Publications

July 2012 (Revised June 2018)
Case

MC Tool

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Two partners acquired MC Tool in October 2007 for $5 million. The company was a machine shop that manufactured parts for a wide variety of applications in the energy, automotive, and industrial equipment industries. In their first year of ownership, the partners... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Risk Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Problems and Challenges; Transformation; Production; Business Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; United States

November 1994
Case

VideoGuide, Inc. (A)

By: William A. Sahlman and Jason Green

VideoGuide is emerging from a development stage start-up and requires a significant capital infusion to commercialize its product. Various financing options are considered including going public, venture capital, private placement, or a strategic partner. Given the... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Capital; Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Initial Public Offering; Markets; Partners and Partnerships; Growth and Development Strategy; Going Public

21 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

7 Successful Battle Strategies to Beat COVID-19

toward gunfire, where they certainly would be needed. Southwest Airlines famously provides structure to staff built on culture and an aligned operating model. In the field, staff members know what levers they can pull to respond to current conditions, including a... View Details

Keywords: by Euvin Naidoo

12 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Solving COVID'S Mental Health Crisis

staying away or unable to pay and rising costs for personal protective gear and new technology. “Compounding the problem, SUD treatment and prevention programs risk draconian cuts to public funding as states experience economic downturns and View Details

Keywords: by Howard Stevenson and Shirley Spence; Health

10 Sep 2008
Research & Ideas

Long-Tail Economics? Give Me Blockbusters!

result in dead ends but occasionally lead in an unexpected direction to a blockbuster result. Some big budget movies are flops, others are sleepers, still others meet expectations. More risky than pursuing blockbusters is not to pursue... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Entertainment & Recreation; Pharmaceutical

February 1991
Case

Burlington Northern: The ARES Decision (B)

By: Julie H. Hertenstein and Robert S. Kaplan

The ARES team formally proposes that Burlington Northern implement the ARES system. The project meets resistance. In light of financial restructuring and high level of debt, executives wonder whether the company can afford ARES. Weak links during the ARES development... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Restructuring; Cost vs Benefits; Decision Choices and Conditions; Borrowing and Debt; Capital Budgeting; Projects; Technology Adoption; Service Industry

06 Nov 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Top-Down Resource Allocation on the Rise?

situation here, but rather a more subtle process change by some companies, especially those in volatile or fast-moving industries. What I see happening among partners I deal with is that they allocate strategically from the top (setting overall View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

07 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Three Steps for Crisis Prevention

exactly that." The Big Five also spent millions of dollars urging members of Congress to threaten the SEC leadership with budget cuts if it imposed limits on auditor services. The lobbying worked. The SEC backed off, and the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael D. Watkins & Max H. Bazerman

06 May 2002
Research & Ideas

Profits for Nonprofits: Earning Your Own Way

address the issues that kept them from being employed well in the past." The bakery's challenges include limited financial resources—its budget is $200,000 a year—and learning to be profitable while training and employing people who... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

25 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: ‘Can China Lead?’

of higher education are in the process of slow-motion self-destruction. The University of California system, once the greatest system of public higher education in the world, has been weakened and made increasingly dysfunctional due to state View Details

Keywords: Re: William C. Kirby & F. Warren McFarlan; Education; Technology

05 Jan 2011
Op-Ed

Funding Unpredictability Around Stem-Cell Research Inflicts Heavy Cost on Scientific Progress

typical lab has 20 to 40 people, led by a senior researcher (the "principal investigator''). Most people in a lab are doctoral or postdoctoral students who are pursuing careers in science. Labs have many different projects under investigation simultaneously. Most... View Details

Keywords: by William Sahlman; Biotechnology; Health; Pharmaceutical

November 2019
Case

Hapag-Lloyd AG:Complying with IMO 2020

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej and Emer Moloney

A new environmental regulation known as IMO 2020 was creating what one industry analyst called “the biggest shakeup for the oil and shipping industries in decades.” According to the new regulation, all ocean-going ships would have to limit their sulfur emissions by... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Ship Transportation; Strategic Planning; Game Theory; Pollutants; Supply Chain; Corporate Accountability; Capital Budgeting; Environmental Sustainability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governance Compliance; Shipping Industry; Transportation Industry; Germany

10 Aug 2011
Research & Ideas

HBS Faculty Views on Debt Crisis

hesitant to vote for such proposals. Add to this the ideological divisions about whether to emphasize taxes or spending when closing the budget gap, and we have a difficult and volatile fiscal outlook for this country. Given these... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

May 2004 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Ultra: The Quest for Leadership (A)

By: Dwight B. Crane and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

Ultra is one of a small group of competing Brazilian petrochemical companies, each of which buys raw material and is a minority owner of Copene, a "cracking" company that provides ethylene and other materials. Because of an industry restructuring, an auction of shares... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Capital Budgeting; Investment; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Industry Structures; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Bids and Bidding; Economy; Ownership Stake; Chemical Industry; Brazil

Find at Harvard

May 2008 (Revised June 2009)
Case

Finansbank 2006

By: C. Fritz Foley and Linnea Meyer

How do financial policy requirements and benefits of ownership concentration affect the need for and process of corporate restructuring? This case provides students with an opportunity to analyze the restructuring of a Turkish multinational business group by way of a... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Mergers and Acquisitions; Restructuring; Capital Budgeting; Agreements and Arrangements; Valuation; Turkey; Greece