Publications

August 2008
Case

Thoma Bravo - Citect Corporation Take-Private

In 2006, Citect Corporation, a publicly traded Australian software company, was the target of a takeover battle between a financial sponsor and a strategic buyer. Thoma Bravo, the U.S.-based private equity firm, had to decide on its acquisition strategy in the face of... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Private Equity; Investment; Negotiation Deal; Privatization; Valuation; Australia

31 Jul 2023
News

Striving for Imperfection

that, Conn says, the rules of strategy that he learned in business school no longer apply. So how do we change the way we solve strategic business problems? In this episode of... View Details

Keywords: Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

20 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Stories and Research Papers of 2018

disruption, well, disrupted. At Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, our most popular stories about HBS faculty research have always been those that help readers become better managers and outstanding leaders, and it was no... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

09 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Should Management Be Primarily Responsible to Shareholders?

illegal business entities don’t incorporate to make people happy or to make people better. They incorporate to make people money. Everything else good that happens beyond that is icing on the stakeholders’ cake.” Others differed. Michael... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

January 2002 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Finova Group, Inc. (A), The

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Perry Fagan

Finova Group, a $14 billion commercial finance company, filed for Chapter 11 in early March 2001, in what was one of the largest U.S. bankruptcy filings of all time and the largest corporate bond default since the Great Depression. While in Chapter 11, Finova became... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Startups; Borrowing and Debt; Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Debt Securities; Price; Crisis Management; Bids and Bidding; Partners and Partnerships; Strategy; Valuation; Financial Services Industry; United States

November 2010
Article

Wealth and Jobs: The Broken Link

By: Nitin Nohria

This article discusses the weakening connections between business growth and job creation. The industrial economy of the 20th century ensured that growing firms would need to add workers, but the increasingly globalized and information-based economy of the early 21st... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Economic Growth; Jobs and Positions; Employment; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Welfare; Value Creation

Find at Harvard

Web

Advisory Board - Entrepreneurship

focusing on management buyouts in the United Kingdom and France. Prior to that, Daphne served as an Associate in Accenture's (formerly Andersen Consulting) Strategic Services Group, specializing in business and technology View Details

01 Dec 2023
News

Research Brief: Staying in the Game

Illustration by Peter Hoey In Monopoly, declaring bankruptcy has a very permanent consequence. Game over; you lose. In the paper “Life After Death: A Field Experiment with Small Businesses on Information Frictions, Stigma, and... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Myers; Administration of Economic Programs; Government

2018
Working Paper

The Limitations of Dynamic Capabilities

By: David J. Collis and Bharat Anand

The concept of dynamic capabilities draws its theoretical basis from two classic traditions within the strategy field—the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) (Wernerfelt, 1984) and market positioning (Porter, 1996). A dynamic capability qualifies as a source of... View Details

Keywords: Dynamic Capabilities; Business Ventures; Performance; Competitive Advantage

SSRN

Read Now

22 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 22, 2006

current strategy or change its approach? Includes color exhibits. Purchase this case: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=805067 New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

31 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

How Ben Franklin’s ‘Way to Wealth’ Introduced American Capitalism to the World

policies” Intrigued by the lasting power of Franklin’s treatise on industry and frugality and its influence on capitalism as we know it today, Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Sophus Reinert delves into the history of the... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

27 Aug 2018
News

How Best Buy, The New York Times, And John Deere Have Become Digital Leaders

May 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Acquiring the First Thousand Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira and Morgan Brown

By 2016, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were pervasive among the highest growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable... View Details

Keywords: Airbnb; Etsy; Uber; Growth Hacking; Two-sided Market; Internet and the Web; Marketing Strategy; Digital Platforms; Digital Marketing; Business Startups; Transportation Industry; Accommodations Industry