Publications

Find at Harvard

The report commends the broad-based governmental actions initially taken to support the economy, citizens, and the corporate sector during the Covid pandemic. However, structural changes in our economies due to the pandemic, and growing corporate... View Details

25 Jul 2019
Blog Post

Advancing a More Sustainable World with an MBA/MPA-ID

was my work with a power plant, the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change, or local county governments, financial returns often superseded the "green value" of projects. I quickly learned that beyond health or environmental benefits, View Details

November 2002 (Revised June 2003)
Case

China's Rural Leap Forward

By: Bruce R. Scott and Jamie Matthews

Collectively owned township and village enterprises (TVEs) played a pivotal role in China's rapid growth during the 1980s and 1990s. Although they originated in the policies and institutions of the Maoist era, TVEs thrived only after Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Public Sector; Public Ownership; Development Economics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Macroeconomics; Emerging Markets; China

06 Dec 2010
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Doing Business in Emerging Markets

late 19th and early 20th centuries. Khanna and Palepu outline how to identify and respond to institutional voids in product, labor, and capital markets. Investors and entrepreneurs can respond to niches in institutional infrastructure in the View Details

03 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 3

listed and unlisted firms from across a wide spectrum of manufacturing and services industries and ownership structures such as state-owned firms, business groups, and private and foreign firms. Detailed balance sheet and ownership... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

September 2023
Teaching Note

Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'

By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 323-057. Patagonia’s change of ownership from a privately held company to a perpetual purpose trust and 501(c)(4) nonprofit in order to use the company’s profit to fight the environmental crisis and be a model for future businesses. View Details

2023
Working Paper

The Politics of Philanthropy in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

This working paper looks historically at business philanthropy in China. In the West, the literature has distinguished between entrepreneurial and customary philanthropy, while the phenomenon of spiritual philanthropy has been identified in many emerging markets. This... View Details

Keywords: China; Philanthropy; Ethics; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Moral Sensibility; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Economic Systems; Economic Sectors; China

December 2019 (Revised December 2022)
Case

TXU (A): Powering the Largest Leveraged Buyout in History

By: Trevor Fetter, Erik Snowberg and Rebecca M. Henderson

This case is designed to support a lively discussion about the relative merits of shareholder vs. stakeholder perspectives in the context of a company that provides a vital public service that has important environmental implications. The 2007 purchase of TXU, the... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Transformation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Environmental Sustainability; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Energy Generation; Non-Renewable Energy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Utilities Industry; Energy Industry; Texas

July 2004 (Revised June 2005)
Case

Digitas (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Ashley Robertson

Raises issues about how the nature and function of a board changes as its company moves from ownership by its employees (including the founder) to ownership by a private equity firm, Hellman & Friedman, to public ownership. Teaching Purpose: To consider changes in... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Governing and Advisory Boards; Behavior; Organizations; Employee Ownership; Public Ownership

October 1998
Case

CRA Managed Care, Inc. (C)

By: Myra M. Hart and Susan Harmeling

Chronicles an entrepreneur's transition from chairman/CEO of a large privately held company, to chairman of a public company, to board member, to president of several major nonprofit boards, to founder of a new nonprofit for women business owners and founder of a new... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Leadership; Nonprofit Organizations; Governing and Advisory Boards; Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Management Skills; United States

December 2008 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

By: David E. Bell and Brian Matthew Milder

In 2006, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation joined together to form a new organization, AGRA, to tackle the historic challenge of increasing agricultural production in Africa. Launched with much fanfare and led by former U.N.... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Investment Funds; Food; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business and Government Relations; Non-Governmental Organizations; Poverty; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa

Career Coach

Doug Lester

and wellness, tech, and mission-driven organizations. In addition to coaching at HBS, Doug works with individual and corporate clients through his private coaching practice Career Narratives. He writes regularly about the strategies and... View Details

Keywords: Government; Government; Government; Government; Government; Government; Government; Government; Government; Government; Government; Government; Government; Government; Government

30 Jun 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Empire Struck Back: The Mexican Oil Expropriation of 1938 Reconsidered

Keywords: by Noel Maurer; Energy; Utilities

Building Sustainable Cities

By 2050 the number of people living in cities will have nearly doubled, to 6 billion, and the problems created by this rampant urbanization are among the most important challenges of our time. Of all resource-management issues, the author argues, water, electricity,... View Details

February 2016 (Revised May 2016)
Case

Astroscale, Space Debris, and Earth's Orbital Commons

By: Matthew Weinzierl, Angela Acocella and Mayuka Yamazaki

An engineer and technology entrepreneur, Nobu Okada, had turned a mid-life crisis into a bold—some would say quixotic—quest to prevent a tragedy of the commons at the global scale. Namely, Okada believed the accumulation of debris in near-Earth orbital space posed a... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Global Range; Entrepreneurship; Crisis Management; Wastes and Waste Processing; Economics; Aerospace Industry

June 2021
Article

Symmetric Ignorance: The Cost of Anonymous Lemons

By: Amar Bhidé

Rules that restrict information required in negotiated private transactions have spurred a vast increase in the scope of anonymous financial markets, particularly in the United States. The subtle costs of the information‐restricting rules raise questions about the... View Details

Keywords: Information Asymmetry; Liquidity; Regulation; Securities Markets; Securitization; Information; Financial Liquidity; Financial Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

Find at Harvard

2020
Working Paper

The Cost of Anonymous Lemons

By: Amar Bhidé

Rules that restrict information required in negotiated private transactions have spurred a vast increase in the scope of anonymous financial markets, particularly in the US. The subtle costs of the information restricting rules raise questions about the social value of... View Details

Keywords: Information Asymmetry; Securities; Securitization; Regulation; Liquidity; Information; Financial Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Liquidity

April 2020 (Revised April 2023)
Case

TransDigm in 2017: The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

TransDigm was a highly acquisitive company that manufactured a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts for both military and commercial customers. Over the ten years ending in 2016, its stock price had increased ten times, and both EBITDA and revenues had grown... View Details