Publications

September 12, 2022
Article

Merit or Inherit: How to Approach Succession in a Family Business

By: Josh Baron

One of the most critical questions facing family businesses is how to treat the next generation. They are clearly different from other employees, as current or potential owners of the company, whose wealth and reputation are on the line. On the flip side, most parents... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Family and Family Relationships; Management Succession

Register to Read

October 2024 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Citizens of the World: The International Legacy of Gloria von Thurn und Taxis

By: Lauren Cohen, Maximilian Form and Sophia Pan

When her husband passed away and inheritance taxes struck, Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis took decisive action to preserve her family’s fortune and legacy. The Thurn und Taxis family, one of Europe’s oldest aristocratic dynasties, had built their wealth through... View Details

Keywords: Family Office; Real Estate; Legacy; International Business; Family Business; Economy; Macroeconomics; Financial Crisis; Financial Liquidity; Investment; Global Strategy; Reputation; Diversification; Wealth; Taxation; Germany

September 2024 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Carrie Wang: Choosing Between the Family Firm and the Family Spirit

By: Lauren Cohen, Fei Wu and Sophia Pan

Carrie Wang, Investment Head of the Wang’s single-family office, contemplated her next career steps. As one of the first businessmen who had risen from China’s industrial rise, her father had grown his wealth to a considerable level, eventually requesting that his... View Details

Keywords: Family Office; Interests Of Consumers; Family Business; Business Growth and Maturation; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Financial Markets; Investment Portfolio; Investment Return; Private Equity; Customer Relationship Management; Interests; Reputation; Work-Life Balance; Real Estate Industry; China

June 1996 (Revised November 1996)
Background Note

Economic Gains from Trade, The: Theories of Strategic Trade

The theory of competitive advantage is one of the most widely accepted economic principles among economists. The theory, as well as substantial historical evidence, suggest that free trade raises national income, while government intervention in trade relations... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Trade

2025
Chapter

Sustainability and Green Business in Latin America

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter argues that since the nineteenth century capitalism has created much wealth, but at the cost of massive ecological destruction, which has been particularly severe in Latin America. During the first global economy before 1929, considerable wealth was... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Business History; Globalization; Economic Growth; Latin America

Find at Harvard

29 Apr 2008
First Look

First Look: April 29, 2008

Working PapersNone this week Cases & Course MaterialsAvaya (A) Harvard Business School Case 508-048 Avaya's top management wants to improve demand generation. This requires an improvement in the relationship between Sales and Marketing. This case series (Avaya... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July 1991 (Revised October 1995)
Case

KPMG Peat Marwick: The Shadow Partner

By: Robert G. Eccles Jr.

KPMG Peat Marwick executives needed to decide whether to fund full development of "The Shadow Partner," the name coined to describe a worldwide information network that would link all KPMG professionals to each other and to a wealth of data bases and information... View Details

Keywords: Information Management; Data and Data Sets; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Networks; Partners and Partnerships; Information Technology

29 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 29, 2008

Entrepreneurship Author:Ramana Nanda Abstract This paper examines the extent to which the positive relationship between personal wealth and entry into entrepreneurship is due to financing constraints. I exploit a tax reform and use unique... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

20 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 20, 2008

economicus, model of human behavior that treats managers as selfish maximizers of personal wealth and power. The Homo economicus model implies that a firm's board of directors can best further stockholders' interests by (a) selecting... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior

Keywords: by Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton & Elizabeth W. Dunn

03 Jun 2008
First Look

First Look: June 3, 2008

Working PapersAccountability and Inequality in Single-Party Regimes: A Comparative Analysis of Vietnam and China Authors:Regina Abrami, Edmund Malesky, and Yu Zheng Abstract Over the past two decades, no two economies have averaged more rapid economic growth than... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2015
Background Note

Note on Economic Inequality (2015)

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

For over half a century, most of the world's economies have enjoyed steady growth and prosperity. However, beginning in the 1980s, and continuing essentially unabated to the present, the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in developed countries has widened,... View Details

Keywords: Economic Inequalty; Income Inequality; Growth and Development; Economics; Equality and Inequality; Society; Problems and Challenges; United States

December 2009 (Revised May 2010)
Case

Codevasf

By: David E. Bell, Marcos Fava Neves, Luciano Thome e Castro and Natalie Kindred

With many countries facing scarcity of freshwater and farmable land, Brazil decided to leverage its wealth of both resources to attract global agribusiness players to the historically poor Sao Francisco Valley (SFV) in the country's northeast. To do so, Brazil was... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Resource Allocation; Bids and Bidding; Infrastructure; Supply Chain; Business and Government Relations; Natural Environment; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Brazil

09 Aug 2017
News

Non-Executive Directors Need To Align With Managers -- Without Losing Their Independence

09 Nov 2011
Working Paper Summaries

CEO Bonus Plans: And How to Fix Them

Keywords: by Kevin J. Murphy & Michael C. Jensen

November 2018
Teaching Note

The Tax Man: Taxes in Private Equity Real Estate

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Sayiddah Fatima McCree

Teaching Note for HBS No. 218-077. This teaching note provides the back up analysis for the various alternatives to be considered in choosing the optimal investment structure for the real estate acquisition. It contrasts the interests of the tax exempt investors... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Alternative Investment Structures; Taxation; Private Equity; Property; Acquisition; Conflict of Interests; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

2014
Chapter

Firms and Global Capitalism

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter forms part of the two-volume Cambridge History of Capitalism, a definitive new reference work that traces the history of capitalism from its origins to the present day. The chapter focuses on the role of business enterprises as powerful actors in... View Details

Keywords: Political Economy; American History; Economic History; Business History; Labor History; Slavery; Numeracy And Quantification; Science And Technology Studies; History Of The Book; International Investment; International Business; International Marketing; Globalization; History

Find at Harvard

September–October 2012
Article

One-Switch Conditions for Multiattribute Utility Functions

By: Ali E. Abbas and David E. Bell

We introduce a variety of new independence conditions for multiattribute utility functions that permit preference dependencies among the attributes of a decision problem. The hierarchy of new conditions varies in the degree to which it specifies the functional form,... View Details

Keywords: One-switch; Utility Independence; Risk Aversion; Multiattribute Utility; Decision Making