Publications

February 2000 (Revised December 2001)
Case

Kmart Inc. and Builders Square

In 1997, Kmart received an offer from retail buyout specialists Leonard Green & Partners for the purchase of its ailing 162-store home improvement chain, Builders Square. Green's offer included a $10 million cash payment, a warrant to purchase a 28% stake in the new... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Valuation; Leveraged Buyouts; Construction Industry; Retail Industry; United States

28 Apr 2008
HBS Case

Negotiating with Wal-Mart

encounter someone with a great deal of power, like Wal-Mart, who is also the ultimate non-negotiable partner?" The case details how P&G executive Tom Muccio pioneers a new supplier-retailer... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

March 2024 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Vineyard Wind Starts Spinning: Overcoming Onshore Challenges to Offshore Wind

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small

To activate the first wind turbines in the ocean off Martha’s Vineyard eventually supplying clean energy to 400,000 households, Vineyard Wind’s leaders had to navigate the permitting process, numerous delays, and objections from stakeholders in three communities:... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Renewable Energy; Joint Ventures; Green Technology; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Massachusetts; Martha's Vineyard; New Bedford; New England

21 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

The VC Quandary: Too Much Money

director. "We still do about 100 deals a year," and have averaged about $300 million over the last three years. Intel has also kept a broad presence internationally, with investment professionals in twenty-five countries, McCall... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette; Financial Services

08 Mar 2019
Research & Ideas

Seven Negotiation Lessons from Amazon's HQ Disaster in Queens

As Amazon’s stunning pullout from New York fades into the news archives, its potent lessons for business negotiators risk being lost. Highly promising deals in diffuse... View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius; Real Estate; Construction

April 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

AI Wars

By: Andy Wu, Matt Higgins, Miaomiao Zhang and Hang Jiang

In February 2024, the world was looking to Google to see what the search giant and long-time putative technical leader in artificial intelligence (AI) would do to compete in the massively hyped technology of generative AI. Over a year ago, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a... View Details

Keywords: AI; Artificial Intelligence; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Competitive Strategy; Technological Innovation

12 PM – 1:30 PM EST, 29 Feb 2024
Webinars: Career

Considering Retirement

"So you're actually thinking about retiring?!" Retirement can inspire not only excitement for new possibilities, but also fear for the future. How can you keep the parts of work you love but enjoy more balance in your life? What work will you do? How will this... View Details

August 2023
Case

Constellation Pharmaceuticals: Corporate Development at a Novel Therapeutic Company

By: Satish Tadikonda and Brad Prosek

Constellation Pharmaceuticals was a company focused on epigenetic therapies for cancer patients. Despite a promising start and an early deal with a leading biopharma company, the company weathered twin setbacks in the end of a major research collaboration and the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Health Care and Treatment; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Research and Development; Business Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Goals and Objectives; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

May 2024
Teaching Note

Vineyard Wind Starts Spinning: Overcoming Onshore Challenges to Offshore Wind

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 324-113. To activate the first wind turbines in the ocean off Martha’s Vineyard eventually supplying clean energy to 400,000 households, Vineyard Wind’s leaders had to navigate the permitting process, numerous delays, and objections from... View Details

Keywords: Joint Ventures; Renewable Energy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Industry; Massachusetts; Martha's Vineyard; New Bedford

02 Jan 2024
What Do You Think?

Do Boomerang CEOs Get a Bad Rap?

who opposed Iger’s reappointment, along with the most-often cited research investigators on the topic, say no. Those who support the notion of bringing back a formerly successful CEO cite the need for someone who understands the business, the problem, and the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

March 2008
Article

Deferred Acceptance Algorithms: History, Theory, Practice, and Open Questions

By: Alvin E. Roth

The deferred acceptance algorithm proposed by Gale and Shapley (1962) has had a profound influence on market design, both directly, by being adapted into practical matching mechanisms, and, indirectly, by raising new theoretical questions. Deferred acceptance... View Details

Keywords: History; Market Design; Labor; System; Practice; Performance; Theory; Boston; New York (city, NY)

Find at Harvard

April 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

BlackRock (C): Integrating BGI (with video links)

By: Ranjay Gulati, Jan W. Rivkin and Aldo Sesia

On June 11, 2009, BlackRock, Inc., the world’s fourth-largest asset manager announced it was acquiring Barclays Global Investors (BGI) for $13.5 billion in stock and cash. The deal would more than double BlackRock’s assets under management (AUM), making it the world’s... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Integration; Organizational Culture; Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Information Technology; Asset Management; Financial Services Industry; United States

This paper investigates how executive employment contracts influence corporate financial policies during the final year of the contract term, using a new, hand-collected data set of CEO employment agreements. On the one hand, the impending... View Details

2009
Working Paper

An Ounce of Prevention: The Power of Public Risk Management in Stabilizing the Financial System

By: David A. Moss

The magnitude of the current financial crisis reflects the failure of an economic and regulatory philosophy that had proved increasingly influential in policy circles over the past three decades.

This paper suggests (1) that contrary to the prevailing wisdom,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Financial Institutions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Risk Management; Business and Government Relations; Balance and Stability

Read Now

July 2020
Supplement

CSL Capital Management: Patriot Proppants (B)

By: Victoria Ivashina and Yury Kapko

This two-part case series follows CSL Capital’s 2009 investment in the greenfield manufacturing company, Patriot Proppants. CSL, a recently established investment firm, employs a unique investment model, funding new ("greenfield") energy service businesses that serve... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Renewable Energy; Decision Making

June 2007
Exercise

EZAmuse Negotiation Background (A)

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

This is the background to an exercise in negotiation. A promising venture-capital-backed company, EZAmuse Communications, is raising a B round. Its existing backer, Reality Venture Partners, would like it to raise enough for six or nine months, when it will have... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Negotiation Deal; Valuation; Leadership Style; Venture Capital; Partners and Partnerships; Product; Germany

01 Dec 2003
What Do You Think?

Is This the Twilight Era for the Managed Mutual Fund?

Some time ago he concluded that mutual fund investment managers: (1) through their investment decisions destroy as much value for investors as they create—a view for which there is a great deal of evidence—and (2) through their behaviors... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

February 2017 (Revised May 2018)
Case

The Flint, Michigan Sit-Down Strike

By: Tom Nicholas, Christopher T. Stanton and Matthew Preble

For roughly six weeks between late December 1936 and February 1937, a major strike at several critical General Motors (GM) plants in Flint, Michigan, essentially halted the corporation’s U.S. production and resulted in significant gains for the nascent United... View Details