Publications

Profile

Lara Hodgson

non-traditional route, Hodgson eschewed the venture capital option and raised $3 million from angel investors and friends and family. It may have resulted in a slower growth curve but it gave Hodgson more control. And Hodgson enjoys... View Details

March 1974 (Revised June 1996)
Case

First National City Bank Operating Group (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch

Growth in the banking field has produced new demands on the "back office." Traditional management practices in check processing and paper handling operations have resulted in ten years of cost increases and quality loss. New manager of the operating group faces an... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Transition; Banks and Banking; Management Practices and Processes; Managerial Roles; Production; Banking Industry

14 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 14

of shared beliefs resulting in similar and concurrent firm behavior; second, that firms notice and imitate the behaviors of firms from the same prior industry; and third, that as firms gain experience with particular features, the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2017
Case

Swagbucks

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble

In early 2016, Chuck Davis, chairman and CEO of Prodege LLC, parent company of the brand promotion business Swagbucks, and Josef Gorowitz, Prodege’s founder and president, must decide whether to acquire MyPoints, a competitor to Swagbucks, after the company’s... View Details

Web

Business & Environment

also reduce coverage demand. These results raise the concern that financial constraints reduce willingness to pay for insurance even below the actuarially fair price required for insurers to remain solvent,... View Details

March 2016 (Revised January 2023)
Teaching Note

Carla Ann Harris at Morgan Stanley

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan

This case follows Carla Ann Harris, an African-American executive on Wall Street, from her childhood to the eve of her 20th year at Morgan Stanley. In addition to her professional identity as an investment banker, Harris is also an accomplished gospel singer, an... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Identity; Personal Development and Career; Success; Values and Beliefs; Social Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry

15 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

September 2017
Case

Christine Lagarde

By: Julie Battilana, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Vanessa Ampelas and Noemie Assenat

The case covers the youth and career trajectory of Christine Lagarde across her time at Baker & McKenzie, as a minister in the government of France and as the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The case highlights the challenges and opportunities she faced... View Details

Keywords: Change; Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence; Leadership; Gender; Leading Change

17 Apr 2009
Working Paper Summaries

The Investment Strategies of Sovereign Wealth Funds

Keywords: by Shai Bernstein, Josh Lerner & Antoinette Schoar; Financial Services

September–October 2024
Article

The Crowdless Future? Generative AI and Creative Problem-Solving

By: Léonard Boussioux, Jacqueline N. Lane, Miaomiao Zhang, Vladimir Jacimovic and Karim R. Lakhani

The rapid advances in generative artificial intelligence (AI) open up attractive opportunities for creative problem-solving through human-guided AI partnerships. To explore this potential, we initiated a crowdsourcing challenge focused on sustainable, circular economy... View Details

Keywords: Large Language Models; Generative Ai; Crowdsourcing; AI and Machine Learning; Creativity; Technological Innovation

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March 2021
Case

P.F. Chang's

By: Ashish Nanda, Nitin Nohria and Margaret Cross

Excited yet apprehensive after being named CEO of P.F. Chang’s beginning July 1st, 2020, Damola Adamolekun was well aware of the extraordinary challenges facing the firm. The closure of businesses deemed “nonessential” owing to the COVID-19 pandemic had devastated the... View Details

Keywords: Restaurants; COVID-19 Pandemic; Scenario Planning; Scenarios; Health Pandemics; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategy

Web

Live from Klarman Hall - Alumni

crucial distinctions that separate good failure from bad, resulting in difficulties for best practices to take hold in most organizations. Despite happy talk, most people would rather do anything but fail. Failure, it seems, is fine in... View Details

June 2014
Article

Frictions in Shadow Banking: Evidence from the Lending Behavior of Money Market Funds

By: Sergey Chernenko and Adi Sunderam

We document the consequences of money market fund risk taking during the European sovereign debt crisis. Using a novel data set of security-level holdings of prime money market funds, we show that funds with large exposures to risky Eurozone banks suffered significant... View Details

Keywords: Money Market Mutual Funds; European Sovereign Debt Crisis; Runs; Contagion; Risk Taking; Investment Funds; Financial Crisis; Europe

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December 2010
Article

The Case for Professional Boards

By: Robert C. Pozen

When the world's largest financial institutions had to be rescued from insolvency in 2008, many experts laid the blame at the feet of corporate boards. But insufficient board oversight is a problem that had supposedly been solved in 2002. As the United States... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing and Advisory Boards; Failure; Accounting Audits; Quality; Behavior; Legal Liability; Experience and Expertise; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Performance Effectiveness; United States

29 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

The Business Press Is a Watchdog that Bites

When tales of financial fraud hit the newsstands, business people and academics usually assume that it was analysts or auditors who brought the wrongdoing to light. Journalists, they believe, are only repeating what they've been told.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Journalism & News; Publishing

04 Dec 2007
First Look

First Look: December 4, 2007

employee communication about operational failures. Doing so may result in higher levels of frontline system-improvement efforts and ultimately improved work processes. Cases & Course MaterialsAllianz AG: Becoming a European Company... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

Browse All Articles, Research, & Case Studies - HBS Working Knowledge

Popular Browse All Articles About Us Newsletter Sign-Up RSS Page 1 of 5,369 Results 12 Nov 2024 HBS Case Inside One Startup's Journey to Break Down Hiring (and Funding) Barriers by Avery Forman How can formerly incarcerated people... View Details

September 1996
Case

Automatic Data Processing: The EFS Decision (Abridged)

By: Robert L. Simons

The managing director of one of ADP's divisions must recommend whether to divest, harvest, or grow the division. Recent performance has been excellent and the near-term outlook for profitability is very promising. Despite some strategic concerns, the strong financial... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Success; Performance Expectations; Strategic Planning; Strategy