Publications

April 1998
Case

Responding to 21st Century Financial Crisis

By: Huw Pill

During the 1990s, financial crises appear to have been almost annual events. Examples abound: the collapse of S & Ls in the United States; currency mayhem in Europe; Mexican devaluation and banking crisis; Japanese banks teetering on the verge of default; currency and... View Details

Keywords: Global Range; Financial Crisis

Find at Harvard

12 Jul 2016
News

The Fastest-Growing Cause for Shareholders Is Sustainability

29 Aug 2018
News

The Value of Valleys

entrepreneurs precisely because I know the risks. I think you should not do it precipitously. There's an aphorism in our industry that CEO is the new analyst, because a lot of young people want to be startup... View Details

01 Mar 2009
News

The Myth of Laissez-Faire

fellow at the New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, means big. He wants an American federal government that raises taxes on almost everyone and everything to fund up to $500 billion annually in projects and programs... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Publishing Industries (except Internet)

March 2016 (Revised August 2016)
Case

CreditEase: Taking Inclusive Finance Online

By: Michael Chu, John S. Ji and Nancy Hua Dai

The world’s largest peer-to-peer (P2P) lender annually disbursing over a million loans totaling $10 billion, China’s CreditEase, must decide whether to IPO in the NYSE its online lending platform, Yirendai, before the year-end window closes in 2015. Yirendai sought to... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Internet and the Web; Financing and Loans; Credit; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; China

19 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Activist Board Members Increase Firm’s Market Value

returns for different firms on October 4, the day the SEC announced the delay. In particular, they compared the return for companies where investors known for being activists held large stakes. ("Activist investors" is used here to refer to View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

20 Mar 2005
Research & Ideas

Lessons of Successful Entrepreneurs

customer acquisition strategy might be sound given the circumstances of the moment, said Filipowski. "I believe in assessing the current environment and taking advantage of it." In a discussion on... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

January 1983 (Revised August 1988)
Case

Universal Robotics Corp.

Three former classmates are founding a company to design, develop, manufacture, and market industrial robots. Principal issues involve the sources, amount, and form of outside investment, the allocation of equity, and the terms and conditions under which outside funds... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Business Startups; Corporate Finance; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry

18 Apr 2023
Research & Ideas

The Best Person to Lead Your Company Doesn't Work There—Yet

isn’t necessary when looking for the right top executive; industry expertise often counts more. Many of these leaders have previous public-company management experience, and they deliver outsized returns for... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

July 2016
Case

'Golden Leash' Pay for Directors at The Dow Chemical Company

By: Ian Gow, Suraj Srinivasan and Neeraj Goyal

In November 2014, The Dow Chemical Company was faced with the prospect of a proxy battle with prominent hedge fund and activist investor Third Point Management. The activist had criticized Dow’s recent performance and advocated that the company split itself to maximize... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Investment Activism; Chemical Industry

25 Jun 2020
Blog Post

Harvard Business School Class of 2021 Student Profiles

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Bain, World Food Programme, Goldman Sachs, Brandeval HBS ACTIVITIES HBS Show, Wine & Cuisine Society Yaoxin Ding While serving as a product manager at Fiat, Yaoxin worked closely with... View Details

01 Jun 2008
News

The Prophet of Start-Ups

the VC community to see itself as a real industry.” The venture capital industry began to take shape after World War II on the northeastern seaboard when in 1946 Doriot became president of the first public... View Details

Keywords: Spencer E. Ante; George Doriot; Charles F. Kettering; Lawrence Lowell; F. Warren Hellman; Finance; Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Finance

01 Dec 2005
News

A Matter of Opinion

Victor Navasky of The Nation magazine has spent his life taking on the Establishment. So what did he hope to accomplish at Harvard Business School? Call it what you will — the conventional wisdom, the status quo, the official line — and... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Publishing Industries (except Internet)

01 Dec 2015
News

Golden State of Mind

commit to any single venture. “In my heart, I knew that I had to spread myself around a little bit more,” he recalls. The venture capital industry made that possible. In those first few years, he bummed an office from Technology Venture... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

08 May 2019
Blog Post

In the Business of Flexibility

finance side and 40 percent on the marketing side. Aspirations for company growth lie in their ability to identify new niches, or industry verticals, and staff appropriately. “I want to see us grow in a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit / Government

November 2000
Case

University Technology Ventures: October 2000

By: Josh Lerner

The founders of University Technology Ventures, a fund of funds designed for university professors, face numerous challenges in raising their first fund. The role, economics, and structure of funds-of-funds are examined in the course of examining the partners' dilemma. View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Problems and Challenges; Partners and Partnerships; Financial Services Industry

30 Nov 2021
In Practice

What's the Role of Business in Confronting Climate Change?

The 26th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, also known as COP26, ended with a hard-fought pact that called on businesses and governments to meet their climate change goals faster. The event followed an August report by the Intergovernmental... View Details

Keywords: by Lynn Schenk and Dina Gerdeman

01 Dec 2016
News

Alumni Books of 2016

authors map these trends and profile the battle between low-cost index and exchange-traded funds, on the one hand, and the higher-fee hedge funds and private equity, on the other. “I have no rituals for... View Details

December 2018 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Bulb 2015: Foundation

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In late August 2015, Amit Gudka and Hayden Wood, co-founders of Bulb, Ltd (Bulb), were ready to offer affordable renewable energy to the United Kingdom’s 27 million households. They hoped to capitalize on the hundreds of thousands of customers switching their energy... View Details