Publications

February 2015 (Revised September 2017)
Supplement

Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (B)

By: George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Shannon Gombos

The case describes the decision of Omar Selim to set up Arabesque as an independent organization and how he organized Arabesque to use both financial and environmental, social and governance (ESG) data in order to deliver performance for its clients. View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Investing; Investment Management; ESG; Sustainability; Investment Banking; Leadership; Leadership & Corporate Accountability; Leadership Style; Business Model; Asset Management; Business Startups; Social Enterprise

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Make Restructuring Work for Your Company

The following excerpt is taken from the "Lessons of Restructuring" section of Gilson's introduction to Creating Value through Corporate Restructuring. Although the case studies in this book span a wide range of companies,... View Details

Keywords: by Stuart C. Gilson

28 Jun 2016
First Look

June 28, 2016

businesses. The strategy literature uses real option theory to explain the transition to scale, but does not consider the complex relationships between corporate ventures and their parent organizations. By... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Kristin W. Mugford

Kristin Mugford is the Melvin Tukman Senior Lecturer of Business Administration in the Finance Unit at the Harvard Business School and the Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community. She previously served as Faculty Chair for field-based learning and... View Details

12 Oct 2022
Video

Candice Morgan: Navigating Inclusive Strategy in Tech

October 2011 (Revised June 2014)
Case

inge watertechnologies, GmbH

By: Ramana Nanda, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Markus Mittermaier

Using the financing history and exit choices of a German clean-tech startup as a lens, this case explores the reasons why venture-backed entrepreneurship is much lower in Germany than the US, despite a robust SME sector and large-corporate innovation in Germany. It... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Finance; Venture Capital; Negotiation; Entrepreneurship; Technology Industry; Germany

21 Nov 2006
First Look

First Look: November 21, 2006

Garry Twite Abstract U.S. corporations hold significant amounts of cash on their balance sheets, and these cash holdings have been justified in the existing empirical literature by transaction costs and precautionary motives. An... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2019 (Revised March 2020)
Case

At-Bay Cyber Insurance

By: Marco Di Maggio and David Lane

At-Bay was a cyber insurance startup that offered companies coverage against a wide array of cyber risks—exposure to which the firm was able to quickly assess and price on the basis of technical expertise that traditional insurance carriers lacked. In mid-2019, At-Bay... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Insurance; Disruptive Innovation; Risk Management; Product Marketing; Distribution Channels; Information Technology; Salesforce Management; Insurance Industry

Benjamin Esty is the Roy and Elizabeth Simmons Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Over the years, he has taught a variety of courses ranging from advanced corporate finance and project finance to competitive strategy and leadership. He... View Details

Keywords: banking; asset management; investment banking industry; consumer products; shipping; wine; financial services

January 2001 (Revised May 2010)
Case

BP Amoco (A): Policy Statement on the Use of Project Finance

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

Following the BP/Amoco merger in December 1998, CFO David Watson asked Bill Young to recommend when and under what circumstances the firm should use external project finance instead of internal corporate funds to finance new capital investments. As part of this... View Details

Keywords: Project Finance; Mergers and Acquisitions; Policy; Capital Budgeting

2017
Chapter

Getting Started with Ambidexterity

By: Andrew Binns and Michael Tushman

This paper demonstrates the value of thinking about ambidexterity as having three distinct moments—ideation, incubation, and scaling—that share common features for success, such as the role of the senior team, and that also have distinct disciplines. Incubation is a... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention

Find at Harvard

18 Feb 2016
Blog Post

Honing an Interest in Healthcare at HBS

After five years working in venture capital and private equity, Laura Little (MBA 2015) was eager to make a career change. With a budding interest in early-stage healthcare, Laura enrolled at HBS to pursue her passion. These days Laura is... View Details

November 2012 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Learning Resources: A Hands-On Toy Company Deals with New Challenges and Opportunities

By: Boris Groysberg and Anahita Hashemi

Learning Resources is a family-owned educational toy company that, by late 2011, was facing a myriad of challenges, including increased competition, entry into new markets, new distribution methods, rising costs of production in China, and changing customer behavior.... View Details

Keywords: Leading Teams; Strategy Formulation; Strategy And Execution; Innovation; Corporate Culture; Industry Analysis; Organizational Alignment; Entrepreneurs; Sales Channels; Leadership; Strategy; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Family Business; Entrepreneurship; Product Design; Sales; Retail Industry; United States

10 Jun 2014
News

In Defense of Routine Innovation

October 2008 (Revised March 2010)
Case

PlanetTran

By: Lauren H. Cohen and Christopher J. Malloy

PlanetTran is an environmentally-friendly car service that utilizes a fleet of hybrid cars in providing livery service to corporations and individuals. The founder, Seth Riney, is evaluating outside funding options in order to expand the company, and has met several... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Venture Capital; Investment; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Expansion; Value

William Sahlman is a Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Mr. Sahlman received an A.B. degree in Economics from Princeton University (1972), an M.B.A. from Harvard University (1975), and a Ph.D. in Business... View Details

2023
Working Paper

How Resilient Is Venture-Backed Innovation? Evidence from Four Decades of U.S. Patenting

By: Sabrina T. Howell, Josh Lerner, Ramana Nanda and Richard Townsend

Despite theoretical predictions to the contrary, corporate innovation is strongly pro-cyclical. In this paper, we compare innovation in the economy as a whole to that of firms backed by venture capital (VC), a source of capital associated with the most impactful young... View Details

Keywords: Recessions; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Business Cycles; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation