Publications

January 2008
Article

Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman and Willy C. Shih

Most companies aren't half as innovative as their senior executives want them to be (or as their marketing claims suggest they are). What's stifling innovation? There are plenty of usual suspects, but the authors finger three financial tools as key accomplices.... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Innovation and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Prejudice and Bias; Value Creation

Find at Harvard

November 2005 (Revised May 2007)
Case

Leading Change at Simmons (A)

By: Tiziana E. Casciaro, Amy C. Edmondson, Stacy McManus and Kate Roloff

Explores the challenge of managing large-scale organizational change at Simmons, an old and established company that manufactures and distributes mattresses. The new CEO, Charlie Eitel, hired to turn the organization's performance around, considers whether to implement... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Motivation and Incentives; Leading Change; Employee Relationship Management; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

Forthcoming
Article

From Bupkis to Sechel in Health Care

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Richard Boxer

Fifty years ago, famed economist Milton Friedman declared that “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” This free market manifesto was adopted by the healthcare industry as well. But transactional has evolved into transformational with the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Accountability; Customer Focus and Relationships; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Industry

John A. Quelch is Executive Vice Chancellor and Distinguished Professor of Social Science at Duke Kunshan University. He is also John DeButts Professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Between 2017 and 2023 he was the Leonard M. Miller University... View Details

Keywords: advertising; broadcasting; consumer products; e-commerce industry; fashion; fast food; federal government; financial services; food; food processing; health care; high technology; marketing industry; media

George Serafeim

George Serafeim is the Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He co-leads a Lab, within Harvard's Digital, Data, Design Institute, and serves on the faculty steering committee of Harvard University's Salata Institute. He... View Details

Keywords: asset management; insurance industry; automobiles; industrial goods; fashion; food; green technology

October 2018 (Revised October 2018)
Teaching Note

La-Z-Boy (A)

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Julia Kelley

Kurt Darrow, CEO of La-Z-Boy furniture, must decide whether to continue an overhaul of the company's strategy in the face of a collapse in demand during the great recession. Having pared back La-Z-Boy's portfolio of brands and manufacturing network, he intends to... View Details

January 2003 (Revised January 2005)
Case

Peter Isenberg at Fischer Stevens (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Maria Farkas

Having made managing director at an elite investment bank, Peter Isenberg struggles to understand his new role in the firm. He feels as though little has changed, although it is clear to him that those around him have new expectations. View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Jobs and Positions; Management Teams; Banking Industry

Luis M. Viceira is the George E. Bates Professor in the Finance Unit and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research, course development, and teaching focus on the areas of investment management... View Details

Keywords: banking; education industry; financial services; nonprofit industry; retail financial services

July 2019
Teaching Note

Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital

By: Laura Huang

Teaching Note for HBS No. 419-029. Frustrated by an inability to convince existing venture capital firms to invest in companies led by women, people of color, and LGBT founders, Arlan Hamilton started her own firm, Backstage Capital, in 2015. Hamilton understood the... View Details

Keywords: Black Leadership; LGBTQ; People Of Color; Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Identity; Personal Characteristics; Prejudice and Bias; Social Issues; Diversity; Gender; Race

Bob White is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at the Harvard Business School where he teaches courses in the MBA program (Required and Elective curricula) and the Executive Education program. Courses taught include Entrepreneurial... View Details

July 2020
Article

The Persistent Effect of Initial Success: Evidence from Venture Capital

By: Ramana Nanda, Sampsa Samila and Olav Sorenson

We use investment-level data to study performance persistence in venture capital (VC). Consistent with prior studies, we find that each additional IPO among a VC firm's first ten investments predicts as much as an 8% higher IPO rate on its subsequent investments,... View Details

Keywords: Performance; Monitoring; Selection; Status; Venture Capital; Performance Consistency; Investment

October 2023
Case

Kevin O'Leary: Building a Brand in Shark-infested Waters

By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti

For more than fifteen years, successful Canadian entrepreneur and investor Kevin O’Leary had developed his brand into a global powerhouse. Since his first appearance on the Canadian television program Dragons’ Den in 2006 and his meteoric rise to stardom through the... View Details

Keywords: Personal Brand; Crisis; Brands and Branding; Entrepreneurship; Crisis Management; Social Media; Public Opinion; Power and Influence; Financial Services Industry

April 2023
Case

Elliott Management: Capital Allocation in Biopharma

By: Amitabh Chandra, Paul Clancy and Lauren Gunasti

The case explores the intersection of capital allocation and shareholder activism in the biopharmaceutical industry. As many biopharma companies face looming patent expirations for key medicines, the case asks the question of whether investing in R&D and M&A is an... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Strategy; Capital Allocation; Biopharmaceutical Industry; Shareholder Activism; Investment Activism; Resource Allocation; Research and Development; Business and Shareholder Relations; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

Career Coach

Tricia Peralta

these decision points against your overall career goals, and serve as a sounding board as you think about what matters most to you. She is also happy to help with career visioning, case interviews,... View Details

April 1999 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Columbia Capital Corporation: Summer 1998

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Justin D. Wasik

In August 1998, the partners of Columbia Capital in Arlington, Va. made a decision about whether or not to raise an outside fund for venture capital investing. Columbia had begun in 1988 as a boutique investment bank focused on the telecommunications industry, but had... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Partners and Partnerships; Investment Funds; Banks and Banking; Financial Services Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States

09 Dec 2019
News

The Power of Biometric Identification for Development

January 2016 (Revised October 2016)
Case

Saudi Aramco and Corporate Venture Capital

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Nathaniel Burbank

Saudi Aramco launched an internal venture capital arm in 2011, which promptly became the world's largest investor in energy related startups. In choosing to proceed, the company's New Business Development unit (NPD) wrestled with a number of challenges. How should the... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Energy Industry; Saudi Arabia

March 2009
Case

Aderans

By: Robin Greenwood, Rakesh Khurana and Masako Egawa

Steel Partners is a U.S.-based hedge fund that has made a large investment in Japan-based wigmaker Aderans. The case is set at the close of the annual meeting in May 2008, when shareholders have voted against all incumbent board members. Steel Partners must act... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Investment; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; Japan