Publications

December 2020 (Revised December 2021)
Case

Komatsu and Smart Construction

By: Rajiv Lal, David J. Collis and Akiko Saito

Komatsu, Japan's leading construction equipment manufacturer, is considering investing in a digital platform "Smart Construction" that will digitise the entire work process on a construction site, allowing for substantial reductions in cost and time while improving... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Digital Business; Construction; Business Model; Strategy; Technology Adoption; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Construction Industry; Japan

June 2020
Case

gWorks

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

In January of 2019, Joe Heieck (HBS '14), CEO of gWorks, was deciding whether to proceed with his acquisition of Data Tech, that was a business roughly the same size of gWorks. gWorks, which provided geospatial software to small city and rural county governments, was... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Finance

January 2004
Case

America Latina Logistica

Describes the turnaround of America Latina Logistica, a $200 million revenue, formerly state-owned, railway in Brazil that has been restored to profitability by its CEO, a recent MBA graduate. After successfully transforming the company's operations, finances, and... View Details

Keywords: Rail Transportation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Strategy; Rail Industry; Brazil

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March 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Masterpiece for the Masses: The First Art Exchange ARTEX

By: Lauren Cohen, Anastasiya Siroochenko (Siro) and Sophia Pan

Yassir Benjelloun-Touimi, CEO of ARTEX, aspired to marry the world of art and finance. Hoping to promote transparent, fractionalized ownership of renowned artwork, the founder had spent years contemplating the birth of an art stock market. This exchange would allow... View Details

19 Mar 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

8 Ways To Be An Environmentally Conscious Manager

entrepreneurs in this book broke with multiple conventions. Not surprisingly, they were often treated by contemporaries as crazy. It turns out that yesterday’s crazies are the historical origins of the sustainable world View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Energy

16 Sep 2010
News

Brands Bounce Back, With Some Casualties

11 Jan 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Does Shareholder Proxy Access Improve Firm Value? Evidence from the Business Roundtable Challenge

Keywords: by Bo Becker, Daniel B. Bergstresser & Guhan Subramanian; Financial Services

April 1999 (Revised March 2002)
Background Note

Aluminum Industry in 1994, The

After reaching all-time highs in excess of $2,500 per ton in 1988 and 1989, aluminum prices fall dramatically in the early 1990s as the former Soviet Union begins exporting far larger quantities of metal. By the beginning of 1994, the price has hit all-time lows (in... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Price; Supply and Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Soviet Union

February 2018 (Revised August 2019)
Case

The Rise Fund: TPG Bets Big on Impact

By: Vikram S. Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Sarah Mehta

It is March 2017, and TPG, a global alternative investment firm with $74 billion assets under management, has recently launched its inaugural impact-investing fund—the $2 billion Rise Fund. In an effort to “take the religion out of impact investing,” Maya Chorengel,... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Impact Measurement; Equity; Investment; Measurement and Metrics; Financial Services Industry; California; San Francisco

02 Oct 2007
First Look

First Look: October 2, 2007

anticipated that digital media using rich profiling data would intrude marketing messaging more deeply and more precisely into consumer lives than broadcast media had been able to do. But the technology that threatened intrusion is... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Video

Naguib Sawiris

Naguib Sawiris, Chairman of Orascom TMT Investments, shares advice for aspiring entrepreneurs in emerging markets, emphasizing the value of education, perseverance, and dedication to hard work particularly at the start of one’s career. View Details

24 Mar 2016
News

Grading Yahoo's board

"Learning Through Noticing: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment"

We consider a model of technological learning under which people "learn through noticing": they choose which input dimensions to attend to and subsequently learn about from available data. Using this model, we show how people with a great deal of experience may... View Details

January 2002 (Revised October 2005)
Case

General Electric Medical Systems 2002

By: Tarun Khanna and James Weber

Discusses one of General Electric's flagship divisions--the world's leading provider of medical diagnostic imaging equipment. Provides an opportunity to examine a multinational confronting massive technological and demographic changes around the world. Genomics has... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Business Model; Change Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Genetics; Customer Value and Value Chain; Age; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; China; United States

2016
Chapter

How Moral Flexibility Constrains Our Moral Compass

By: F. Gino

Cheating, fraud, deception, uncooperative actions, and many other forms of unethical behavior are among the greatest personal and societal challenges of our time. While the media commonly focuses on the most sensational scams (e.g., Enron, Bernard Madoff), less... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Organizations; Attitudes

November 1998
Case

Holts (A), The

By: Howard H. Stevenson

Focuses on the decision of whether to sell a business or to continue it. Issues regarding the family's roles, the replacement of the business's earning power, and the owner's future roles are discussed. Among the issues raised are the values being transmitted. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Family Business; Financial Management; Business or Company Management; Value

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May 2015 (Revised September 2015)
Case

AIP Healthcare Japan: Investing in Japan's Retirement Home Market

By: John A. Quelch and Qing Xia

The CEO of a health care-based REIT is considering alternative nursing home investment strategies. Students must consider macro-industry trends, scale and scope issues and consumer segmentation data in making their recommendations. View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Services; REIT; Marketing; Investment; Health Care and Treatment; Segmentation; Accommodations Industry; Health Industry; Real Estate Industry; Japan

05 Jun 2006
Research & Ideas

Using Competition to Reform Healthcare

needs it is trying to meet, and how it should organize. Implicit in every business definition is a view of how value is created. Aligning an organization's view of View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter; Health

November 2005
Case

Marilyn Carlson Nelson and the Carlson Companies Renaissance

By: William W. George and Andrew N. McLean

In 2005, Marilyn Carlson Nelson, CEO and chairman of the Carlson Companies, must decide whether to outsource jobs at the risk of destroying the culture centered on the values of integrity, trustworthiness, and caring that she had painstakingly created since becoming... View Details

Keywords: History; Leadership Development; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Business or Company Management; Organizational Culture; Personal Development and Career; Family Ownership; Leadership Style; Management Teams