Publications

September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
Case

Spire, the CubeSat Revolution, and the Government as a Space Data Customer

By: Matthew Weinzierl, Mehak Sarang and Brendan L. Rosseau

This case outlines the rise of Spire Global, a young space company using CubeSats to provide weather data and weather prediction services. In addition to tracing the evolution of a space startup from novel idea to publicly-traded company, the case also examines the... View Details

Keywords: Space; Government Contracting; Remote Sensing; Satellites; Business Startups; Public Sector; Cost vs Benefits; Competition; Weather; Forecasting and Prediction

February 1996 (Revised November 2003)
Case

Indianapolis: Activity-Based Costing of City Services (A)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

A new administration in the City of Indianapolis is initially determined to privatize many municipal services. Before taking this action, however, the city managers want to know the current cost of performing these services with the municipal workers. Existing... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Public Sector; Activity Based Costing and Management; Service Delivery; Privatization; City; Indianapolis

2014
Book

Reinventing State Capitalism: Leviathan in Business, Brazil and Beyond

By: Aldo Musacchio and Sergio G. Lazzarini

In this book we describe the transformation of state capitalism from a model in which governments owned and ran corporations and broadly controlled the allocation of financial resources into two new varieties of state capitalism: Leviathan as a majority and as a... View Details

June 2001
Case

NESWC (A)

By: Michael A. Wheeler

Documents attempts to restructure a public-private partnership between the operator of a $200 million trash-to-energy cogeneration plant and a consortium of two dozen Massachusetts municipalities. Describes the process that led to a one-sided agreement, as well as the... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Public Sector; Energy Generation; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Negotiation Deal; Negotiation Process; Partners and Partnerships; Wastes and Waste Processing; Energy Industry; Massachusetts

April 2011
Case

Felipe Calderón: Leading with Light and Power (A)

By: J. Bruce Harreld and David Lane

This sequence of cases explores how leaders get their team focused on framing, analyzing, and ultimately acting upon complex decisions. The A case provides an inside look as President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, works with his cabinet ministers to decide how to... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Decisions; Public Sector; Leadership; Conflict and Resolution; Power and Influence; Urban Development; Welfare or Wellbeing

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May 2017
Case

Vicki Fuller: Chief Investment Officer of New York State's $150+ Billion Employee Pension Fund

By: Steven Rogers and Valerie Mosley

Vicki Fuller traveled from a four-room tenement bordering Chicago’s infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects to speaking at conferences around the world and typically holding court wherever she went. As a teenager, she helped raise her siblings. As a Wall Street... View Details

22 Sep 2014
Op-Ed

Online Banks Fill Funding Needs for Small Business

scale, these alternative players have the potential to fundamentally change the way in which small businesses access capital, creating greater competition, price transparency, and a better customer experience. Emerging online players are pushing innovation within the... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Banking; Financial Services

1985
Chapter

The Federal Civil Service Retirement System

By: Dutch Leonard

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Retirement; Government and Politics; Public Sector

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November 2005 (Revised January 2006)
Case

Commercialization at the Garvan Institute for Medical Research (A)

A large and successful not-for-profit medical research institute must decide strategy to commercialize its discoveries. In the process, it must balance multiple conflicting demands from its stakeholders. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Public Sector; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Nonprofit Organizations; Conflict and Resolution; Commercialization; Balance and Stability; Health Industry

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31 May 2016
HBS Case

Who Owns Space?

rapidly-evolving space sector, he argues, society will have the opportunity to determine the proper roles for government and the private sector nearly from scratch. “The idea of leveraging the private sector... View Details

Keywords: Re: Matthew C. Weinzierl; Aerospace

05 Dec 2005
Research & Ideas

VCs Survey Post-Bubble Opportunities

individuals in any given field," said Hirshland. His advice? Develop the ability to identify opportunities and judge character; over time, you can focus on various specialties and sub-specialties and hone your knowledge of these areas. A lot of opportunities in... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Hanna; Financial Services

25 Apr 2000
Research & Ideas

Adjusting the Fit for Government

stakeholder as much as the private sector is," she told the audience. "Our framework must contain the private and public sectors as well as civil society. No one... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

May 2017 (Revised July 2017)
Supplement

Aadhaar: From Voluntary to Mandatory

By: Tarun Khanna, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla

Approximately 1.1 billion residents of India (99% of the population) had a unique biometric identity—Aadhaar—by 2017. In six years, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had achieved an unprecedented milestone in emerging and developed markets. The... View Details

September 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Bharti Tele-Ventures

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Ingrid Vargas

Following the liberalization of India's telecommunications service industry in the early 1990s, Bharti Tele-Ventures grew from a small entrepreneurial telephone equipment importer and manufacturer to become India's largest private-sector telecommunications service... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Growth and Development; Customers; Foreign Direct Investment; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition; Public Ownership; Profit; Partners and Partnerships; Rank and Position; Telecommunications Industry; India