Publications

September 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Supplement

Citigroup's Exchange Offer (B)

By: Robin Greenwood and James Quinn

Citigroup faced considerable distress in early 2009. In late 2008, the bank had accepted $45 billion in preferred equity from the United States government via the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Yet, the stock had continued to slide in early 2009. In late... View Details

Keywords: Financial Instruments; Financial Services Industry

November 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Wes Hall and the BlackNorth Initiative

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Marilyn Morgan Westner and Reza Satchu

Wes Hall founded Kingsdale Advisors and built it into one of Canada’s leading shareholder services and advisory firms. Influenced by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and a series of social injustices—specifically the death of George Floyd in police custody—Hall... View Details

Keywords: Racism; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Diversity; Race; Social Issues; Ethics; Canada; North America

Article

Do Strong Fences Make Strong Neighbors?

By: Mihir Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala

Many features of U.S. tax policy towards multinational firms-including the governing principle of capital export neutrality, the byzantine system of expense allocation, and anti-inversion legislation-reflect the intuition that building "strong fences" around the United... View Details

Keywords: International Taxation; Initial Public Offerings; Foreign Portfolio Investment; Policy; Taxation; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Initial Public Offering; Mergers and Acquisitions; Foreign Direct Investment; United States

SSRN

February 2002
Case

Free Internet Initiative in LaGrange, Georgia

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Mark Keil and Garrett W. Meader

LaGrange, GA was the first city in the world to offer free Internet access to citizens. The city manager and mayor must assess the project and decide whether to continue. This case chronicles the city's efforts to build a telecommunications infrastructure and offer... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Infrastructure; Technology Adoption; Cost vs Benefits; Information Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Georgia (state, US)

November 2006
Case

The Pine Street Initiative at Goldman Sachs

By: Boris Groysberg, Scott A. Snook and David Lane

Almost five years had passed since Goldman Sachs launched its innovative leadership development initiative called Pine Street. Focused primarily on developing Goldman's most senior managers, Pine Street had evolved significantly since its inception in November of 1999.... View Details

Keywords: Executive Education; Personal Development and Career; Leadership Development; Business Education; Financial Services Industry

March 1997
Case

BioTransplant, Inc.: Initial Public Offering, January 1996

By: Paul A. Gompers and Alexander Tsai

Examines the decision to go public. BioTransplant is an early stage biotechnology company that must decide how to finance its research and development. The pros and cons of public offerings are analyzed versus alternative financing sources. View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Financing and Loans; Research and Development; Going Public

November 2007 (Revised April 2008)
Case

Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar: A Rural Business Initiative

By: David E. Bell, Nitin Sanghavi, Virginia Fuller and Mary L. Shelman

In rural India, farmers historically had limited access to quality input items for both their fields and homes. Indian conglomerate DSCL has undertaken a Rural Business Initiative to address this issue, establishing a chain of retail outlets throughout rural India... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Conglomerates; Agribusiness; Rural Scope; Customer Relationship Management; Business Strategy; Service Operations; Networks; Alliances; Retail Industry; India

01 Mar 2004
What Do You Think?

Are Customer Loyalty Initiatives Worth the Investment?

program, but on whether or not the program is providing significant value to the segment for which it is intended." A third line of thought concerned the impact of rising customer expectations on loyalty initiatives. As Wendy Jameson said, "Loyalty View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

02 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Digital Initiative Summit: The Business of Crowdsourcing

Gaining the community's trust is vital to building a successful business with crowdsourcing, agreed business leaders at the Digital Initiative Summit at Harvard Business School on March 30. When Tongal got its start in 2009, some members... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2003
Other Unpublished Work

Initiative for a Competitive Milwaukee: A Call to Action

By: Michael E. Porter

The inner city of Milwaukee holds great promise, but is not advancing economically. The inner city has been hard hit by the loss of many of its largest employers as a result of relocation, acquisition and failure. According to the 2000 US Census data, thirty percent of... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Society; Poverty; Economy; Growth and Development; Wisconsin

Read Now

06 Feb 2006
What Do You Think?

Should CEOs of Public Companies Offer Earnings Guidance?

the company and the industry." And Lorenzo Ferlazzo comments, "I would maybe run a slew of guidance measures in commentary . . . and suggest analysts use their own initiative to communicate their interpretation to the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Financial Services

18 Oct 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Racial Diversity Initiatives in Professional Service Firms: What Factors Differentiate Successful from Unsuccessful Initiatives?

Keywords: by Modupe Akinola & David A. Thomas; Service

02 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Digital Initiative Summit: Freeing Patient Data to Enable Innovation

to remedy the information-sharing glut that is slowing health care innovation and harming patient care, according to panelists discussing "Digital Health: Freeing Patient Data to Enable Innovation" at the Digital Initiative Summit held... View Details

Keywords: Re: Karim R. Lakhani; Health

02 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Digital Initiative Summit: Big Messages, Small Screens, Many Choices

is, if the app is the way we interact with the brands, how do you get me to be one of your favorite apps?" Gupta said that a successful app must provide obvious, unique value—and meet consumers where they live. As an example, he cited the grocery chain Tesco, which... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising

May–June 2021
Article

Eliminate Strategic Overload

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee

As companies respond to intensifying competitive pressures and challenges, they ask more and more of their employees. But organizations often have very little to show for the efforts of their talented and engaged workers. By selecting fewer initiatives with greater... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Initiatives; Value-based Strategy; Organizational Effectiveness; Strategy; Value Creation

August 2003
Article

The Really Long-Run Performance of Initial Public Offerings: The Pre-Nasdaq Evidence

By: Paul A. Gompers and Josh Lerner

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Stocks; Markets; Performance

Read Now

2019
Article

Reflections on 25 Years of Building Social Enterprise Education

By: James E. Austin and V. Kasturi Rangan

Purpose—This paper aims to reflect on 25 years of the Social Enterprise Initiative at the Harvard Business School, examining the processes and thinking involved at key stages of this pioneering Initiative’s implementation and... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise Initiative; Harvard Business School; Social Enterprise; Education; Programs

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Article

'Myth or Reality?' The Long-run Underperformance of Initial Public Offerings: Evidence from Venture- and Nonventure-capital-backed Companies

By: Paul A. Gompers and A. Brav

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Capital; Business Ventures; Venture Capital

March 2023
Article

Not from Concentrate: Collusion in Collaborative Industries

By: Jordan M. Barry, John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery

The chief principle of antitrust law and theory is that reducing market concentration—having more, smaller firms instead of fewer, bigger ones—reduces anticompetitive behavior. We demonstrate that this principle is fundamentally incomplete.

In many... View Details