Publications

20 Sep 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Larry Fink at BlackRock: Linking Purpose to Profit

Keywords: Re: George Serafeim; Financial Services

December 2018 (Revised May 2021)
Background Note

Making UK Energy Smarter

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

This case describes the history of the United Kingdom's domestic energy industry and the country's efforts to create a more competitive, greener, and distributed power sector. On July 24, 2017, the United Kingdom government and the industry regulator, the Office of Gas... View Details

07 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

How to Help Small Businesses Survive COVID's Next Phase

like this.” Concentrate on the best profit opportunities. Small-business owners must identify their most valuable products and services and eliminate everything else. If a restaurant’s tried-and-true burger has a stronger gross profit... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Service; Service

January 2014 (Revised May 2014)
Case

Tech Mahindra and the Acquisition of Satyam Computers (A)

By: Srikant M. Datar, Anjali Raina and Namrata Arora

Set in 2008, the case details Tech Mahindra, an information technology (IT) company within the Mahindra Group, an Indian multi-industry company with a diverse stable of businesses including automotives, farm equipment, and financial services, and its decision to... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Computer Industry; India

March 2016
Teaching Note

MasterCard: Driving Financial Inclusion

By: Sunil Gupta

Since joining MasterCard (MC) in 2010, CEO Ajay Banga had made advancing financial inclusion (FI)—bringing formal financial services to marginalized populations—an important goal for the company. In 2014, MC had entered a number of partnerships with governments and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Inclusion; Banking; Equality and Inequality; Credit Cards; Developing Countries and Economies; Banking Industry; South Africa; Nigeria

21 May 2019
Working Paper Summaries

rTSR: When Do Relative Performance Metrics Capture Relative Performance?

Keywords: by Paul Ma, Jee-Eun Shin, and Charles C. Y. Wang; Financial Services

2022
Case

Can Salesforce Compete in the Carbon Accounting Market?

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

This case describes Salesforce's development of Sustainability Cloud, a suite of software tools built to help companies measure, track, and report carbon emissions and other sustainability metrics. The goal of this case is to provide students with a background and... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Accountability; Applications and Software

June 2021
Case

Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani at avatarin (A) (Abridged)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

In 2016, Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani, aeronautical engineers at All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., began to wonder why, in a world of accelerating globalization and digital connectivity, those who lived in far-remote villages or impoverished urban areas could not... View Details

Keywords: Agility; Ecosystem; Innovation Ecosystems; Innovation; Crowdsourcing; XPRIZE; Open Innovation; Partnership; Government; Collaboration; Co-creation; Purpose; Impact; Social Impact; Movement; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Ambidexterity; Ambidexterity; Culture; Culture Change; Global Teams; Experimentation; Space; Space Industry; Airline Industry; Start-up; Platform Business; Platform Strategy; Platform; Digital; Robotics; Robots; Avatar; Telepresence; Innovation Lab; Mobility; COVID-19; Intrapreneurship; Public-private Partnership; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Alignment; Leadership; Leading Change; Diversity; Organizational Culture; Change Management; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Transportation Industry; Aerospace Industry; Japan

November 2023
Case

Will Fintechs and Central Banks Play in Emtech's Sandbox?

By: Daniel Isenberg and William R. Kerr

In February 2023, Emtech’s founder Carmelle Cadet is facing a dilemma. Rapidly running out of cash, Cadet has a term sheet from a leading VC but has a choice of how to structure the investment. The decision will have significant implications for Cadet’s own stake, as... View Details

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Cash Flow; Currency; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Digital Platforms

Research Summary

Overview

By: Gunnar Trumbull

My research focuses on how firms and governments interact to support decarbonization. How do firms approach climate change from a strategic perspective? How can government policies support and accellerate those efforts in ways that boost national competitiveness? View Details

Keywords: Decarbonization; Strategy And Leadership; Climate Change; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Europe; China; India; Brazil

30 Jan 2018
First Look

January 30, 2018

making them immutable and, many believed, unhackable. What came next, Vavilov’s team envisioned, were smart purchase and sale contracts via the blockchain; and from there, a full suite of property-related services and, eventually,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Mandate Outcomes Reporting

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Michael E. Porter

Currently, few health care providers measure and report their patient outcomes, which leads to several problems. Attempts to introduce price transparency without outcomes transparency could trigger a “race to the bottom.” Should Medicare coverage be expanded to... View Details

Keywords: Outcomes Reporting; Outcomes Measurement; Medicare; Medicaid; Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Measurement and Metrics

Read Now

February 2005
Case

Nomura Holdings

By: Tarun Khanna, Masako Egawa and Atsuko Nakajima

Nomura Holdings, Japan's largest investment bank, faced with intensifying competition in the global financial markets, was trying to decide how global its operations should be despite its Japan-centered business. Was the question of how global Nomura should be related... View Details

Keywords: Global Range; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Corporate Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Japan

Find at Harvard

Samuel G. Hanson is the William L. White Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard Economics department. He teaches Finance 1... View Details

Keywords: federal government; federal government; federal government; federal government; federal government; federal government

28 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Six Lessons from Mobile Money Ventures in Developing Countries

In many emerging economies, the need to give people in poverty better access to financial services seems obvious. The mobile phone is a perfect vehicle, given their widespread adoption, even among the financially less well off. Designing... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services; Financial Services

01 Feb 2017
What Do You Think?

Is the Next Jobs Crisis Just Ahead?

Summing Up: Should We Be Addressing the Next Jobs Crisis Now? An unusual proportion of respondents to this month’s column agreed either explicitly or implicitly on one thing: a looming service sector jobs crisis would dwarf anything we’ve... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Service

2025
Article

Educating Students and Professionals on the Business Implications of Climate Change

By: Michael W. Toffel

As climate change poses unprecedented challenges and opportunities, the private sector must play a pivotal role in both adaptation and mitigation efforts. This article discusses the new Harvard Business School Online course, Business and Climate Change, designed to... View Details

Keywords: Climate Impact; Online Courses; Online Education; Decarbonization; Mitigation Policies; Climate Risk; Climate Change; Risk Management; Science; Policy; Business Education; Adaptation