Publications

February 2005 (Revised November 2005)
Case

SAIF: May 2004

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

The Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF) team has just learned that the price at which its portfolio company, the Chinese gaming firm Shanda, was planning to go public must be reduced. As a result, the partners think through the entire genesis of the deal and the... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Initial Public Offering; Price; China; United States

December 2019 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Impossible Foods

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Impossible Foods founder and CEO Pat Brown started the company out of concern over livestock production’s impact on climate change. Impossible’s mission is to end consumption of animals by 2035, and its strategy is to develop and market plant-based foods so similar to... View Details

2021
Working Paper

No-fault Default, Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, and Financial Institutions

By: Robert C. Merton and Richard T. Thakor

This paper analyzes the costs and benefits of a no-fault-default debt structure as an alternative to the typical bankruptcy process. We show that the deadweight costs of bankruptcy can be avoided or substantially reduced through no-fault-default debt, which permits a... View Details

Keywords: No-fault Default; Chapter 11; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Borrowing and Debt; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Institutions; Contracts

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30 Jul 2008
Op-Ed

Why the U.S. Should Encourage FDI

emerging markets of China and India—are filled with capital controls and ownership restrictions. How can the United States as a destination end up being so much less attractive despite the relative absence... View Details

Keywords: by Mihir A. Desai

October 2022
Case

Beam Dental (A)

By: Rembrand Koning and Alicia Dadlani

In May 2014, Alex Frommeyer, cofounder and CEO of Kentucky-based Beam Dental, a seed-stage startup that developed connected toothbrushes that tracked brushing habits, needed to decide which strategy to pitch to a venture capital firm. The first pitch deck played to the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Presentations; Product Development; Insurance Industry; United States; Kentucky; Ohio

Web

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

Eisenhower, and Robert McNamara. 08 Nov 2024 Op-Ed How Private Investors Can Help Solve Africa's Climate Crisis by John Macomber Africa faces escalating climate risks that threaten its people and businesses. While governments and development finance institutions lack... View Details

12 Oct 2011
First Look

First Look: October 12

PublicationsCapitalism at Risk: Rethinking the Role of Business Authors:Joseph Bower, Herman B. Leonard, and Lynn S. Paine Publication:Harvard Business Review Press, 2011 Abstract The spread of capitalism worldwide has made people... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2024
Article

Crucibles, Multiple Sensitive Periods, and Career Progression

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Sunasir Dutta, Hise O. Gibson and Eric Lin

We study the effects of crucible experiences along multiple sensitive periods on career progression. While prior literature has hinted that individuals can be imprinted during multiple sensitive periods, not just during the early career, there has been scant attention... View Details

Keywords: Military Service; Personal Development and Career; Transformation; Power and Influence; Learning; Human Capital

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January 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

OhmConnect: Energizing the Future

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Jennifer Fonstad and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded in 2013, OhmConnect was a free consumer web app that alerted customers about peak hours of electricity demand, and paid them to lower their energy use at home during these periods. The company sold the aggregated reductions generated by thousands of households... View Details

Keywords: App Development; Renewable Energy; Electricity Usage; Regulations; VC; Technology; Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC); Scalability; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business Model; Venture Capital; Energy Industry; United States; California; Texas; Europe

January 2010 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Greenbriar Growth Partners and Microsurgery Devices

Greenbriar Growth Partners (GGP), a venture capital (VC) firm, has been an investor in Microsurgery Devices (MSD) for four-plus years and has come into conflict with the company's founder. Should the Board's nominating committee re-nominate the VC investor, and should... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Initial Public Offering; Governing and Advisory Boards; Conflict of Interests; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Sawyer’s research focuses on U.S. political economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, concentrating on the development of competition policy and the administrative state. While the conventional history of U.S. competition policy portrays the... View Details

Research Summary

Land in China's Political Economy

By: Meg Rithmire

Land Bargains and Chinese Capitalism: The Politics of Property Rights under Reform

Published October 2015

China since the 1980s has been the scene of unprecedented efforts at urban construction and growth, even in the absence of privatization... View Details

June 2014
Teaching Note

Andreessen Horowitz

By: Thomas Eisenmann

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm launched in 2009, has quickly broken into the VC industry's top ranks, in terms of its ability to invest in Silicon Valley's most promising startups. The case recounts the firm's history; describes its co-founders'... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Venture Capital; Disruption; Organizational Structure; Entrepreneurship; Industry Structures; Service Industry; United States

September 1999 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Strategic Deal Making at Millennium Pharmaceuticals

A small start-up in 1993, Millennium Pharmaceuticals was a name-brand biotechnology company by the end of 1998, with a market capitalization of $1.4 billion. The Cambridge-based company's growth strategy had relied heavily on building alliances for early-stage drug... View Details

Keywords: Alliances; Negotiation Deal; Growth and Development Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Cambridge

Web

Live from Klarman Hall - Alumni

(login required) What's Next for the United States and the World? 10:40–11:40 a.m. EST Speaker: Rawi Abdelal , Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management Video Recording Women & Money 1:30–2:15 p.m. EST Faculty Moderator:... View Details

07 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Dividends from Schumpeter’s Noble Failure

graduates and undergraduates, and taught a heavy load of courses. He also devoted considerable energy to a second big project—a book on money—but decided to defer (and ultimately to abandon) that effort. By the time he neared completion of Business Cycles, he was... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas K. McCraw

Article

The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy, Georgios Serafeim, Devin Shanthikumar and Gui Yang

We examine the selection and performance of stocks recommended by analysts at a large investment firm relative to those of sell-side analysts during the period mid-1997 and 2004. The buy-side firm's analysts issued less optimistic recommendations for stocks with larger... View Details

Keywords: Buy-side Analysts; Sell-side Analysts; Stock Recommendations; Recommendation Optimism; Recommendation Performance; Investment Recommendations; Conflicts Of Interest; Financial Markets; Financial Institutions; Stocks; Financial Services Industry; United States