Publications

May 2024
Case

Shell's Balancing Act: Resource Allocation and the Green Transition

By: David Collis and Haisley Wert

In mid-2023, amid pressure from climate change activists, shareholder activists, and confronting enormous uncertainty about the future demand for and price of fossil fuels, new Shell CEO Wael Sawan (Harvard MBA 2003) announced a change in strategy for the U.K. oil... View Details

Keywords: Portfolio Analysis; Climate; Oil; Oil And Gas; Oil Companies; Renewables; Petroleum; Investor Demand; Investors; Corporate Strategy; Resource Allocation; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Energy Industry; United Kingdom

2014
Working Paper

Entrepreneurship as Experimentation

By: William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Entrepreneurship research is on the rise but many questions about its fundamental nature still exist. We argue that entrepreneurship is about experimentation: the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed and unknowable until an investment is made. At a macro... View Details

Keywords: Experiments; Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

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August 2008 (Revised December 2010)
Case

AMD Dresden: Copy Inexactly!

By: Willy C. Shih

The establishment and growth of AMD's Dresden, Germany manufacturing site illustrates how processes develop in an organization and how those processes get institutionalized into a unique culture. Located in the Free State of Saxony in the eastern part of Germany (the... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Industry Clusters; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Semiconductor Industry; Europe; Dresden

27 Jun 2019
News

Long-Term Investing, Short-Term Thinking

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

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Fall 2022
Article

China's Political Economy and International Backlash: From Interdependence to Security Dilemma Dynamics

By: Margaret Pearson, Meg Rithmire and Kellee Tsai

Contrary to expectations that economic interdependence might lessen security conflict between China and the U.S. and its allies, much of the contestation between China and several OECD countries has focused on firms and economic links. This paper explains the... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Markets and Industries; Government and Politics; Information Technology; China

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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Research Summary

Promoting greater organizational adoption of energy efficiency projects

This research examines why firms fail to capitalize on apparently cost-effective investments in energy efficiency, with particular attention to waste heat recovery projects, in which heat from industrial processes are recovered in the form of thermal or electrical... View Details

January 1993 (Revised November 1995)
Case

AXA: The Global Insurance Company

Claude Bebear, the CEO of AXA, the tenth-largest insurer in Europe, has just completed an acquisition of the Equitable, the seventh-largest insurer in the United States. As part of his strategy to make AXA the first truly global insurance company, Bebear is considering... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Insurance; Global Strategy; Acquisition; Insurance Industry; Asia; North America; Europe

14 Feb 2014
News

Executives’ Biggest Productivity Challenges, Solved

24 Apr 2013
News

Windfall or bust? Crowdfunding may not turn out to be boon that many small businesses expect

09 Feb 2013
News

Following a Herd of Bulls on Apple

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

Article

The Unintended Consequences of the Zero Lower Bound Policy

By: Marco Di Maggio and Marcin Kacperczyk

We study the impact of the zero lower bound interest rate policy on the industrial organization of the U.S. money fund industry. We find that in response to policies that maintain low interest rates, money funds change their product offerings by investing in riskier... View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Easing; Money Market Funds; Reaching For Yield; Risk Taking; Fund Exit; Unconventional Monetary Policy; Investment Funds; Interest Rates

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November 2024 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Moonfare and the Democratization of Private Equity

By: Victoria Ivashina and Srimayi Mylavarapu

Founded in 2016, Moonfare headquartered in Europe, was a pioneer in the “democratization” of private equity investments. Historically, private equity was accessible only to institutional investors like pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds, and large family... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Customers; Wealth; Business Strategy; Segmentation; Technological Innovation; Product Launch; Financial Services Industry; Europe

November 2009 (Revised August 2010)
Case

NovoCure Ltd.

By: William A. Sahlman and Sarah Flaherty

Venture capitalist William Doyle must raise $35 million for a portfolio company with a promising, novel cancer therapy, just as global capital markets are imploding in the fall of 2008. NovoCure, Ltd., has developed an electrical-field-based therapy, called Tumor... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Investment; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Technological Innovation; Financial Services Industry

Article

New Interest in Incentive Financing

By: Samuel Hayes

The article presents the findings of a study on incentive financings as they apply to institutional investors, particularly life insurance company investors. The author made contact with investment officers in 29 insurance companies, and have collected a considerable... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Financing and Loans; Institutional Investing

June 2024
Article

Real Growth in Space Manufacturing Output Substantially Exceeds Growth in the Overall Space Economy

By: Tina Highfill and Matthew Weinzierl

Accurately measuring real economic output in the space economy is made difficult by the rapid increase in capabilities and decrease in prices of launch and satellite technologies achieved over the past two decades. Nominal measures of output in space will tend to... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Economic Growth; Price; Production; Aerospace Industry