Publications

July 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Hidrovias do Brasil: Navigating Unchartered Waters

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

Since its founding eight years earlier, Hidrovias do Brasil (“Hidrovias”), an integrated logistics provider serving corporate customers exporting products from South America via the Atlantic Ocean, had grown to 900 employees and $253 million in annual revenues.... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Private Equity; Brazil; Entrepreneurial Organizations; Operation Management; General Management; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Growth and Development; Leadership; Operations; Problems and Challenges; Transportation; Human Capital; Strategy; Emerging Markets; Brazil

December 2003 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Globalizing the Cost of Capital and Capital Budgeting at AES

By: Mihir A. Desai and Douglas Kurt Schillinger

With electricity generating businesses around the world, AES Corp. is seeking a methodology for calculating the cost of capital for its various businesses and potential projects. In the past, AES used the same cost of capital for all of its capital budgeting, but the... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Risk Management; Globalized Firms and Management; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Emerging Markets; Foreign Direct Investment; Capital Budgeting; Energy Industry; South America

February 2011 (Revised April 2012)
Case

PepsiCo Peru Foods: More than Small Potatoes

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Rakesh Khurana, Rajiv Lal and Matthew Bird

The regional head of supply chain for PepsiCo South America Foods and his team had worked for 10 years to realize their dream of creating an agricultural research center in Peru that could provide more productive and healthier varieties of potatoes for the Frito-Lay... View Details

Keywords: Food; Supply Chain; Planning; Growth and Development Strategy; Leading Change; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Peru

2024
Chapter

The U.S. Secession Crisis as a Breakdown of Democracy

By: Dean Grodzins and David Moss

This chapter examines the U.S. secession crisis of 1860–1861 as a case of democratic breakdown. From December 1860 to early June 1861, eleven of the fifteen slaveholding states in the U.S. South declared secession from the Union. The trigger for the crisis was Abraham... View Details

Keywords: War; History; Political Elections; United States

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02 Mar 2021
HBS Case

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

make up for crimes by the Nazis, and South Africa paid Black victims of apartheid. In the United States, the federal government provided payments in the 1990s to Japanese civilians interred in camps during World War II. In 1994, the state... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

11 May 2020
Op-Ed

Immigration Policies Threaten American Competitiveness

data (Miguelez and Fink, 2013), Figure 1 shows that America received more than half of migrating inventors from 2000-2010. Figure 1: Migration of inventors, 2000-2010 Immigrants can be found in times of success and times of crisis.... View Details

Keywords: by William R. Kerr

August 2007
Case

Codelco Copper Mines

Codelco was a Chilean copper-mining company, widely considered to be one of the most professionally managed firms in South America in spite of the fact that it was 100% government-owned. A $10.5 billion company in 2005, Codelco faced the challenge of incorporating... View Details

Keywords: Mining; Geographic Location; Leading Change; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Mining Industry; Chile

Article

Putting Patients First: Social Marketing Strategies for Treating HIV in Developing Nations

By: Zoe Chance and Rohit Deshpandé

It is more than mere coincidence that the highest rates of HIV occur in the world's poorest countries. Of the over 40 million people currently living with HIV, 95 percent are in the developing world. The first part of this paper explores the economics of HIV and... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Developing Countries and Economies; Poverty; Health Care and Treatment; Social Marketing; Perspective; Customer Focus and Relationships; Profit; Africa; Asia; South America

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December 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Marfrig's Quest for Sustainable Beef

By: Jose B. Alvarez, Pedro Levindo and Ruth Costas

Marfrig, one of the world’s leading meatpackers, strived to comply with its commitment to have a deforestation-free value chain in Brazil by 2030. The company also pledged to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases in accordance with the guidelines set by the... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Acquisition; Family Business; Communication Strategy; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Environmental Regulation; Environmental Sustainability; Bonds; Food; Global Strategy; Goods and Commodities; Government and Politics; Political Elections; Leading Change; Marketing; Product Marketing; Product Positioning; Supply Chain; Supply Chain Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Brazil; Latin America; Argentina; Uruguay; North America; United States; Europe; Asia; China

30 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Big Companies, Big Opportunities—Big Questions

for corporate groups in Latin America from working within protected economies and industries to being completely open to the global economy," he said. "We're going to have to be much more entrepreneurial than we were in the... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette

04 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 4, 2018

firm disclosures. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55303 November 2018 Australian Economic History Review Business, Governments and Political Risk in South Asia and Latin View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

November 2019 (Revised December 2020)
Case

Grupo Éxito: Facing Colombia's Competitive Grocery Retail Industry

By: José B. Alvarez, Carla Larangeira, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Miguel Diaz Moreno

Grupo Éxito, a leading South American retailer, faced declining market shares in Colombia in 2019 with the arrival of low-cost competitors and emerging digital trends. Originally founded in Medellín, Éxito had over the course of its seventy-year history evolved from a... View Details

Keywords: Grocery; Market Share; Information Technology; Trends; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry; Colombia; Latin America

10 Aug 2007
Other Presentation

Doing Well at Doing Good: Do You Have a Strategy?

By: Michael E. Porter

Strategy presentation at Willow Creek Association’s Leadership Summit, South Barrington, Illinois. Topics include: strategy for non-profits (museums) and social enterprises. View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Society; United States

28 May 2014
Research & Ideas

Building Histories of Emerging Economies One Interview at a Time

that body of knowledge was derived primarily from companies in the United States, Europe, and Japan. But as emerging markets in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America continue to grow, so does an interest in how they came to be... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

March 2007 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Grupo Bimbo

By: Jordan I. Siegel

In 2007 Grupo Bimbo, a leading global player in the baking industry, expands into China while at the same time undertaking initiatives to make its U.S. and South American operations more profitable. Allows students to analyze the company's entire global strategy.... View Details

Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Government Relations; Food and Beverage Industry; China; Mexico; United States; South America

January 2013 (Revised November 2016)
Case

The New Carolina Initiative

By: Michael E. Porter and Jorge Ramirez-Vallejo

The New Carolina Initiative case explores the process of fostering competitiveness in the subnational region, South Carolina, one of the poorest states in the United States. The case has been developed primarily for use in the course "Microeconomics of... View Details

Keywords: Public Sector; Poverty; Competitive Strategy; Private Sector; Economic Growth; South Carolina

September 2017 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Henry Kissinger: Negotiating Black Majority Rule in Rhodesia (A)

By: James K. Sebenius and Laurence A. Green

In 1976, a growing crisis in Southern Africa drew the attention of United States Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. White Rhodesian leader Ian Smith's refusal to accede to black majority rule threatened to widen into a regional conflict involving apartheid South... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Race; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Participants; Government and Politics; Africa; United States

01 Aug 2000
Research & Ideas

A Latin American Vision: New HBS Research Center Opens

Fernando de la Rua, the President of Argentina noted, "This is an historic day," about the opening of the School's new Latin America Research Center in Buenos Aires. Speaking as guest of honor at the Center's inaugural dinner on... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

October 2013 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Walmart around the World

By: Juan Alcácer, Abhishek Agrawal and Harshit Vaish

After reaching the limits of its successful expansion in the United States in the early 1990s, Walmart sought growth opportunities in markets abroad. This case describes Walmart's attempts to replicate its successful U.S. business model in Mexico, Canada, Brazil,... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Success; Globalized Markets and Industries; Expansion; Market Entry and Exit; Failure; Retail Industry; Germany; China; Argentina; South Korea; Canada; Japan; Brazil; Africa; United Kingdom; United States; Mexico