Publications

September 2020 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Hot Wheels: Launching The Mixed Play Experience

By: Elie Ofek, Andres Terech and Nicole Tempest Keller

Chris Down, Global Brand General Manager for Hot Wheels, and his team from the Advanced Play Group within Mattel, Inc., had developed an entirely new “mixed play” product experience that blended familiar Hot Wheels play in the physical world with breakthrough play in... View Details

Keywords: Toys; Go-to-market Strategy; Product Development; Technological Innovation; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Decision Making; Marketing; Strategy; Los Angeles

2012
Working Paper

The Cost of Friendship

By: Paul A. Gompers, Yuhai Xuan and Vladimir Mukharlyamov

This paper explores two broad questions on collaboration between individuals. First, we investigate what personal characteristics affect people's desire to work together. Second, given the influence of these personal characteristics, we analyze whether this attraction... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Investment; Performance; Personal Characteristics

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2025
Working Paper

Precautionary Debt Capacity

By: Deniz Aydin and Olivia S. Kim

The determinants of debt capacity are a central theme in finance and macroeconomics, yet it remains unclear why firms leave some of their debt capacity unused and whether this affects investment and growth. Textbook theory suggests that firms should not leave their... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Financing and Loans

SSRN

November 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

Fair Value Accounting at Noble Group (A)

By: Siko Sikochi, Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

Noble Group was a large commodities trader based in Hong Kong and listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange. In 2012, Noble shifted its business strategy towards an asset-light model. Under this model, Noble did not own mines or farms to produce commodities but built... View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Policy; Goods and Commodities; Contracts; Valuation

March 1998 (Revised December 2005)
Case

Beta Golf

By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Laurence E. Katz

The Beta Group is a technology incubator in Menlo Park, CA that has successfully built a portfolio of businesses in the medical, consumer products, and industrial technology sectors by systematically matching proprietary technologies to unmet market needs. Beta has... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Investment; Financial Strategy; Information Technology; Commercialization

February 2021
Article

A Dynamic Theory of Multiple Borrowing

By: Daniel Green and Ernest Liu

Multiple borrowing—a borrower obtains overlapping loans from multiple lenders—is a common phenomenon in many credit markets. We build a highly tractable, dynamic model of multiple borrowing and show that, because overlapping creditors may impose default externalities... View Details

Keywords: Commitment; Multiple Borrowing; Common Agency; Misallocation; Microfinance; Investment; Mathematical Methods

SSRN

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Web

Students on the Job Market - Doctoral

estimation, I create a new dataset of OSS and in-house investment for the global web development industry, where software choices are directly observable. I simulate counterfactuals to assess the global impact of China tightening its... View Details

2020
Working Paper

How Do Private Equity Fees Vary Across Public Pensions?

By: Juliane Begenau and Emil Siriwardane

We study how investment fees vary within private-capital funds. Net-of-fee return clustering suggests that most funds have two tiers of fees, and we decompose differences across tiers into both management and performance-based fees. Managers of venture capital funds... View Details

Keywords: Pension Funds; Fee Dispersion; Search And Negotiation Frictions; Private Equity; Investment Funds

SSRN

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03 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Layoffs Can Be Bad Business: 5 Strategies to Consider Before Cutting Staff

apology “builds a bridge” between the company and its stakeholders. 5. Invest in laid-off employees Companies can reinforce the bridge by committing to help downsized employees get back on their feet. Many organizations address this... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Telecommunications; Technology; Financial Services; Manufacturing

Juan Alcacer

Juan Alcacer is the James J. Hill Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He joined HBS in 2007 and has taught the required MBA strategy course, an elective on Global Strategy and PhD courses in Strategy and International Business. Within... View Details

Keywords: consulting; management consulting; telecommunications

11 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

The First 90 Hours: What New CEOs Should—and Shouldn't—Do to Set the Right Tone

talent, and in doing so, you are both respecting the past by acknowledging those who brought the organization to the dance and helped it rise to where it is today. But at the same time, you are investing in the future. Promoting... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

September–October 2023
Article

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: The Effects of Common Ownership on Corporate Social Responsibility

By: Mark R. DesJardine, Jody Grewal and Kala Viswanathan

Common owners face an incredible investment challenge: managing systematic risk. Because common owners hold shares in multiple firms across an industry, an action (or inaction) by one firm that affects industry peers is felt more severely by common owners than by... View Details

Keywords: Common Ownership; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Institutional Investing; Corporate Governance; Risk and Uncertainty; Investment Return

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19 Sep 2023
HBS Case

How Will the Tech Titans Behind ChatGPT, Bard, and LLaMA Make Money?

want to have people inside your company who are on top of the different technologies and experimenting with different things. You need to give them a pathway to communicate with the CEO and top management team about which technologies to View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Technology; Information Technology

Web

Courses - Entrepreneurship

Lou Shipley Spring 2024 Q4 1.5 Field Course: Investing for Impact (also listed under Finance and General Management) Archie L. Jones Emily R. McComb Brian Trelstad Fall 2023 Q1Q2 3.0 Field Course: Scaling Minority Businesses (also listed... View Details

March 2003 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Botswana: A Diamond in the Rough

By: Laura Alfaro, Debora L. Spar, Faheen Allibhoy and Vinati Dev

In the years since independence, tiny, landlocked Botswana has gone from being one of the world's poorest nations to becoming a stable, prosperous state, blessed with the highest sustained growth rate in the world. This case highlights the role that foreign direct... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Economic Growth; Natural Environment; Developing Countries and Economies; Botswana