Publications

March 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Background Note

Physical Climate Risk

By: Michael W. Toffel, Spencer Glendon and Alison Smart

This note describes how managers can identify and manage their company’s physical climate risks, which can increase their operations and supply chain costs and risks, and affect demand for their goods and services. Can be paired with the video “Preparing business... View Details

Keywords: Resilience; Maps; Climate Risk; Climate Impact; Modeling And Analysis; Climate Change; Risk Management; Demand and Consumers; Supply Chain; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Disruption

11 Feb 2015
News

For Valentine's Day, Adore Me Takes On Victoria's Secret and Other Bigger Lingerie Rivals

January 2005 (Revised June 2006)
Case

HSBC Holdings

By: Tarun Khanna and David Lane

Illustrates the challenges of managing a global business enterprise. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Problems and Challenges

November 1972 (Revised December 2000)
Background Note

Note on Forms of Real Estate Ownership

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Thierry Liverman

Examines the legal forms of ownership of real property. Included are the corporation, partnership, limited partnership, business trust, real estate investment trust, sole proprietorship, and joint venture. Tax factors and business management considerations are... View Details

Keywords: Ownership; Property; Taxation; Business Organization

September 2001
Background Note

Financial Reporting Environment, The

By: Paul M. Healy, Amy P. Hutton, Robert S. Kaplan and Krishna G. Palepu

Provides a framework for understanding the role of financial reporting and various intermediaries as mechanisms for reducing both adverse selection and moral hazard problems in capital markets. Financial reports reduce adverse selection by providing basic information... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Capital Markets; Venture Capital; Corporate Disclosure; Conflict of Interests

August 2019
Case

Subscription Lines Dilemma

By: Victoria Ivashina and Terrence Shu

This case follows a fictional managing partner of a private equity firm, as she contemplates whether to utilize subscription lines of credit in her firm’s funds. Subscription lines are revolving lines of credit secured by commitments from a fund’s investors. Private... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Credit; Strategy

November–December 2022
Article

Number One in Formula One: Leadership Lessons from Toto Wolff and Mercedes, the Team behind One of the Greatest Winning Streaks in All of Sports

By: Anita Elberse

Toto Wolff, the team principal for Mercedes-AMG Petronas—arguably the most impressive team in F1 racing history—has led his organization to unparalleled success. Mercedes earned the Constructors’ Championship (for best overall team performance) every year from 2014... View Details

Keywords: Formula One; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Management Style; Success

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2023
Working Paper

LALIGA—From a Soccer Competition Organizer to a Global Player in the Sports and Entertainment Industry

By: Stephen A. Greyser, Kenneth Cortsen and Juan Fuentes Fernández

LALIGA, the first- and second-tier professional soccer league (known as “football” outside of the U.S. and Canada) in Spain, enters its 100th soccer season later this decade. The most popular game in the world (Giulianotti, 2012) has gone through many changes since... View Details

Keywords: Soccer; ＂Sports Organizations,; Business History; Strategy; Brands and Branding; Technology Adoption; Sports Industry

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October 2022 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Masdar City: Aiming for Sustainable and Profitable Real Estate

By: Boris Vallee and Fares Khrais

Masdar City broke ground in 2008 and was conceived by the Abu Dhabi government to be an international beacon of innovation in sustainable energy and real estate. It was also to be a profitable investment for the government. At first glance, the two goals pulled in... View Details

January 2025
Case

Index and Active Investing: Vanguard and the New Frontier of Active ETFs

By: Marco Sammon, Luis M. Viceira and Jonathan Kanagasabai

This case explores Vanguard’s strategic decision-making process as it considers entering the growing market for actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Set in 2024, the case places students in the position of Rodney Comegys, Vanguard’s global head of the Equity... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Financial Services Industry

March 2022
Background Note

Climate Challenges for Cities: Introduction to Issues and Actions in the United States

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Catarina Mia Martinez

This background Note introduces the implications of climate change (global warming) for American cities. In the U.S., partisan political divides and unaddressed economic and racial disparities in climate vulnerabilities can inhibit action. The two main fronts for... View Details

October 1984
Case

NIKE (D): Leisure Shoes

Focusing on middle manager Harry Leidboldt, this case presents a clear-cut strategic issue--should Nike move into the leisure shoe business? The teaching objective is to first view the decision as a business problem--can Nike succeed in this business? and secondly, to... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Expansion; Marketing Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Management Teams; Product Development; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sports Industry

26 Oct 2020
News

Great promise but potential for peril

July 2002 (Revised March 2003)
Case

Avon.com (A)

Avon has always sold its products through a large independent direct-selling organization. However, it is now considering whether it should sell directly to the consumer. The company's independent representatives number 500,000 in the United States alone. Yet, there... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Salesforce Management; Marketing Channels; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

Erik Stafford joined the faculty at HBS in July 1999, where he has taught finance in the required and elective curricula of the MBA Program and in the CFA Investment Management Workshop.

Erik's research efforts focus on investment management, capital... View Details

Keywords: financial services

November 1997 (Revised February 1998)
Case

Finansol

By: James E. Austin, Roberto Gutierrez, Marc Labie and Enrique Ogliastri

Finansol, created to provide loans to micro-entrepreneurs, encountered considerable difficulties after rapidly growing to become the biggest micro-enterprise lender in Colombia. Major restructuring was required to rescue it. View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Microfinance; Crisis Management; Problems and Challenges; Social Enterprise; Financial Services Industry