Publications

Web

Corporate Strategy - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

HBS ISC Strategy Strategy Strategy Explained Business Strategy Creating a Successful Strategy Corporate Strategy The Role of Leaders Related Topics Corporate Strategy Corporate Strategy Big companies aren’t necessarily more successful... View Details

28 Sep 2023
News

What Ray Dalio Can Teach Us About Global Venture and Startups

Ray Dalio (photo via Bridgewater Associates) and Alex Lazarow (photo by Lindsay Upson) In a recent conversation with Bridgewater Associates Founder Ray Dalio (MBA 1973), Alex Lazarow (MBA 2010) gleaned three insights (and one bonus) from the global hedge fund leader on... View Details

March 2006 (Revised April 2010)
Case

China: To Float or Not To Float? (A)

By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel

On July 21, 2005 China revalued its decade-long quasi-fixed exchange rate of approximately 8.28 yuan per U.S. dollar by 2.1% to 8.11 and, at the same time, introduced a more market-based exchange rate system. Many analysts and economists were disappointed with what... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Trade; Currency Exchange Rate; Governance Controls; Policy; Growth and Development Strategy; China

July 2008 (Revised August 2008)
Supplement

Fidelity Investments' Charitable Gift Fund (B)

By: Robert C. Pozen

The (B) case informs students of Fidelity's decision about pursuing a business process patent for its charitable gift fund and describes subsequent litigation and lawsuits filed by other companies over business process patent issues. View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; Business Processes

Find at Harvard

July 2022 (Revised July 2022)
Case

A Soul and a Service: North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance

By: Tom Nicholas and John Masko

The North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association (the Mutual) was founded in 1898 as a for-profit entity selling life insurance catering to the Black community. The Mutual was entering a field crowded with established White-owned competitors that largely refused to... View Details

Keywords: Black Entrepreneurs; Insurance; History; Race; Prejudice and Bias; Entrepreneurship; Decision Choices and Conditions; Growth and Development Strategy; Insurance Industry; United States

18 Mar 2013
HBS Case

HBS Cases: LEGO

Although it isn't part of the admissions criteria, experience playing with LEGOs can come in handy at Harvard Business School. When Stefan H. Thomke teaches his new case about the iconic toy company, he gives students eight-studded LEGO... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Entertainment & Recreation

22 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Restoring a Global Economy, 1950–1980

excluded from the Communist world. In the twenty years after 1945 the European colonial empires were dismantled. In some cases, decolonization was followed by an aggressive reaction against the businesses of the former colonial power, and... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

October 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Background Note

Plavix: Drugs in the Age of Personalized Medicine

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Mara G. Aspinall and Rachel Gordon

PIavix, one of the world's best selling drugs in 2010, appears to have a limited future. Its patent was due to expire soon, and recently new data had been discovered that indicated that a small subset of the population would be at risk for stroke, heart attack, or even... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Product Positioning; Business and Government Relations; Genetics; Competitive Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

February 2009 (Revised February 2012)
Case

Exeter Group, Inc. (A)

By: Robert G. Eccles, Das Narayandas and Kerry Herman

Jonathan Kutchins and Mark Cullen, managing partners of IT consulting firm Exeter Group, Inc., are considering four potential client engagements. Three of them involve prominent universities, an area of market strength for the firm, and one involves a top-tier strategy... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Resource Allocation; Market Entry and Exit; Service Operations; Performance Capacity; Business Strategy; Information Technology; Consulting Industry

13 Oct 2016
News

Wells Fargo Boss Stumpf Resigns

20 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

HBS Workshop Encourages Corporate Reporting on Environmental and Social Sustainability

The development of corporate integrated reporting (IR) standards has the promise to be one of the great business innovations of the 21st century, and could be pivotal in restoring public trust in business... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Accounting

January 2008
Case

Lenovo: Building A Global Brand (Multimedia case)

By: John A. Quelch and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Announced in December 2004, the $1.75 billion acquisition of IBM's PC division by Lenovo, China's largest PC maker, made headlines around the world. A relative upstart in the business, Lenovo acquired the division of IBM that invented the PC in 1981. While Lenovo was... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Information Infrastructure; Global Strategy; Acquisition; Brands and Branding; Manufacturing Industry; Computer Industry; China

05 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Raise Their Prices: Because They Can

much as they did." Instead, markups—the difference between prices charged at checkout and the marginal costs incurred by a company in order to make a product—climbed about 25 percent between 2006 and 2019, according to research by Alexander J. MacKay, an assistant... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

January 2014 (Revised May 2015)
Case

Open English

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Lisa Mazzanti

Open English, a Miami-based startup offering online English language learning services, had more than 30,000 active students across Latin America in 2012. The company had just closed a $43 million financing round in order to rapidly scale its service to the next level.... View Details

Keywords: Technology Strategy; Product Management; Startup; Online Learning; Digital Platforms; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Technology Industry; Miami; Venezuela

23 May 2019
Book

These Entrepreneurs Take a Pragmatic Approach to Solving Social Problems

In 1908, Harvard Business School’s first dean, Edwin Francis Gay, welcomed the School’s inaugural class of 59 students by saying that HBS was challenged with encouraging its students to have the “intellectual respect for business as a profession, with the social... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Green Technology

04 Aug 2010
News

A Lonely Crusader

agencies, Wall Street analysts, and even the business press for the most part dismissed Ackman as a self-serving crackpot. His message got lost in the rush to discredit the messenger. There are important lessons to be learned from... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; subprime mortgages; Finance; Finance

15 Sep 2015
First Look

September 15, 2015

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=49614 October 2015 Journal of Finance The Cost of Capital for Alternative Investments By: Jurek, Jakub W., and Erik Stafford Abstract—Traditional risk factor models indicate that hedge funds... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2020 (Revised July 2023)
Case

UCK Partners: Gong Cha

By: Victoria Ivashina and Sangyun Lee

In the Spring of 2017, Soomin Kim, Founding Partner of UCK Partners, and his team were debating the potential exit of UCK Partner’s investment in Gong Cha Korea, the sole local franchisor of the premium milk tea brand that they proprietarily sourced three years ago.... View Details

Keywords: Exit; Strategic Decision Making; Private Equity; Investment; Strategy; Investment Return; Decision Making; Bids and Bidding