Publications

August 2020 (Revised November 2024)
Case

NextView Ventures

By: Jo Tango and Nori Gerardo Lietz

David Beisel, Rob Go, and Lee Hower are non-partners at different-and-established venture capital (VC) firms. They decide to leave their positions to start a new seed-stage VC firm. The case covers the genesis of the firm, the formulation of its strategy and... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Strategy

September 2019
Article

The Persistence of Broadband User Behavior: Implications for Universal Service and Competition Policy

By: Andre Boik, Shane Greenstein and Jeffrey Prince

In several markets, firms compete not for consumer expenditure but consumer attention. We examine user priorities over the allocation of their time, and interpret that behavior in light of salient tensions in policy discussions over universal service, data caps, and... View Details

Keywords: Broadband Service; Attention Allocation; Consumer Behavior; Household; Internet and the Web; Competition; Policy

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April 2017
Article

The New Look of Deal Protection

By: Guhan Subramanian and Fernán Restrepo

Deal protection in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) evolves in response to Delaware case law and the business goals of acquirers and targets. We construct a new sample of M&A deals from 2003 to 2015 to identify four such areas of evolution in current transactional... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Practice

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31 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Checking Your Ethics: Would You Speak Up in These 3 Sticky Situations?

McKinsey, serving as managing director of the Boston office and leader of the global merger integration practice during that period. “These dilemmas will happen, and they will happen faster and sooner than you expect.” “There are few... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Consulting

January 2025
Case

Redwood & Strong: The Value of a Consulting Engagement

By: David G. Fubini and Patrick Sanguineti

The board of Redwood & Strong LLP (R&S), the American branch of a large global law firm, is meeting to review the findings of a recent strategic initiative designed to identify potential merger candidates. The request for the engagement originated from Daniel Crawford,... View Details

Keywords: Client Service; Professional Service Firm; Professional Services; Consulting; Mergers and Acquisitions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Reports; Strategic Planning; Value; Consulting Industry; Legal Services Industry; United States

May 2007
Article

Corporate Financing Decisions When Investors Take the Path of Least Resistance

By: Malcolm Baker, Joshua Coval and Jeremy Stein

We explore the consequences for corporate financial policy that arise when investors exhibit inertial behavior. One implication of investor inertia is that, all else equal, a firm pursuing a strategy of equity-financed growth will prefer a stock-for-stock merger to... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Investment; Policy; Corporate Finance

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October 1996 (Revised January 1997)
Case

Mt. Auburn Hospital

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Jaan Elias

In December of 1993, two of Boston's largest and best known hospitals, Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's, announced that they were setting aside their historic rivalry to form an alliance and build a regional health network. The announcement set off a wave... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Negotiation Offer; Alliances; Networks; Social Enterprise; Horizontal Integration; Health Industry; Boston

November 2024
Article

Stakeholder Amnesia in M&A Deals

By: Caley Petrucci and Guhan Subramanian

Public companies have increasingly embraced environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in the course of everyday business. However, these ESG considerations are virtually non-existent in merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions. Elon Musk’s recent acquisition... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Governing and Advisory Boards; Mergers and Acquisitions

July 2019 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Peabody Essex Museum: What Next?

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Jeffrey F. Rayport

The case describes the 25-year transformation of Peabody Essex Museum, which was created in 1993 by the merger of two sub-scale predecessor cultural institutions, operating since 1799, in Salem, Massachusetts. Dan Monroe, its founding CEO, began a process of building... View Details

Keywords: Museums; Strategy; Leadership; Transformation; Innovation Leadership; Strategic Planning

2013
Chapter

Who Chooses Board Members?

By: Ali Akyol and Lauren Cohen

We exploit a recent regulation passed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to explore the nomination of board members to US publicly traded firms. In particular, we focus on firms’ use of executive search firms versus allowing internal members (often... View Details

Keywords: Boards; Boards Of Directors; Executive Search Firms; Governance; SEC Regulation; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Succession; Executive Compensation

Research Summary

Do Appearances Matter? The Impact of EPS Accretion and Dilution on Stock Prices

There is a widespread concern among practitioners and corporate managers that transactions which result in changes in future earnings-per-share (EPS) have real effects on stock prices, irrespective of whether these changes reflect differences in future cash flows. As... View Details

03 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Layoffs Can Be Bad Business: 5 Strategies to Consider Before Cutting Staff

turbulence, Sucher says. “There’s a tendency to think that our rules, or any way that we interpret the law, is universal,” she says. “It’s just not true.” 2. Reduce costs without cutting people Layoffs can be effective in certain circumstances, such as a View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Telecommunications; Technology; Financial Services; Manufacturing

September 2017
Supplement

Actera Group: Investing in Mars Cinema Group (B)

By: Victoria Ivashina and Eren Kuzucu

In summer of 2010, Murat Çavuşoğlu (HBS MBA 1994) led private equity firm Actera Group’s investment in Mars Cinema Group (Mars), the leading movie exhibitor in Turkey. Immediately after acquiring Mars and merging it with the second larger player in the market, AFM,... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Value Creation; Transformation; Valuation; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Turkey

11 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 11

executives with whom he has successfully worked for decades? Or should he establish a new team with roughly equal representation from both airlines? Parker’s choice will send important signals to employees about the extent to which the transaction will be viewed as a... View Details

Srikant M. Datar

Srikant M. Datar became the eleventh dean of Harvard Business School on 1 January 2021. During his tenure as a faculty member, he served as Senior Associate Dean for University Affairs (including Faculty Chair of the Harvard Innovation Lab), for Research, for... View Details

Keywords: accounting industry; airline; automobiles; banking; biotechnology; communications; consumer products; e-commerce industry; health care; high technology; investment banking industry; management consulting; manufacturing; pharmaceuticals; venture capital industry

March 2012
Article

The Incentive Bubble

By: Mihir Desai

The past three decades have seen American capitalism quietly transformed by a single, powerful idea—that financial markets are a suitable tool for measuring performance and structuring compensation. Stock instruments for managers, high-powered incentive contracts for... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Financial Markets; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Equality and Inequality; Human Capital; United States

Leemore Dafny is the Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration and the Mary Ellen Jay and Jeffrey Jay Fellow at the Harvard Business School, and Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Dafny is an applied microeconomist whose... View Details

Keywords: health care

June 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Wemade: (Re)Establishing Trust in Blockchain Games (A)

By: Jung Koo Kang, Charles C.Y. Wang, David Allen and Kwangmoon So

This case explores the fundamental challenges and accounting issues arising from the integration of blockchain technology into traditional business models. It features Wemade, a South Korean online gaming company that has staked its future on blockchain-based games.... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Cryptocurrency; Video Games; Accounting; Financial Reporting; Revenue Recognition; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Corporate Disclosure; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Accounting Industry; Information Technology Industry; Video Game Industry; South Korea