February 2010 (Revised April 2011)
Case

The Political Economy of Carbon Trading

By: Forest L. Reinhardt, J. Gunnar Trumbull, Mikell Hyman, Patia McGrath and Nazli Zeynep Uludere

Global climate change is an increasingly prominent political and business problem. Design of market-based systems to reduce carbon emissions has proven difficult. More broadly, national attempts to comply with the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol present both... View Details

Keywords: Policy; International Relations; Risk Management; Agreements and Arrangements; Business and Government Relations; Natural Environment; Pollutants; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Public Administration Industry