Publications

December 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Barteca: The Challenge and Opportunity of Private Equity

By: Lena G. Goldberg and Michael S. Kaufman

Andy Pforzheimer and Sasa Mahr-Batuz, co-founders of a highly successful seven-location restaurant brand, had just opened the first location of a new brand. They had mapped out future expansion for both brands but wondered if, rather than lining up an assortment of... View Details

Keywords: Restaurants; Brands and Branding; Expansion; Private Equity; Strategy; Decision Making

24 Dec 2013
First Look

First Look: December 24

Mature Field: Swiss Watchmaking, 1970-2008 By: Raffaelli, Ryan Abstract—I examine the processes and mechanisms whereby market demand for a "dying" technology re-emerges at a later date. In 1983, fourteen years after the... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

16 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Getting the Message: How the Internet is Changing Advertising

outfit walked across the screen carrying a sign that pitched a product. These almost literal translations of billboard and magazine ads did little more than set the previous forms in motion. Silk: Issues of privacy will come under increased scrutiny HBS professor... View Details

Keywords: by Susan Young

December 2020 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Arcos Dorados: A QSR Recovery Plan

By: Forest Reinhardt, José B. Alvarez, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal

Arcos Dorados—McDonald’s largest independent franchisee, covering Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)—faced a pandemic that was disrupting the entire consumer foodservice business in 2020. With the exclusive right to own, operate, and sub-franchise McDonald’s... View Details

2021
Working Paper

Technology Differentiation and Firm Performance

By: Sam Arts, Bruno Cassiman and Jianan Hou

Prior work has extensively studied how investing in R&D and building a technology portfolio relate to superior firm performance. However, the value of a firm’s technology portfolio should also be driven by the degree to which it is more unique and technologically... View Details

Keywords: Technology Portfolio; Differentiation; Competitiveness; Organizations; Technology; Performance; United States

SSRN

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March 2007 (Revised May 2012)
Case

PRG-Schultz International

By: Paul W. Marshall and James Weber

PRG-Schultz will run out of cash within a couple of months unless the new CEO can reduce costs and restructure the company's debt. PRG was the dominant market leader in the audit recovery industry. The industry consisted of firms which employed accounting professionals... View Details

Keywords: History; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Restructuring; Cost Management; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Borrowing and Debt; Accounting Audits; Accounting Industry

Research Summary

Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic CEOs ( Princeton University Press, October 2002)

By: Rakesh Khurana

In this book, I argue that the external CEO labor market was born in a burst of rhetoric about wresting control of corporations away from a group of self-interested insiders, as senior managers in the era of managerial capitalism had come to be portrayed. The rationale... View Details

October 1996 (Revised November 1996)
Case

Boston Beer Company: Samuel Adams, Brewmaster Leading a Revolution

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Mollie H. Carter

Boston Beer Co. revolutionized the beer industry by identifying and responding to a new consumer segment. Using the excess capacity in the brewing industry to establish contract brewing arrangements and an extremely capable sales force, the company opened the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Leadership; Product Marketing; Product Development; Production; Quality; Salesforce Management; Segmentation; Food and Beverage Industry

December 2007 (Revised August 2014)
Case

Xanadu on Broadway

By: Anita Elberse

Can one of Hollywood's biggest flops magically turn into a Broadway hit? Xanadu, an adaptation of a 1980 Olivia Newton-John roller-disco film described by one critic as "the epic failure to end all epic failures," opened on Broadway in July 2007. Producer Rob Ahrens,... View Details

Keywords: Theater Entertainment; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Demand and Consumers; Risk and Uncertainty; Creativity; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

March 2006
Course Overview Note

International Finance: A Course Overview Note

By: Mihir A. Desai

Describes the International Finance course at Harvard Business School, which argues that the forces of globalization have fundamentally changed the scope and activities of firms, thereby altering the practice of finance within these firms. As a consequence of an... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Business Ventures; Integration; Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment; Risk Management; Competitive Advantage; Motivation and Incentives; International Finance; Capital Markets

January 1998 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Lincoln Electric: Venturing Abroad

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Jamie O'Connell

Lincoln Electric, a 100-year-old manufacturer of welding equipment and consumables based in Cleveland, Ohio, motivates its U.S. employees through a culture of cooperation between management and labor and an unusual compensation system based on piecework and a large... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Restructuring; Transformation; Construction; Compensation and Benefits; Management; Market Entry and Exit; Labor and Management Relations; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Manufacturing Industry; Ohio

Web

HBS Working Knowledge – Harvard Business School Faculty Research

help companies open new markets and build communities. Scott Duke Kominers and Steve Kaczynski go beyond the NFT hype in their book, The Everything Token. Sign up for our weekly newsletter Interested in... View Details

16 Feb 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Platform Competition Under Partial Belief Advantage

Keywords: by Hanna Halaburda & Yaron Yehezkel; Consumer Products

06 Feb 2023
HBS Seminar

Using Oral History in Business and Management Studies

11 Jul 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Managing Proprietary and Shared Platforms: A Life-Cycle View

Keywords: by Thomas R. Eisenmann; Technology

September 2021
Case

Ensuring Your Family’s Future: The Alagil Family Office

By: Lauren Cohen, Esel Çekin and Fares Khrais

Muhammad Alagil was a second-generation leader in the well-known Alagil Family Group of businesses in Saudi Arabia and co-founder and chairman of its family office, Jarir Company for Commercial Investments (Jarir Investments). The case opens in 2021 with Alagil... View Details

Keywords: Family Office; Second-generation; Third-generation; Investments; Philanthropy; Family Business; Investment; Finance; Financial Markets; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Saudi Arabia; Middle East

07 Feb 2014
News

Let the Games Begin

September 2021
Case

TAV Airports: Acquiring Almaty International

By: Juan Alcácer and Esel Çekin

The case opens in April 2020 with Sani Şener, CEO of TAV Airports, a vertically integrated regional airport operator headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey, and his team discussing the pending acquisition of the Almaty International Airport in Kazakhstan. The company had... View Details

Keywords: Airports; COVID-19 Pandemic; Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Bids and Bidding; Air Transportation Industry; Central Asia; Turkey