Publications

January 2006 (Revised February 2006)
Case

E.ON Corporate Strategy

By: Forest L. Reinhardt and Sebastian Frankenberger

Examines the corporate strategy of German energy giant E.ON. The firm is vertically integrated, horizontally diversified across electricity and natural gas, and active in numerous countries in Europe as well as in the United States. Explores the costs and benefits of... View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Vertical Integration; Corporate Strategy; Globalization; Energy Sources; Economics; Energy Industry; Germany; United States; Europe

August 1996
Case

ThermoLase

By: William A. Sahlman and Andrew S. Janower

John Hansen, CEO of ThermoLase, must develop a plan of action to exploit the company's new development-stage revolutionary hair removal technology with negligible revenues and a $500 million market capitalization. This nascent public Thermo Electron spin out company... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Plan; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

February 1982 (Revised November 1994)
Case

San Fabian Supply Co. (Philippines)

MacDowell Corp., a producer of construction supplies, terminated its exclusive distribution arrangement with San Fabian Supply Co., its sole distributor in the Philippines for nearly 20 years. Paul Cheng the owner of San Fabian had to decide whether to accept... View Details

Keywords: Relationships; Distribution Channels; Construction Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Philippines

December 1993 (Revised March 1997)
Case

Recruiting at Bowles Hollowell Conner & Co.

By: John J. Gabarro, Herminia M. Ibarra, John P. Kotter and Andrew P. Burtis

Examines the recruiting process of Bowles Hollowell Conner & Co. (BHC), an investment banking firm known for its work with middle market companies. Specifically, presents a profile of the firm and its recruiting process and then examines that process through the firm's... View Details

Keywords: Investment Banking; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Job Interviews; Banking Industry

03 Feb 2014
News

Raymond Weil, Whose Swiss Watches Told More Than Time, Dies at 87

20 May 2013
News

5 Ways Money Can Buy Happiness

20 Jul 2010
News

Harvard Business School Faculty on the Dodd-Frank U.S. Financial Reform Legislation

09 Jul 2025
Video

Networking Isn't Guesswork--It's Science

08 Oct 2020
HBS Seminar

Ginger Jin, University of Maryland

2025
Working Paper

Tax Planning, Illiquidity, and Credit Risks: Evidence from DeFi Lending

By: Lisa De Simone, Peiyi Jin and Daniel Rabetti

This study establishes a plausible causal link between tax-planning-induced illiquidity and credit risks in lending markets. Exploiting an exogenous tax shock imposed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on cryptocurrency gains, along with millions of transactions in... View Details

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Taxation; Financial Liquidity; Credit; Financing and Loans; Financial Markets

Read Now

08 Sep 2022
Book

Gen Xers and Millennials, It’s Time To Lead. Are You Ready?

from decades of teaching students from the Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z eras. George and coauthor Zach Clayton, CEO of the digital marketing firm Three Ships, urge young leaders to usher in a new way of doing business—one based on... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

August 2016 (Revised November 2019)
Case

eSig: Growth Analysis

By: Mark Roberge and Tom Eisenmann

eSig, an early-stage startup, offers an electronic signature application as a "freemium" product, i.e., users can upgrade from a free basic version to a premium version by paying a subscription fee. Using 9 months of data from 50,000 user activations (available as a... View Details

Keywords: Esignature; Computer Software; Business or Company Management; Marketing Channels; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Computer Industry

May 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Teaching Note

The Road to Kolkata: NH-34 and PPP in India

By: Sid Yog and Ben Eppler

It is May 2014 and construction of road NH-34 has been fraught with difficulties, but HCON CEO Arjun Dhawan can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Land acquisition is finally nearing completion throughout the entire stretch, and one parcel is almost ready to begin... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Construction; Emerging Markets; Infrastructure; Public Ownership; Construction Industry; India

2018
Working Paper

Ethical Hedonism? How Consumers' Prosocial Behavior Varies Along the Utilitarian-Hedonic Product Spectrum: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

By: Kristin Sippl

The marketing literature classifies products along a spectrum from utilitarian (e.g. rice) to hedonic (e.g. cannabis), and additionally using terms such as “luxury” and “illicit.” Research in business ethics has proposed a counter-intuitive mismatch between ethics and... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Luxury; Consumer Behavior; Environmental Sustainability

Read Now

07 Mar 2007
Research & Ideas

How Do You Value a “Free” Customer?

for the auction house, which must determine how to allocate marketing and other expenditures between buyers and sellers to attract new business. As more job seekers sign on to Monster.com, more employers are willing to be paying customers... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Web Services

20 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 20

either system can lead to the subversion of expected relationships in the other. This book rejects the simple equation of capitalism with markets or with trade, in favor of a three-level system that embraces factor View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

29 Jun 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Better-reply Dynamics in Deferred Acceptance Games

Keywords: by Guillaume Haeringer & Hanna Halaburda

September 2016 (Revised March 2020)
Teaching Note

Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model

By: Feng Zhu

Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride, as opposed to the 20%–30%... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Transportation; Business Startups; Business Model; Transportation Industry; Boston

March 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Case

iMatari

By: Joseph L. Badaracco and Matthew Preble

In late 2012, recent Harvard Business School graduate Hannah Lopez is given the opportunity to lead entry into a new market for Plámo, a company that created startup companies in Europe and emerging markets based upon existing successful business models. She had only... View Details

Keywords: Ethical Behavior; Ethical Judgment; Entrepreneurship; Imitation; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Europe; Middle East