Publications

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February 2007 (Revised May 2007)
Case

Bancaja: Developing Customer Intelligence (A)

In 1996, CEO Fernando Garcia Checa wanted to make customer analytics a part of Bancaja's new strategy. Bancaja, a savings bank based in Valencia, Spain, was expanding and wanted to exploit customer information to increase commercial effectiveness. At the same time, it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Banking Industry; Spain

January 2005 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Kohler Co. (A)

Kohler Co., best known for its plumbing fixtures, is a large, private family firm. As part of a recapitalization aimed at preserving family ownership of Kohler Co., nonfamily shareholders, who held 4% of common stock, were required to sell their shares to the company.... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Stocks; Price; Family Ownership; Business and Shareholder Relations; Valuation

July 2001
Case

Paula Evans and the Redesign of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (A)

By: Linda A. Hill, Kristin Doughty and Ellen Pruyne

Paula Evans is in her second year as principal of the only high school in Cambridge, MA. Her mandate when she arrived was to redesign the high school so that long-standing inequities in academic achievement rates across race and socioeconomic class were removed. In her... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Strategy; Secondary Education; Restructuring; Leadership; Conflict Management; Education Industry; Cambridge

February 2001 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Ducati & Texas Pacific Group - A "Wild Ride" Leveraged Buyout

Describes the attempt of Texas Pacific Group (TPG), a buyout firm, to purchase a controlling stake in Ducati Motor, the world's leading high-performance motorcycle company, based in Bologna, Italy. Ducati is part of Cagiva Group, a family-controlled industrial group.... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Leveraged Buyouts; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Manufacturing Industry; Motorcycle Industry; Texas; Italy

This case analyzes IBM's financial performance and its capital allocation decisions over a 10-year period from 2004-2013, during which IBM returned more than $140B to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. During this time, CEO Sam... View Details

22 Jan 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Separating Homophily and Peer Influence with Latent Space

Keywords: by Joseph P. Davin, Sunil Gupta & Mikołaj Jan Piskorski

2009
Working Paper

Assess, Don't Assume, Part I: Etiquette and National Culture in Negotiation

By: James K. Sebenius

When facing a cross-border negotiation, the standard preparatory assessments -- of the parties, their interests, their no-deal options, opportunities for and barriers to creating and claiming value, the most promising sequence and process design, etc. -- should be... View Details

Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Negotiation Process; Societal Protocols; Competitive Advantage; Cooperation

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11 Oct 2023
News

Soldier On

superintendent, the teachers. I think about four or five days later, I had my first decision as mayor. The head of the school board called—and in Virginia and in a lot of other states, the school board is independently elected, and also... View Details

14 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Feeling Stressed? Try Sniffing Your Romantic Partner's Shirt

will look at whether a partner’s scent soothes other types of people, too. “The decision to use women as smellers was not based on predicted sex difference, but rather on logistical considerations (e.g., prior research showing that women... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

Web

HBS Entrepreneurship Summit - Alumni

OKRs From Individual Contributor to Manager - Adapting Your Work Style Hiring Fast and Firing Faster Making Decisions with Imperfect Data Managing Cross-Functional Teams Managing Pivots and Setbacks Managing Your Career: Should I Stay or... View Details

April 2017 (Revised May 2017)
Case

GE Capital After the Crisis

By: John C. Coates, John D. Dionne and David S. Scharfstein

Keith Sherin, CEO of GE Capital, faced a decision on which hinged billions of dollars and the fate of one of America’s most storied companies. On his desk sat two secret analyses: Project Beacon, a proposal to spin off most of GE Capital to GE shareholders, and... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Institutions; Strategy

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Six Steps for Making Your Threat Credible

them is delegated to whoever is most willing to do so. If you feel you're too invested in the negotiation, you might announce, after making a threat, that your boss is filling in for you. "I'd hate to see the deal fall apart," you could explain, "but he... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra

08 Jul 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Truth in Giving: Experimental Evidence on the Welfare Effects of Informed Giving to the Poor

Keywords: by Christina Fong & Felix Oberholzer-Gee

Research Summary

Fabrizio Ferri's research focuses on a number of corporate governance issues, with particular emphasis on executive compensation and shareholder activism. His dissertation investigates the determinants and consequences of firms' decision to reprice... View Details

January 2025
Case

Negotiating a Legacy at Sustainable Harvest (A)

By: Jillian Jordan, Julian Zlatev, Alicia Dadlani and Martha Hostetter

The specialty coffee importer Sustainable Harvest was the first certified B Corp in the coffee industry due to its investments in building coffee farmers’ capacity and livelihood. But in 2022, after coffee prices plummeted and the company’s bank declined to extend its... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Trust; Ethics; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Volatility; Futures and Commodity Futures; Social Enterprise; Valuation; Business Model; Credit; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Europe

March 2025
Article

Boomerasking: Answering Your Own Questions

By: Alison Wood Brooks and Michael Yeomans

Humans spend much of their lives in conversation, where they tend to hold many simultaneous motives. We examine two fundamental desires: to be responsive to a partner and to disclose about oneself. We introduce one pervasive way people attempt to reconcile these... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Motivation and Incentives; Perception; Behavior

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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

June 2024 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Lana Ghanem: Pushing the Boundaries of Health Care Through Venture Capital

By: Joshua D. Margolis and Ahmed Dahawy

Lana Ghanem, managing director of Hikma Ventures, the corporate venture arm of larger pharmaceutical group Hikma, is considering how to grow the venture arm as well as progress her own career. Over the past few years Hikma's executive team had been pressuring the... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Investment; Corporate Governance; Health Care and Treatment; Leadership Development; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Venture Capital; Personal Development and Career; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Jordan

2023
Working Paper

Estimating Productivity in the Presence of Spillovers: Firm-Level Evidence from the U.S. Production Network

By: Ebehi Iyoha

This paper examines the extent to which productivity gains are transmitted across U.S. firms through buyer-supplier relationships. Many empirical studies measure firm-to-firm spillovers using firm-level productivity estimates derived from control function approaches.... View Details

Keywords: Supply and Industry; Partners and Partnerships; Production