Publications

18 Nov 2014
First Look

First Look: November 18

Publications November 2014 Wiley Encyclopedia of Management Management as a Profession By: Khurana, Rakesh, and Eric Baldwin Abstract—No abstract available. Publisher's link: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1119972515.html November 2014 View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2015
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Howard Fischer, Eric Jacobsen, and Gratitude Railroad's Impact Investing

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Daniel Lennox-Choate

In 2013, Howard Fischer (hedge fund founder) and Eric Jacobsen (serial entrepreneur and private equity investor) established Gratitude Railroad as a community of impact investors in nine different "tracks." Each track represented a different concept for using... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Social Change; Sustainable Business And Innovation; Investment; Social Issues; Environmental Sustainability; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Leadership; United States

2016
Working Paper

Options-Pricing Formula with Disaster Risk

By: Robert J. Barro and Gordon Y. Liao

A new options-pricing formula applies to far-out-of-the money put options on the overall stock market when disaster risk is the dominant force, the size distribution of disasters follows a power law, and the economy has a representative agent with Epstein-Zin utility.... View Details

Keywords: Option Pricing; Rare Disaster; Price; Stock Options; Financial Crisis

Find at Harvard

July 2012
Case

Droga5: Launching Jay-Z's Decoded

By: Anita Elberse and Kwame Owusu-Kesse

In 2010, David Droga and Andrew Essex, co-founders of advertising agency Droga5, hope to convince both John Meneilly, manager of hip-hop star Shawn Carter—better known as Jay-Z—and a partner in Carter's company Roc Nation and Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Entertainment; Advertising Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

January 2022
Case

Tomorrow.io Goes to Space

By: Joshua Lev Krieger, Abhishek Nagaraj and James Barnett

This case study explores the evolution of Tomorrow.io, a weather forecasting technology company, as it pivoted toward building and launching space-based weather radar satellites. This strategic shift was driven by the company's ambition to overcome data limitations in... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Competency and Skills; Engineering; Globalization; Innovation and Invention; Performance; Information Technology; Aerospace Industry

February 2007 (Revised May 2008)
Supplement

Bancaja: Developing Customer Intelligence (B)

In 1996, CEO Fernando Garcia Checa wanted to make customer analytics a part of Bancaja's new strategy. Bancaja, a savings bank based in Valencia, Spain, was expanding and wanted to exploit customer information to increase commercial effectiveness. At the same time, it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Credit Cards; Analytics and Data Science; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Marketing Strategy; Banking Industry; Spain

30 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Can AI Predict Whether Shoppers Would Pick Crest or Colgate?

Companies have long poured time and money into surveying customers. Now, with new research showing artificial intelligence provides plenty of rich data about shopper preferences, could customer surveys become obsolete? Companies turn to... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

Fourth Quarter 2007
Article

Contingent Claims Approach to Measuring and Managing Sovereign Credit Risk

By: Dale . F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie

This paper proposes a new approach to measure, analyze, and manage sovereign risk based on the theory and practice of modern contingent claims analysis (CCA). The paper provides a new framework for adapting the CCA model to the sovereign balance sheet in a way that can... View Details

Keywords: Credit; Investment; Sovereign Finance; Risk Management; Emerging Markets; Market Transactions; Mathematical Methods; Valuation

Find at Harvard

August 2018
Case

BlackBuck (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

The case presents the challenges of scaling an asset-heavy company (that relies on its operations). It highlights how decisions on the early team impact a company’s ability to scale, linkage between growth and cash flows, as well the organizational impact of high... View Details

Keywords: Founders; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Delivery; Cash Flow; Growth Management; Truck Transportation; Online Technology; India

18 Nov 2002
Research & Ideas

Enterprising Women—a History

business, she said. Koehn focused on the subject of women entrepreneurs, citing HBS professor Howard Stevenson's definition of entrepreneurship as the "relentless pursuit of opportunity beyond resources currently controlled." She said that looking at women... View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard

02 Aug 2021
Blog Post

ALUMNI WORK TO REVERSE BIAS THROUGH PHILANTHROPY

are welcomed. With seed money from its founders and multiyear pledges from companies and individuals, by June 2021, the fund had raised almost $30 million toward its $100 million goal. The first round of... View Details

December 2020
Article

Different Founders, Different Firms: A Comparative Analysis of Academic and Non-academic Startups

By: Maria P. Roche, Annamaria Conti and Frank T. Rothaermel

What role do differences in founders' occupational backgrounds play in new venture performance? Analyzing a novel dataset of 2,998 founders creating 1,723 innovative startups in biomedicine, we find that the likelihood and hazard of achieving a liquidity event are... View Details

Keywords: Founders; Innovation; Occupational Imprinting; Academic Startups; Non-academic Startups; Founder Heterogeneity; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Performance; Demographics; Analysis

October 2023 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Sprout Solutions

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Bonnie Yining Cao and Dawn H. Lau

Husband-and-wife co-founders Patrick and Alexandria Gentry had built Sprout Solutions to be one of the biggest Software-as-a-Service human resources management platforms in the Philippines, guided by the mission to "impact the life of every Filipino by improving... View Details

Keywords: Software; Startup; Technology Ventures; Human Resources; Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Business Startups; Applications and Software; Venture Capital; Philippines

March 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Pakistan Rising: Bazaar's Growth Story (A)

By: Paul A. Gompers and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in September 2021 as Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda, co-founders of Bazaar technologies (Bazaar), the Pakistani high growth B2B e-commerce marketplace, are contemplating whether the year-and-a half old startup should also venture into offering financing to... View Details

Keywords: B2B; Business Model; Emerging Markets; For-Profit Firms; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Value Creation; Globalization; Competition; Expansion; Profit; Resource Allocation; Diversification; Corporate Strategy; Pakistan

Financial markets have recently witnessed a disruptive force: the rise of online intermediaries and, more generally, fintech companies, i.e., firms that apply technology to improve financial activities. Fintech companies have targeted the consumer credit market,... View Details

24 Jun 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Don’t Just Survive—Thrive: Leading Innovation in Good Times and Bad

Keywords: by Lynda M. Applegate & J. Bruce Harreld

March 1992 (Revised November 1993)
Case

Beta Management Co.

A manager of a small investment company has been successfully using index funds for limited market timing. Growth has allowed her to move into picking stocks. She is considering two small and highly variable listed stocks, but is concerned about the risk that these... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Stocks; Financial Services Industry

2011
Working Paper

The Cost of Capital for Alternative Investments

By: Jakub W. Jurek and Erik Stafford

This paper studies the cost of capital for alternative investments. We document that the risk profile of the aggregate hedge fund universe can be accurately matched by a simple index put option writing strategy that offers monthly liquidity and complete transparency... View Details

Keywords: Cost of Capital; Financial Liquidity; Investment; Investment Return; Mathematical Methods; Risk and Uncertainty

September 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Penn Warranty Corporation

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Penn Warranty Corporation sold warranty contracts to the used car market. During the recession in 2008/2009 Penn's sales declined by 26% Instead of growing by 11% as forecasted. Also, disruptions in financial and insurance markets created a cash shortfall. In the... View Details