Publications

02 Oct 2017
What Do You Think?

Do Bitcoin and Digital Currency Have a Future?

mathematical puzzles,” receiving Bitcoins as payment for their services. Today, the largest “miner” of Bitcoins is a factory containing 25,000 computers and serviced on View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett; Financial Services

July 2010
Case

Mekong Capital: Building a Culture of Leadership in Vietnam

By: Christopher Marquis, Vinay Ganti, Kevin Smith and Doug Guthrie

Mekong Capital, a private equity firm specializing in investing in Vietnam, had grown dramatically since its inception in 2002 and faced numerous organizational issues in 2007. There was a shortage of qualified middle managers, an overall lack of leadership, and a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Groups and Teams; Alignment; Financial Services Industry

March 2024
Case

East Rock Capital: 'Talent Is the Best Asset Class'

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott and Izzy Yeoh

Adam Shapiro and Graham Duncan launched East Rock Capital, LLC in 2006 with a seed investment from Stuart Miller, executive chairman of Lennar Corporation. East Rock managed long-term assets for high-net-worth families, primarily working with external managers who had... View Details

Keywords: Alternative Assets; Hiring; HNW Products And Services; Recruiting; Hedge Funds; Wealth Management; Asset Management; Private Equity; Financial Institutions; Marketing Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Financial Services Industry; United States

March 2013
Case

NovaStar Financial: A Short Seller's Battle

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Kaser

The NovaStar case describes the challenges faced by short seller Marc Cohodes of hedge fund Rocker Partners as he tried to expose what he thought was widespread fraud in mortgage lender NovaStar Financial. The case is set in the time period from 2001 to 2007 and tracks... View Details

14 Feb 2023
HBS Case

Is Sweden Still 'Sweden'? A Liberal Utopia Grapples with an Identity Crisis

to expand its political platform, linking the migrants to a rising crime rate and other ills. “It’s a problem that’s playing out not just in Europe, but in the US as well,”... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

January 2019
Case

AIME High: A Social Entrepreneur's Moon Shot

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Describes the entrepreneurial leadership of Jack Manning Bancroft (JMB), a young Indigenous Australian university student who created the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME), a nonprofit organization he formed to respond to the problem of Indigenous high... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Mission; Organization Culture; Non-profit; NGO; Social Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Global Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Secondary Education; Organizational Culture; Service Industry; Service Industry; Australia; United States

May 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Case

Airbnb During the Pandemic: Stakeholder Capitalism Faces a Critical Test

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Allison Ciechanover

As the COVID pandemic spread in early 2020, global travel ground to a halt. For Airbnb, the San Francisco-based platform for renting accommodations, the impact was both swift and severe as revenues plummeted more than 70% over the prior year. Responding to the sudden... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Leadership; Digital Platforms; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; United States

January 2008
Case

Lenovo: Building A Global Brand (Multimedia case)

By: John A. Quelch and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Announced in December 2004, the $1.75 billion acquisition of IBM's PC division by Lenovo, China's largest PC maker, made headlines around the world. A relative upstart in the business, Lenovo acquired the division of IBM that invented the PC in 1981. While Lenovo was... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Information Infrastructure; Global Strategy; Acquisition; Brands and Branding; Manufacturing Industry; Computer Industry; China

July 2018
Case

LIXIL Group Corporation: Building a New Company in an Old Industry

By: Boris Groysberg and Akiko Kanno

In the spring of 2018, Kinya Seto, president and CEO of LIXIL Group Corporation, a major housing and building products and services company, called a meeting at the company’s head office in central Tokyo to discuss how to implement the new three-year strategic plan.... View Details

Keywords: Turnaround; Leadership And Change Management; Consolidation; Change Management; Leadership; Global Strategy; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Japan

2015
Book

How the Internet Became Commercial: Innovation, Privatization, and the Birth of a New Network

By: Shane Greenstein

In less than a decade, the Internet went from being a series of loosely connected networks used by universities and the military to the powerful commercial engine it is today. This book describes how many of the key innovations that made this possible came from... View Details

26 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

A Better Way to Negotiate: Backward

sequencing choices. With whom should you speak first? Whom next? Rules of thumb such as "allies first" or "negotiate internally, then externally" are unreliable guides. Yet a more... View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius

04 May 2021
Book

Best Buy: How Human Connection Saved a Failing Retailer

store.” Instead, the sales associates—nicknamed “blue shirts” after Best Buy’s trademark royal-blue collared shirts—brought the injured T. rex to a service counter and performed “surgery” on the toy View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail

April 2005 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Furman Selz LLC (A): A Tale of Two Acquisitions

By: Nancy D. Beaulieu, Boris Groysberg and Kyle Doherty

Profiles a firm that was reacquired by two companies with different degrees of success. Highlights integration challenges present in acquisition deals when the primary assets of the target are human capital. Focuses on Furman Selz's acquisition by Xerox in 1987; its... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Transition; Valuation; Human Capital; Compensation and Benefits; Integration; Organizational Culture; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States