Publications

March 2003 (Revised November 2003)
Case

3i Group plc

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Brian Larcombe, CEO of 3i Group, one of the world's largest private equity firms and one of the few publicly listed ones, is deciding how best to use his firm's international network to deliver superior returns to shareholders. This case presents 3i's history and... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Networks; Private Equity; Growth Management; Global Strategy; Public Ownership; Business and Shareholder Relations; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry

December 2018 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Bord Bia: Strategically Growing Irish Exports

By: Jose B. Alvarez, Forest L. Reinhardt and Emer Moloney

Agriculture was Ireland’s largest indigenous industry. Its agri-food sector was export driven, with almost 90% of production exported. Bord Bia was the Irish government agency charged with the promotion, trade development, and marketing of the Irish food, drink, and... View Details

November 2024
Background Note

Social Enterprise in the MENA Region

By: Brian Trelstad and Ahmed Dahawy

This research note provides an overview of the socio-economic landscape of social enterprise in the Middle East and North Africa. It highlights the diversity of players in the region including social enterprise organizations (in their many forms) and supporting... View Details

November 2009 (Revised January 2011)
Case

International AIDS Vaccine Initiative

By: Allen S. Grossman and Cathy Ross

Dedicated to accelerating the development of a safe, effective, accessible, preventive HIV vaccine, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) pioneered ways of addressing the inadequate incentive structures that prevented progress toward vaccines for AIDS and... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Globalized Firms and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Business and Government Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Research and Development; Social Enterprise; Health Industry

March 2008 (Revised July 2009)
Case

U.S. Subprime Mortgage Crisis: Policy Reactions (A)

By: Laura Alfaro and Renee Kim

By March 2008, the U.S. Government and the U.S. Federal Reserve Board had taken various policy measures over the last few months to tackle the subprime mortgage crisis that threatened to drag the economy into a recession. The Bush administration approved a fiscal... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Inflation and Deflation; Central Banking; Mortgages; Policy; Business and Government Relations; United States

March 2002
Case

AOL, Cisco, Yahoo!: Building the Internet Commons

By: James E. Austin

Since the spring of 2001, AOL, Cisco, and Yahoo! had collaborated on ways to improve the effectiveness of using the Internet to benefit society. Each company considered itself strongly committed to philanthropy, making significant charitable donations, and fostering a... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business and Community Relations; Information Technology Industry; Web Services Industry

January 2013 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Pittsburgh

By: Eric Werker, Meg Rithmire, Benjamin Kennedy and Andrew Knauer

The case narrates the development of Pittsburgh from the 1940s to 2012. It analyzes the collapse of the steel industry in the early 1980s, the city's subsequent decline, and the city's later re-emergence as a hub for higher education, the tech sector, and the... View Details

November 2003 (Revised November 2015)
Case

Brazil at the Wheel

By: Geoffrey Jones

Taught in the second-year MBA elective on the Evolution of Global Business. Examines the costs and benefits of the Brazilian government's policies to encourage foreign multinationals to develop an automobile industry during the 1950s. A combination of incentives and... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Multinational Firms and Management; Policy; Government and Politics; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Auto Industry; Brazil

December 2017
Response

Reply: Do Powerful Politicians Really Cause Corporate Downsizing?

By: Lauren Cohen, Joshua D. Coval and Christopher J. Malloy

While we commend the initiative of Snyder and Welch (2017), we lay out in this short reply why we remain highly confident in our results and our interpretation thereof. We welcome authors to continue to explore the data for themselves and look forward to the new... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Private Sector; Taxation; Interest Rates; Business and Government Relations; Investment; Employment; Power and Influence

September 2009 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Suntech Power

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

Suntech, a Chinese manufacturer of photovoltaic cells and solar panels, is the third largest solar company in the world. About 90 percent of its sales have been in Europe—especially Germany and Spain. But with its new "pluto" technology, and with new governmental... View Details

Keywords: Solar Power; Renewable Energy; Globalized Markets and Industries; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Expansion; Strategy; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; China

2018
Article

What Can Managers Privately Disclose to Investors?

By: Eugene F. Soltes

Regulators have long been aware that differential access to information can undermine the efficiency and fairness of financial markets. In an effort to place investors on equal footing, the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2000 created Regulation Fair Disclosure... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure Regulation; Information; Communication; Business and Shareholder Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

Read Now

February 2009 (Revised March 2009)
Case

AFSCME vs. Mozilo...and "Say on Pay" for All! (A)

By: Fabrizio Ferri and James Weber

Union seeks to protect its pension funds through shareholder activism focused on corporate governance and executive compensation. The case uses Countrywide Financial as an example. Richard Ferlauto, director of pensions and benefits policy at the AFSCME, the largest... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Mortgages; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Labor Unions; Business and Shareholder Relations; United States

April 4, 2009
Article

The Return of State-Owned Enterprises: Should We Be Afraid?

By: Aldo Musacchio and Francisco Flores-Macias

The global financial crisis of 2008-2009 has prompted many industrialized states worldwide to increase their stakes in private corporations. This wave of partial nationalizations has come amidst full-scale expropriations in developing countries such as Venezuela,... View Details

Keywords: History; Private Ownership; State Ownership; Financial Crisis; Business and Government Relations

13 Jun 2017
Blog Post

7 Reasons Why the New MS/MBA: Engineering Sciences Program at Harvard is Next Level

[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tqSnOoXaZYY/maxresdefault.jpg] It means your professors are incredibly entrepreneurial, and are applying research in cutting edge tech, stats and View Details

10 May 2017
Research & Ideas

Amazon Web Services Changed the Way VCs Fund Startups

to recent research. Enter the era of “spray and pray,” where venture firms over the last decade have seeded more firms than previously, but with less upfront investment of time and money. As someone who... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Banking; Financial Services; Information Technology

July 2016
Case

The EC Rains on Oracle/Sun (A)

By: Lena G. Goldberg

Oracle's proposed acquisition of Sun was on a fast track until the EC's antitrust concerns about open-source MySQL ignited a transatlantic war of words delaying the deal. Sun's performance suffered and its customers were approached by competitors while regulatory... View Details

Keywords: Law; Antitrust; EC Regulation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Multinational Firms and Management; Laws and Statutes; Monopoly; Business and Government Relations

August 2003 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Multinational Corporations in Apartheid-era South Africa: The Issue of Reparations

By: Geoffrey Jones and Cate Reavis

Considers the lawsuits filed on behalf of victims of apartheid against multinationals who operated in South Africa prior to 1994. Reviews the debates about divestment from and sanctions against South Africa from the 1950s. Includes case studies of companies that... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Multinational Firms and Management; Government Legislation; Lawsuits and Litigation; Business and Government Relations; Prejudice and Bias; South Africa

October 1997
Case

John A. McCarthy, Jr.

By: Hugo Uyterhoeven, Todd M. Harris, A. Lanham Napier and John Sisson

Seven years after graduation, an MBA grad accepts the COO position in a company he's never heard of in an industry he knows nothing about. Moving up a vertical learning curve, he is involved in a crisis, and exposed to change and people management. He also must develop... View Details

Keywords: Management; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Leadership Development; Labor and Management Relations; Business Strategy; Management Teams

March 2018
Supplement

China Vanke: Battle for Control (D)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Charles C.Y. Wang, Dawn H. Lau and Anthony K. Woo

In the battle for control over China Vanke, the Chinese securities regulator steps in to censure Vanke and Baoneng for acting against the interests of the market and minority shareholders. The Chinese insurance regulator also finds Baoneng to be in violation of... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Shareholder Relations; Conflict and Resolution; Real Estate Industry; China