Publications

May 2025
Case

'Net Zero in Action': Impact Investing at the McKnight Foundation

By: Lauren Cohen, Christina R. Wing and Sophia Pan

Elizabeth McGeveran, Vice President of Investments at the McKnight Foundation, reflected on how to effectively advance the organization’s net-zero strategy. The foundation had committed 10% of its endowment to building a portfolio of impact investments and was among... View Details

June 2008 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Big to Small: The Two Lives of Barry Nalls

By: Noam T. Wasserman and Rachel Galper

Barry Nalls describes lessons learned during his 25-year career—his rise at GTE and shorter-lived ventures—and how these prepared him to found MASERGY, a telecommunications start-up. Even as a young boy in a family of entrepreneurs, Nalls had a reputation as a hard... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Experience and Expertise; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career

17 May 2017
Research & Ideas

Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews

resumes than candidates who reveal their race—and this discriminatory practice is just as strong for businesses that claim to value diversity as those that don’t. These research findings should provide a startling wakeup call for View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

March 2022
Teaching Note

Sawiris Foundation: Elevating Education in Egypt

By: Brian Trelstad and Alpana Thapar

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 322-023. Founded in 2001 by the Sawiris family, one of the wealthiest families in Egypt, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD) invested in human capital and provision of basic social services for the most marginalized... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Development; Human Capital; Equality and Inequality; Education; Business Strategy; Social Enterprise; Social Issues; Partners and Partnerships; Growth and Development Strategy; Education Industry; Egypt

June 2017
Teaching Note

Succession Planning at Samsung: The Merger Formula of Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T

By: Gwen Yu

A merger deal of two Samsung group companies becomes a center of a corruption scandal. The merger of Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T was seen as a crucial step to transfer power to Lee Jae Yong, the heir of Samsung group. The deal was criticized to purposefully... View Details

Keywords: Merger; Mergers and Acquisitions; Crime and Corruption; Business and Government Relations; South Korea

April 2007
Case

Leadership Forum: Building Great Careers - Video

By: D. Quinn Mills and Carole Winkler

Leadership: Can I learn it, how do I do it, and how can I use it to advance my career? How is today's world different from the one our teachers entered years ago, and how does that affect me? The two videos on this DVD address these and other questions typically asked... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Work-Life Balance; Leadership Development; Talent and Talent Management; Leadership Style; Knowledge Dissemination; Teaching; Executive Education; Decision Choices and Conditions; Management Style; Education Industry

September 2024
Case

Topaz: Navigating Governance, Legacy, and Change

By: Christina R. Wing and Carla Larangeira

Since its founding in 2011, the Garza Sada brothers and their father positioned Topaz among leading family offices in Monterrey, Mexico, with several assets under management. Topaz aspired to have a transformative impact across multiple Mexican industries. An industry... View Details

Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Family Business; Governing and Advisory Boards; Managerial Roles; Management Succession; Family Ownership; Corporate Governance; Organizational Structure; Adoption; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry; Education Industry; Energy Industry; Latin America; Mexico

17 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Money Isn’t Everything: The Dos and Don’ts of Motivating Employees

In a post-pandemic business world of hybrid work and quiet quitting, companies must rethink how they motivate employees. Good incentive plans and reward structures require a careful analysis of a company’s objectives, culture, and... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

01 Jun 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The First Deal: The Division of Founder Equity in New Ventures

Keywords: by Thomas F. Hellmann & Noam Wasserman

March 2000 (Revised May 2000)
Case

Spec's Music (A)

By: John A. Davis and Susan Harmeling

Presents the story of a music retailer in Miami which started in the late 1940s, grew throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and went public in 1985 before experiencing a deep industry crisis in the mid-1990s. At issue in 1996 is whether the company should attempt to sell... View Details

Keywords: History; Family Business; Business Exit or Shutdown; Decision Choices and Conditions; Management Succession; Entrepreneurship; Crisis Management; Performance Improvement; Music Industry; Miami

November 2010 (Revised April 2011)
Supplement

Magna International, Inc. (A) (CW)

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and Yuhai Xuan

Magna International, Inc., a Canadian-based automotive parts manufacturer, is considering whether and how to unwind its dual-class ownership structure. A family trust controlled by the founder owns a 0.65% economic interest in the company but has 66% of the votes via a... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Voting; Governance Controls; Market Transactions; Production; Ownership; Business and Shareholder Relations; Value Creation; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Canada

02 Mar 2021
HBS Case

The Tulsa Massacre: Is Racial Justice Possible 100 Years Later?

Early on the morning of June 1, 1921, more than 5,000 white residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma, invaded the African-American neighborhood of Greenwood. They came armed with guns, sticks, and other weapons—some supplied by the city’s police department—and set fire to homes... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

March 2023
Teaching Note

Hikma Pharmaceuticals Governance Journey

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Jonah Goldberg

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 318108. The case opens with Said Darwazah, chairman and CEO of Hikma Pharmaceuticals, the multinational generics company, anticipating the company’s 2017 AGM and reflecting on changes made over the previous year to address concerns... View Details

Keywords: Jordan; Emerging Market; Private Sector; For-profit Firms; Boards Of Directors; Pharmaceuticals; Remuneration; Shareholder Engagement; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Shareholder Relations; Executive Compensation; Business Growth and Maturation; Pharmaceutical Industry; Jordan

March 2008 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Transparent Value LLC

By: Sharon P. Katz, Krishna G. Palepu and Aldo Sesia, Jr.

Leading index company Dow Jones recently signed a license and joint marketing agreement with Transparent Value LLC, the creator of a new fundamentals-based valuation methodology. The agreement allowed Dow Jones to offer a family of indexes based on the Transparent... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Stocks; Price; Performance Expectations; Mathematical Methods; Valuation

November 2023
Supplement

'Care in Every Drop': Ayala Corporation and Manila Water (B)

By: Debora L. Spar, Paul Healy, Tricia Peralta and Julia Comeau

Since 1834, eight generations of the Ayala family have used their conglomerate to fund nation-building projects in the Philippines, including investments in tramcars, telecommunications, hospitals, and schools. In 1997, Ayala’s subsidiary, Manila Water, took control of... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Economic Growth; Social Entrepreneurship; Climate Change; Natural Resources; Crisis Management; Failure; Privatization; Social Issues; Urban Development; Adaptation; Infrastructure; Utilities Industry; Philippines

09 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Why Entrepreneurs Should Go Work for Government

Mitchell B. Weiss has heard it too many times: government doesn't work. Too slow. Too bureaucratic. Too burdened by procurement rules and performance measures. "Some of that is fair, and some of that is unfair, but it adds up over time," says Weiss, a senior... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

21 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

Employee Negativity Is Like Wildfire. Manage It Before It Spreads.

Regulating our own emotions in stressful situations is difficult enough, but business leaders face the added challenge of attempting to regulate the collective emotions of the groups they lead to guide them toward success. Now, research... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

07 Jun 2023
HBS Case

3 Ways to Gain a Competitive Advantage Now: Lessons from Amazon, Chipotle, and Facebook

at Harvard Business School. “It was better designed and nicer to use.” However, when Amazon released its Kindle e-reader three years later, it included an important feature: a connection to wifi that allowed readers to download books more... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

September 1985 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Population Services International: The Social Marketing Project in Bangladesh

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Population Services International (PSI) was a not-for-profit agency founded to disseminate family planning information and to market birth control products, primarily in less developed countries seeking to curb their population explosions. In 1976, PSI concluded an... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Health; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Nonprofit Organizations; Bangladesh