Publications

28 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

Football Stars Debate ‘The Social Capital of the Savvy Athlete’

Bowl running back Arian Foster," according to a company press release. Fantex paid $10 million for a minority stake in Foster's brand. At the Harvard forum, Foster said that Security and Exchange Commission View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Sports

22 Apr 2020
Research Event

How Investors Are Sizing Up Climate Change’s Risks—and Opportunities

also looking at the “transition risks” associated with shifting to a lower-carbon economy. New and more stringent regulations and practices will likely spur that transition,... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services

November 1994
Case

Navistar International

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Jeremy Cott

As a consequence of laying off half its workforce in a massive downsizing program, the company--a large manufacturer of medium and heavy trucks--struggles with a huge ($2.6 billion) liability for retiree medical costs. Although the company has promised its retirees... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Process; Wages; Labor Unions; Legal Liability; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Restructuring

3 PM – 4 PM EST, 11 Dec 2017
Webinars: Trending@HBS

Entrepreneurship: Failing Well

Most ventures fail. Most lives are built on journeys that did not get to their desired destination. How can we think about failure as a necessary part of growth and learn to fail well? View Details

October 1988
Case

Agrico, Inc.: A Software Dilemma

By: F. Warren McFarlan

An information systems vice president has one hour to make an ethical decision: should a software program, left inadvertently on the company's computer, be copied and stored? Copying the program would protect clients' assets, but it seems to violate the vendor... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Ethics; Contracts; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Information Technology Industry

January 2005 (Revised February 2006)
Background Note

Note on Corporate Strategy

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Introduces students to the study of corporate strategy. Focuses on questions of scope and ownership. Examines both horizontal and vertical integration. Underscores the point that economies of scope, or the existence of relationship-specific investments, are... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Contracts; Ownership; Corporate Strategy; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration

July 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Charles Veillon, S.A. (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Aldo Sesia

The top management team at Charles Veillon, a Swiss mail-order company, is considering whether to work with a human rights organization to monitor the labor practices of its suppliers. A particular concern is avoiding child labor and other forms of workplace coercion.... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Governance Controls; Labor; Rights; Nonprofit Organizations; Switzerland

07 Aug 2000
Research & Ideas

The Business of Biotech

information, they argue, it follows that our potential to develop a particular disease will matter less and less to insurers. The general consensus, however, is that new legislation will be required in the meantime for this View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Biotechnology; Health; Technology

16 Jul 2024
Blog Post

Advancing Health Equity: Social Enterprise Summer Fellow Simona Stancov (MBA 2025)

allowed me to appreciate that organizations’ choices across these business domains do not exist in a vacuum. Health facilities are shaped by the systems to which they belong. These systems, in turn, are regulated View Details

November 2008 (Revised March 2014)
Supplement

Savage Beast (B)

By: Noam Wasserman, LP Maurice and Yael Braid

For several months, things had been spiraling downwards at Savage Beast, the music-recommendation company started three years before by Tim Westergren. The company's founder-CEO recently left due to pressures both at home and within the venture. Dozens of investors... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Compensation and Benefits; Employee Relationship Management; Lawsuits and Litigation; Groups and Teams

10 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 10

economic harm that system operators could prevent or mitigate. Although the legal system can respond, regulations have mixed results. I examine the applicable legal rules that constrain online fraud and the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Conflicts of Interest at Uptown Bank

By: Jonas Heese

In 2013, two employees debated whether to blow the whistle on their employer, Bell Bank, after completing an internal review that revealed undisclosed conflicts of interest. Bell Bank’s Asset Management business disproportionately invested clients’ money in Bell Bank’s... View Details

08 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 8

weakening its capacity to achieve espoused goals and eroding public trust. In the private sector, institutional corruption typically entails gaming society's laws and... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

December 2007 (Revised June 2009)
Case

KPMG (A): A Near-Death Experience

By: Robert G. Eccles and Eliot Sherman

Describes the way in which "Big Four" auditor KPMG dealt with an indictment stemming from the firm's sale of tax shelters. In 2005 Tim Flynn has been KPMG Chairman for a matter of days when he learns that the government is preparing to indict the firm on charges of... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Crime and Corruption; Taxation; Lawsuits and Litigation; Crisis Management; Partners and Partnerships; Accounting Industry; Service Industry