Publications

May 2022
Case

Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?

By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger

Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash... View Details

15 Sep 2016
News

Harvard Business Faculty Report: Pessimism about the Future of the U.S. Economy Deepens; Political Dysfunction the Greatest Barrier to Strengthening U.S. Competitiveness

Web

Faculty & Advisors | MBA

Crinetics Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CRNX), among others. Earlier in her career Dr. Chang was a Project Leader at The Boston Consulting and a member of the Healthcare Practice. Dr. Chang trained clinically in internal medicine and... View Details

June 2018 (Revised February 2019)
Teaching Note

Home Nursing of North Carolina

By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld

In 2011, immediately after graduating HBS, Ari Medoff began a self-funded search for a small firm to buy and run as its CEO. After just three month of searching, he identified Home Nursing of North Carolina (HNNC), a home care agency based in Greensboro, NC, as a... View Details

Keywords: Small Firms Management; Acquisition; Negotiation Process; Investment; Small Business; Management; Personal Development and Career

January 2000 (Revised April 2000)
Case

StarMedia: Launching a Latin American Revolution

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Jon K Rust

By the fall of 1999, StarMedia had sprinted to a sizable lead in the race to acquire Latin American Internet users. Its pan-regional, horizontal portal was the first to target Spanish- and Portuguese-language speakers on the Internet, registering 1.2 billion page views... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; History; Risk Management; Business Cycles; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Infrastructure; Media; Emerging Markets; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Web; Information Technology Industry; Web Services Industry

2020
Working Paper

Aggregate and Firm-Level Stock Returns During Pandemics, in Real Time

By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari, Andrew Greenland and Peter K. Schott

We show that unexpected changes in the trajectory of COVID-19 infections predict U.S. stock returns, in real time. Parameter estimates indicate that an unanticipated doubling (halving) of projected infections forecasts next-day decreases (increases) in aggregate U.S.... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Stock Returns; Health Pandemics; Stocks; Investment Return; Forecasting and Prediction

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October 2002 (Revised October 2005)
Case

United Parcel Service's IPO

By: Paul M. Healy, Brett Laschinger and Ajay Shroff

Examines the valuation of United Parcel Service (UPS) at the time of its IPO in mid-1999. Offers students the opportunity to assess UPS's current performance relative to its major competitor, Federal Express (FedEx), and to judge whether that performance is... View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Valuation; Performance Evaluation; Competition; Shipping Industry; Georgia (state, US)

John D. Dionne has been a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School since 2014 and is a recently retired Senior Managing Director and Senior Advisor to Blackstone. He is also Managing Partner of Franconia Capital, a... View Details

March 2010
Article

Interpersonal Authority in a Theory of the Firm

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

This paper develops a theory of the firm in which a firm's centralized asset ownership and low-powered incentives give the manager, as an equilibrium outcome, interpersonal authority over employees (in a world with open disagreement). The paper thus provides... View Details

Keywords: Theory; Assets; Ownership; Motivation and Incentives; Governance Controls; Power and Influence; Projects; Perspective; Employees

Find at Harvard

03 Jun 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Inducement Prizes and Innovation

Keywords: by Liam Brunt, Josh Lerner & Tom Nicholas

30 Jul 2013
News

Does it pay to fight corruption?

January 1993 (Revised April 1993)
Case

Chadwick, Inc.: The Balanced Scorecard

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The pharmaceutical division of a diversified company has been asked to develop a Balanced Scorecard. Research and development projects take about ten years to bring a new product to the marketplace and the division depends on good relations and active feedback from its... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Performance Evaluation; Customer Relationship Management; Goals and Objectives; Customer Satisfaction; Research and Development; Marketplace Matching; Financial Condition; Product Launch; Pharmaceutical Industry

26 Apr 2022
Blog Post

How I Spent My HBS 2+2 Deferral: Vasilis Mornto

many project teams that were hard-working but at the same time fun and engaging, which ultimately offered me a solid understanding of business and made me a better person and leader. It was then time for me to serve in the Greek Navy,... View Details

April 2023 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Eike Batista: Making or Breaking Brazil

By: Geoffrey Jones, Pedro Magalhães, Daniel Tong and Marcel Anduiza

This case explores the meteoric rise and fall of Eike Batista, once Brazil’s richest person and the world’s seventh wealthiest in 2012. Batista began his career by investing in gold mining in the Amazon, using the network his father had built after years serving as... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Energy Industry; Mining Industry; Brazil

August 2020 (Revised November 2022)
Case

George Soros: The Stateless Statesman

By: Geoffrey Jones and Wendy Ying

This case traces the business career and philanthropic activities of George Soros. The Hungarian-born Soros made a fortune as a hedge fund investor after establishing Quantum Fund on the tax haven island of Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles in 1973 where he was... View Details

Keywords: Hedge Fund; Philanthropy; Populism; Finance; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Political Elections; Personal Development and Career; Leadership Style; Financial Services Industry; Europe; Hungary; United Kingdom; North and Central America; United States