Publications

November 2013
Article

Investment Cycles and Startup Innovation

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We find that VC-backed firms receiving their initial investment in hot markets are more likely to go bankrupt, but conditional on going public are valued higher on the day of their IPO, have more patents, and have more citations to their patents. Our results suggest... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Market Cycles; Financing Risk; Risk and Uncertainty; Venture Capital; Investment; Innovation and Invention

Read Now

26 Jul 2022
News

2022's States with the Highest & Lowest Credit-Card Debts

Ashish Nanda

Ashish Nanda is Senior Lecturer and C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator at Harvard Business School. From 2018 to 2021, he was course head for the MBA Required Curriculum course in Strategy. Beginning in 2022, he is teaching an MBA Elective... View Details

27 Nov 2012
Working Paper Summaries

No Margin, No Mission? A Field Experiment on Incentives for Pro-Social Tasks

Keywords: by Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera & Kelsey Jack

Teaching Interest

Finance II (MBA Required Curriculum)

By: Benjamin C. Esty

This course builds on the foundation developed in Finance I, focusing on three sets of managerial decisions:

How to evaluate complex investments.
How to set and execute financial policies within a firm.
How to integrate... View Details

Keywords: Finance

September 2020
Case

Merck: COVID-19 Vaccines

By: Willy C. Shih

COVID-19 infections were still climbing across the U.S. and many other parts of the world in September 2020, and it seemed that every time Ken Frazier, the CEO of Merck & Co. consented to an interview in recent months he always seemed to hear the same question,... View Details

Keywords: Vaccines; COVID-19 Pandemic; Health Pandemics; Health Testing and Trials; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Business Strategy; Product Launch; Pharmaceutical Industry

May 2007
Article

The Governance of Open Source Initiatives: What Does it Mean to be Community Managed?

The concept of 'open source' software initially referred to software projects managed by grassroots communities in public forums. Since 1998, the concept has been adapted and diffused to new settings that extend beyond software. While the open source community has... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Open Source Distribution

2013
Chapter

The Most Successful CEOs Come from Within

By: Joseph L. Bower

The financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession caused a crisis of public confidence in business and American-style capitalism, with its focus on maximizing shareholder value. Corporate leaders understood that reform was needed and that they needed to commit... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Succession; Business and Community Relations; Management Teams

February 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Can Families Conquer Private Equity? Pritzker Private Capital

By: Lauren Cohen and Sophia Pan

Anthony (Tony) Pritkzer, Paul Carbone, and the Pritzker Private Capital (PPC) team wondered how to approach the firm’s next phase of growth. PPC was a private equity firm that offered a differentiated approach to the family capital market. Back in 2016, the partners... View Details

January 2003 (Revised October 2007)
Case

DoubleClick, Inc.

Examines DoubleClick's capital structure from IPO. Discusses additional offering of common stock, stock splits, dividends, sale of convertible debt, repurchase of convertible debt, and repurchase of common stock. View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Financial Instruments; Capital Structure; Accounting

October 2020 (Revised July 2023)
Case

UCK Partners: Gong Cha

By: Victoria Ivashina and Sangyun Lee

In the Spring of 2017, Soomin Kim, Founding Partner of UCK Partners, and his team were debating the potential exit of UCK Partner’s investment in Gong Cha Korea, the sole local franchisor of the premium milk tea brand that they proprietarily sourced three years ago.... View Details

Keywords: Exit; Strategic Decision Making; Private Equity; Investment; Strategy; Investment Return; Decision Making; Bids and Bidding

Richard Hamermesh was the MBA Class of 1961 Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. While at HBS Richard served as co-chair of the HBS Healthcare... View Details

Keywords: health care

2020
Working Paper

The Effects of Information on Credit Market Competition: Evidence from Credit Cards

By: C. Fritz Foley, Agustin Hurtado, Andres Liberman and Alberto Sepulveda

We show empirically that public credit information increases competition in credit markets. We access data that cover all credit card borrowers in Chile and include details about relationship borrowers have with each lender. We exploit a natural experiment whereby a... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Credit; Financial Intermediaries; Credit; Information; Competition; Credit Cards; Financial Institutions

SSRN

May 2019 (Revised May 2020)
Case

fidentiaX: The Tradable Insurance Marketplace on Blockchain

By: Alexander Braun, Lauren H. Cohen and Jiahua Xu

Three years ago, Alvin Ang and his partner founded fidentiaX in Singapore, with the ambition to create the world’s first marketplace for tradable insurance policies on blockchain. With a 26-page white paper, the start-up closed a successful fundraising round through an... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Insurance; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Technology Adoption; Business Strategy; Insurance Industry; Technology Industry; Singapore

August 2003 (Revised September 2003)
Case

Tower Software

Tower Software (TS) is a publicly traded corporation engaged in multiple facets of the computer software business. Its flagship product, TS SERVE, is a successful proprietary network operating system. TS also develops and sells applications software for word... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Product Launch; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry

July 2014 (Revised November 2014)
Module Note

Responsibilities to Society: The Capitalist's Contract

By: Karthik Ramanna

Societies face many pressing challenges with serious implications for business leaders. These include pollution and climate change, poverty and income inequality, obesity and public health, and corruption and regulatory capture. This note presents a way of analyzing... View Details

Keywords: Responsibilities To Society; The Capitalist's Contract; Leadership