Publications

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March 2006
Background Note

Strategic Compliance Management

Explains the construct of strategic compliance management (SCM) and asserts that managers and their firms can perform more effectively, that is, create or capture more value or better manage risk, when they comply with applicable laws, search for innovation... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Risk Management; Governance Compliance

2014
Working Paper

Bio-Piracy or Prospering Together? Fuzzy Set and Qualitative Analysis of Herbal Patenting by Firms

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna

Since the 1990s, several Western firms have filed patents based on medicinal herbs from emerging markets, evoking protests from local stakeholders against 'bio-piracy'. We explore conditions under which firms and local stakeholders share rents from such patents. Our... View Details

Keywords: Rents From New Technology; Local Stakeholders; Herbal Patents; QCA; Fuzzy Set Analysis; Qualitative Case Studies; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Patents; Emerging Markets; Health Care and Treatment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

March 2011 (Revised February 2018)
Supplement

Wealth Management Crisis at UBS (B)

By: George Serafeim

The case describes the resolution of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for tax fraud and the increasing pressure on the wealth management business. View Details

2019
Article

Can Big Data Improve Firm Decision Quality? The Role of Data Quality and Data Diagnosticity

By: Maryam Ghasemaghaei and Goran Calic

Anecdotal evidence suggests that, despite the large variety of data, the huge volume of generated data, and the fast velocity of obtaining data (i.e., big data), quality of big data is far from perfect. Therefore, many firms defer collecting and integrating big data as... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Analytics and Data Science; Decisions; Quality

Research Summary

Corporate Risk Management

Traditionally companies have managed different kinds of risk individually: the corporate treasurer or finance director handles credit risk and foreign exchange risk, the human resources manager handles employment risk, and so on. Integrated risk management calls for... View Details

04 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

Diversity Boosts Profits in Venture Capital Firms

yuri_arcurs Recent research shows for the first time that diversity in venture capital firms not only spawns creativity and alternative viewpoints, but also improves financial performance. Paul Gompers,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Banking; Financial Services

Working Paper

Benchmarking Against the Performance of High Profile 'Scandal' Firms

By: Emre Karaoglu, Tatiana Sandino and Randy Beatty

In recent years, several high profile firms engaged in accounting fraud that resulted in severe investor losses and erosion of trust in the capital markets. We examine high profile accounting "scandals" prosecuted by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Unlike most... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Ethics; Executive Compensation; Performance Evaluation; Financial Services Industry; United States

SSRN

11 AM – 12 PM EST, 13 Jan 2016
Webinars: Trending@HBS

What Great Service Leaders Know and Do: Creating Breakthroughs in Service Firms

In their recently completed book by the same title, Professor Schlesinger and coauthors and fellow HBS faculty members James L. Heskett (emeritus) and W. Earl Sasser posit the following: that management has within its control the authority, and, they think, the... View Details

March 2020 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Generation Investment Management

By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Sarah Mehta

By January 2020, sustainable investment firm Generation Investment Management (Generation), founded in London in 2004, had grown from a shared vision among seven founders to a 90-person firm managing $27 billion in public and private equity. Throughout its history,... View Details

Article

What Do Private Equity Firms Say They Do?

By: Paul A. Gompers, Steven N. Kaplan and Vladimir Mukharlyamov

We survey 79 private equity investors with combined assets under management (AUM) of over $750 billion about their practices in firm valuation, capital structure, governance, and value creation. Investors rely primarily on internal rate of return (IRR) and multiples to... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Valuation; Capital Structure; Value Creation

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Research Summary

Reinvention and "Technology Reemergence"

By: Ryan L. Raffaelli

The prevailing view of industry and technology evolution has emphasized displacement, on the assumption that old technologies and organizational forms will disappear when newer ones arrive. Professor Raffaelli's research challenges this view by illuminating how and... View Details

Keywords: Turnarounds; Innovation And Management; Technology Evolution; Change Management; Disruption; Transformation; Transition

07 Jun 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The Institutional Logic of Great Global Firms

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Research Summary

Institutions and Corporate Lobbying

“Institutions and Make-or-Buy Decision of Lobbying: The Role of Sociopolitical Legitimacy on Foreign MNEs’ Lobbying Internalization”

In this study, I examine how legitimacy comes into play in foreign MNEs’ make-or-buy decisions... View Details

Keywords: Institutions; Make V. Buy; Lobbying; Legitimacy; Corruption; Culture; Multinational Enterprise; United States

September 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Accelerating with Caution: Forecasting and Managing birddogs' Growth

By: Mark Egan

As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs’ founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. Their task at hand? To predict the demand for their product in the coming season, determine the appropriate investments in working... View Details

Keywords: Inventory; Working Capital; Forecasting and Prediction; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financing and Loans; Apparel and Accessories Industry

September 2010 (Revised May 2012)
Case

Windward Investment Management

By: Luis M. Viceira and Ricardo Alberto De Armas

Windward Investment Management has experienced rapid growth in assets under management in just ten years, from under $30 million at year-end 1999 to $3.6 billion in 2010. Windward is one of the leading firms in the Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) industry that... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Valuation; Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry

March 2006 (Revised February 2007)
Case

UBS: Towards the Integrated Firm

By: Rajiv Lal, Nitin Nohria and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In late June 2005, UBS Group CEO Peter Wuffli--anointed "Master of Zurich" by the financial press--was returning to Zurich from the firm's latest three-day Senior Leadership Conference (SLC). Tapping 600 top managers, this SLC featured an outdoor event at a former... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Programs; Leadership; Talent and Talent Management; Trust

October 2010
Journal Article

The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization on Corporate Hierarchies

By: Maria Guadalupe and Julie Wulf

This paper establishes a causal effect of product market competition on various characteristics of organizational design. Using a unique panel-dataset on firm hierarchies of large U.S. firms (1986-1999) and a quasi-natural experiment (trade liberalization), we find... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Product; Markets; Competition; Organizational Design; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Rank and Position; Organizational Structure; Decision Choices and Conditions; Change; Trade; United States

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November 2016 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Darby's Investment in Sirma: Professionalizing an Entrepreneurial Firm

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Eren Kuzucu

In March 2010, Burak Dalgın (HBS MBA 2004) led private equity firm Darby's investment in Sırma, a local Turkish water and beverage company. Sırma was owned and managed by members of two Turkish business families. The existing management, while being highly... View Details

Keywords: Control Systems; Variance Analysis; Emerging Markets; Debt; Family Ownership; Turkey; Valuation; Business or Company Management; Private Equity; Financial Reporting; Investment; Budgets and Budgeting; Food and Beverage Industry; Turkey

2001
Working Paper

Bank Capital and Risk Management: Issues for Banks and Regulators

By: Kenneth A. Froot

Banks and financial firms are in the process of evolving away from primary warehousers of risk to diversified originators and distributors of financial services. These changes are important for the way that financial firms think about their needs for economic... View Details

Keywords: Bank Capital And Risk Management; Issues For Banks And Regulators; Risk Management; Governance Compliance; Capital; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry