Publications

October 2020
Supplement

TowerBrook: ESG in Action (B)

By: Victoria Ivashina, Brian Trelstad and Meaghan Conway

This case is the second of a two-part series that follows Ramez Sousou and his team at TowerBrook Capital Partners as they face a challenging investment decision in February of 2013. It is intended to be distributed at the end of the discussion of “TowerBrook: ESG in... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Finance; Private Equity; Corporate Governance; Value Creation

December 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Case

iyzico: Fundraising in Emerging Markets (A)

By: Marco Di Maggio and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2016 as Barbaros Ozbugutu, co-founder and CEO of the Istanbul-based payment technology start-up iyzico, contemplates the offers the company received for its Series C round. The case then describes iyzico’s origins and provides a detailed overview of... View Details

Keywords: Iyzico; Fundraising; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Private Sector; For-Profit Firms; Management; Information Technology; Growth Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Offer; Decision Making; Turkey

January 2025
Supplement

Negotiating a Legacy at Sustainable Harvest (B)

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; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Europe

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

23 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 23, 2019

process of learning from experience. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55991 forthcoming Organization & Environment Assessing the Impact of CEO Activism By: Chatterji, Aaron K., and Michael W. Toffel Abstract—CEO activism refers to... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

23 Nov 2021
Book

What It Takes to Build an Organizational Culture That Wins

including how to lead with passion and how to create an inspirational mission. In this excerpt from the book, Heskett takes on the corporate adage that “culture eats strategy for lunch.” Culture and strategy don’t have to be in conflict,... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

04 Apr 2023
Book

Two Centuries of Business Leaders Who Took a Stand on Social Issues

While shareholders still reign supreme at many companies, a widespread shift toward more responsible business practices is driving more leaders to take a stand on social and environmental issues today, says Harvard Business School Professor Geoffrey Jones. Jones... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Consumer Products; Fashion; Retail; Green Technology

23 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

The Drive to Acquire’s Impact on Globalization

classic trading system of exchange is identified with David Ricardo, the early nineteenth-century economist who first analytically clarified it. Imagine that tribe A is good at both hunting and fishing, but more efficient at hunting. Tribe View Details

Keywords: by Paul R. Lawrence

22 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 22, 2006

technological development, corporate strategy, and organizational change. Viewing cartels only as a "conspiracy against the public" short-circuits many important questions and obscures the great variations in objectives, type,... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

16 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

As AI Upends Recruiting, Job Seekers Need a Waze App for Careers

Recognizing foundational skills. The most durable skills in a labor market featuring rapid technological change are human skills. Employers need to make deepening such skills integral to their training and corporate learning programs.... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology; Technology

05 Nov 2021
Op-Ed

Is the Business World Finally Ready for the Wisdom of Shibusawa?

since the bursting of the economic bubble in late 1980s. Multiple corporate scandals took place. Corporate Japan embraced the language of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, but its true... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones and Rei Morimoto; Financial Services; Retail

19 Jun 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, June 19, 2018

Applied Corporate Finance Investors as Stewards of the Commons? By: Serafeim, George Abstract—Over the past few years, there has been a significant increase in the number of initiatives seeking to mobilize investor voice towards positive... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

22 Feb 2021
Book

Reaching Today's Omnichannel Customer Takes a New Sales Strategy

components: actionable customer selection criteria (because resources spent on accounts A and B are not available for accounts C, D, and so on); clarity about the buying process for target customers as it works today, not yesterday; and... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

27 Oct 2009
First Look

First Look: October 27

attractive as it initially seems. In the B and C cases, students must decide whether their view of the appropriate pricing changes, when the apparent mispricing worsens. A final additional teaching point relates to the formation of a... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 23

Authors: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Barry Nalebuff, and David Yoffie Abstract In Cournot's model of complements, the producers of A and B are both monopolists. This paper extends Cournot's model to allow for competition between complements... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

09 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Hold or Fold? Sizing Up Business Risk

Every bet—large or small, corporate or personal—puts you into a game. And whatever the game, at some point your participation ends. Sometimes it ends because the game is over for all the players, sometimes because your participation is... View Details

Keywords: by Eileen C. Shapiro & Howard H. Stevenson

05 Oct 2010
First Look

First Look: October 5, 2010

economy and are specifically focused on a three objectives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations (B=Benefit) that legally expand their corporate responsibilities... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

30 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Political Polarization: Why We All Just Can't Get Along

$14 and give nothing to Player A. Next participants were asked what they would do if they were Player B and the decision were passed to them. They then were asked to guess what percentage of the group they were paired with (Republicans or... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Banking; Financial Services

December 2023 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Boortmalt: The Master Maltster

By: Forest Reinhardt, Jose B Alvarez, Damien McLoughlin, Lena Duchene and Emer Moloney

By May 2023, Boortmalt was the world’s leading producer of malt, with a production capacity of 3 million tonnes, 15% of global market share, and 27 malting plants across five continents. It had recently acquired a major competitor and had sustained an EBITDA growth of... View Details