Publications

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February 2001 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Korea First Bank (A)

In December 1999, Newbridge Capital, an equity investment fund based in San Francisco, successfully negotiated with the Korean government to acquire a controlling interest in Korea First Bank. It was the first time a foreign financial institution acquired a Korean... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Process; Negotiation Participants; Foreign Direct Investment; Acquisition; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; San Francisco; South Korea

October 2003 (Revised December 2020)
Case

Globalizing Consumer Durables: Singer Sewing Machine before 1914

By: Geoffrey Jones and David Kiron

Examines the global strategy of Singer, one of the world's first multinationals, before 1914. Singer, a U.S. pioneer of the modern sewing machine, established its first foreign factory in Scotland in 1867. Investments followed in manufacturing and marketing in other... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Multinational Firms and Management; Global Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Globalization

Article

U.S. Multinationals in British Manufacturing before 1962

By: G. Jones and Frances Bostock

This article presents a new database on U.S. multinationals active in British manufacturing between 1907 and 1962. Britain was the largest European host economy for U.S. direct investment in manufacturing and the second largest host worldwide. This article identifies... View Details

Keywords: Production; Trade; Foreign Direct Investment; Research and Development; Business Subsidiaries; Policy; Investment; Manufacturing Industry; United States; Great Britain

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22 May 2022
News

Laura Huang On Turning Adversity Into Advantage

2021
Working Paper

The Contribution of High-Skilled Immigrants to Innovation in the United States

By: Shai Bernstein, Rebecca Diamond, Abhisit Jiranaphawiboon, Timothy McQuade and Beatriz Pousada

We characterize the contribution of immigrants to US innovation, both through their direct productivity as well as through their indirect spillover effects on their native collaborators. To do so, we link patent records to a database containing the first five digits of... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Economic Growth; Immigrants; Innovation and Invention; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Patents; Innovation Strategy

Research Summary

International Financial Integration and Entrepreneurship (joint with Andrew Charlton)

By: Laura Alfaro

We explore the relation between international financial integration and the level of entrepreneurial activity in a country. Researchers have stressed the role of new firm activity and economic dynamism on growth. Yet, the empirical effects of international capital... View Details

May 2009 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Enel: Power, Russia, and Global Markets

By: Rawi E. Abdelal, Richard H.K. Vietor and Sogomon Tarontsi

Although the global trend toward liberalization of electric utilities forced Enel, the largest power company in Italy, to give up some of its assets in its home base, it also opened up many opportunities abroad, including in Russia, one of the largest electricity... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Energy Generation; Foreign Direct Investment; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Business and Government Relations; Utilities Industry; Russia; Italy

June 2019
Article

Brokers vs. Retail Investors: Conflicting Interests and Dominated Products

By: Mark Egan

I study how brokers distort household investment decisions. Using a novel convertible bond dataset, I find that consumers often purchase dominated bonds—cheap and expensive versions of otherwise identical bonds coexist in the market. The empirical evidence suggests... View Details

Keywords: Brokers; Fiduciary Standard; Consumer Finance; Structured Products; Household; Investment; Decisions; Motivation and Incentives; Conflict of Interests

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2020
Working Paper

Party-State Capitalism in China

By: Margaret Pearson, Meg Rithmire and Kellee Tsai

The “state capitalism” model, in which the state retains a dominant role as owner or investor-shareholder amidst the presence of markets and private firms, has received increasing attention, with China cited as the main exemplar. Yet as models evolve, so has China’s... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; State Capitalism; Economic Systems; China

Research Summary

Capital flows in a Globalized Economy: The Role of Policies and Institutions (joint with Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych)

By: Laura Alfaro

We describe the patterns of international capital flows in the period 1970-2000. We then examine the determinants of capital flows and capital flow volatility during this period. We find that institutional quality is an important determinant of capital flows.... View Details

February 2025
Case

Align Partners and SM Entertainment: Korean Shareholder Activism Meets K-Pop (A)

By: Charles CY Wang and Billy Chan

For years, institutional investors had experienced very limited success in influencing the management of listed companies through shareholder activist campaigns in Korea. The common practice of circular ownership and public resentment toward foreign shareholder... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Public Equity; Stocks; Investment Activism; Music Entertainment; Corporate Governance; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; South Korea

Vikram S. Gandhi is the Gerald P. Kaminsky Senior Lecturer of Business Administration in the General Management Unit. He has developed and teaches two new courses in the Elective Curriculum of the MBA Program. The first is a finance and investing course, Sustainable... View Details

Keywords: financial services

22 Jan 2013
First Look

First Look: Jan. 22

at the level of (a) organizational collectives, (b) single organizations, (c) organizational building blocks, and (d) individuals. Building on this framework, we develop a general model that points to major avenues for future research and charts new View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2023
Chapter

Private Equity Financing

By: Victoria Ivashina

The goal of this chapter is to understand the common practices of PE funds’ structure and funding. The chapter covers three topics. First, it gives an overview of the traditional private equity (PE) financing structure; then, it discusses other investment vehicles like... View Details

Keywords: Trends; Private Equity; Investment Funds

25 Oct 2010
HBS Case

Tesco’s Stumble into the US Market

its US management ranks mostly with British expats instead of hiring locally. How did that strategy work for them? What can we all learn? A: Tesco established Fresh & Easy as a greenfield investment rather than acquiring or joint... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

17 Sep 2024
Blog Post

The International Experience at HBS: Zoe Sun (MBA 2024)

and the investing world. However, having grown up in mainland China, studied in the US and Europe, and gained an undergraduate degree in Foreign Service, I firmly believe that there is a bigger world out... View Details

2022
Working Paper

Training, Communications Patterns, and Spillovers Inside Organizations

By: Miguel Espinosa and Christopher T. Stanton

We study direct productivity changes and spillovers after a randomized training program for the frontline workers in a Colombian government agency. While trained workers improved their individual production, we also find substantial spillovers that affected managers'... View Details

Keywords: Spillovers; Labor Productivity; Firm Objectives, Organization, And Behavior; Training; Performance Productivity

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2010
Chapter

Backlash to Arbitration: Three Causes

By: Louis T. Wells

There are at least three reasons for the current backlash among developing countries against the international regime that governs disputes between foreign investors and host governments. First is the inconsistency of the decisions rendered by arbitration panels... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Agreements and Arrangements; Business and Government Relations; Conflict Management