Publications

February 1994 (Revised September 1995)
Case

Leland O'Brien Rubinstein Associates, Inc.: Portfolio Insurance

By: Peter Tufano

Leland O'Brien Rubinstein Associates, a small financial advisory firm founded in 1980, has created a successful business by selling a product commonly known as portfolio insurance. Portfolio insurance is a trading strategy that institutional investors use to establish... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Insurance; Product; Financial Services Industry

November 2006
Case

Santander's Acquisition of Abbey: Banking across Borders

Banco Santander, Spain's largest commercial bank, announced in July 2004 the acquisition of Abbey National Bank, the fifth largest U.K. commercial bank. This transaction was the largest ever cross-border acquisition in European banking and would result in the... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Value Creation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Globalization; Commercial Banking; Banking Industry; United Kingdom; European Union; Spain

October 2001 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Herman Miller (A): Innovation by Design

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Stacy McManus

Gary Van Spronsen, president of Miller SQA, has been asked to leave the thriving subsidiary he helped to reinvent to join Herman Miller's corporate initiative on innovation. Miller SQA has pioneered processes new to the Herman Miller organization, such as... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Product Design; Product Development; Supply Chain Management; Business Model; Organizations; Values and Beliefs; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry

24 Mar 2014
News

Health Care Transparency: The Fox Is Guarding the Chicken Coop in Washington Again

Web

Impact of the New Medium - Edwin H. Land & Polaroid | Harvard Business School

holiday sales season, the demonstration took place at Jordan Marsh in Boston, one of the region's leading department stores. To orchestrate the rollout of the product, Polaroid hired J. Harold Booth, known for his success in sales and View Details

26 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

How Cellophane Changed the Way We Shop for Food

developed marketing strategies to appeal to consumers’ senses from the nineteenth century to today.” Cellophane gets an entire chapter in Hisano’s book. As she explains in the paper, cellophane packaging let food vendors manipulate the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Food & Beverage; Retail; Advertising

01 Jul 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Cyclicality of Credit Supply: Firm Level Evidence

Keywords: by Bo Becker & Victoria Ivashina; Banking

02 Jul 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Technology Innovation and Diffusion as Sources of Output and Asset Price Fluctuations

Keywords: by Diego A. Comin, Mark Gertler & Ana Maria Santacreu; Technology

November 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

BiomX: Bringing Phage Back to the Stage

By: Paul A. Gompers, Elie Ofek, Orna Dan and Emilie Billaud

In the spring of 2023, and following the favorable results of a trial involving its phage cocktail for treating lung infections among cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, the leadership of BiomX had several critical issues to wrestle with. First, given its precarious... View Details

Keywords: Working Capital; Financing and Loans; Health Testing and Trials; Product Development; Research and Development; Science-Based Business; Commercialization; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

2012
Working Paper

Risky Business: The Impact of Property Rights on Investment and Revenue in the Film Industry

By: Venkat Kuppuswamy and Carliss Y. Baldwin

Our paper tests a key prediction of property rights theory, specifically, that agents will respond to marginal incentives embedded in property rights when making non-contractible, revenue-enhancing investments (Grossman and Hart, 1986; Hart and Moore, 1990). Using rich... View Details

Keywords: Property Rights; Property; Rights; Investment; Contracts; Revenue; Motivation and Incentives; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; United States

SSRN

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March 2000 (Revised September 2000)
Case

yesmail.com

David Tolmie wants yesmail.com to become a leader in "permission marketing." Yesmail sends clients promotional e-mail messages to targeted consumers who said "yes" when asked whether they wished to receive promotional offers in a set of categories of interest. Tolmie... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communications

Fast Answer

Corporate bond ratings

Select Insert Formula from the shortcut menu. Type the desired company or cell reference in the Identifier field. Select the Market Data tab. Click the plus sign (+) to expand the S&P Credit Ratings folder in the pick list. Select... View Details

16 Apr 2018
Research & Ideas

Can Consumers Be Saved From Their Misguided Decisions?

iStock Consumers make regretable decisions every day, even though easily available information should convince them to do otherwise: Twenty-six percent of consumers choose Advil or other branded headache remedies when they walk into a pharmacy, instead of less... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Consulting; Retail

November 2002 (Revised April 2004)
Case

TCS: An Entrepreneurial Air-Express Company in Pakistan

Introduces Khalid Awan, co-founder of TCS, an entrepreneurial air-express company in Pakistan. Awan has succeeded in building a sizeable company despite serious obstacles, including pressure from the public postal system, an environment prone to corruption, and a... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Leasing; Transportation Industry; United Arab Emirates; Pakistan

June 2019
Article

Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries increased dramatically. We revisit sovereign debt sustainability under the assumptions that countries can accumulate reserves and borrow internationally using their own... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Debt; Local-currency Bonds; Foreign Reserves; Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Bonds; Financial Markets; Developing Countries and Economies

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May 2008
Article

Why Doesn't Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries? An Empirical Investigation

By: Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych

We examine the empirical role of different explanations for the lack of capital flows from rich to poor countries—the "Lucas Paradox." The theoretical explanations include cross country differences in fundamentals affecting productivity and capital market... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Wealth and Poverty; Development Economics; Income; Capital Markets; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Australia; Peru

November 2005 (Revised August 2007)
Case

ConAgra Foods: The Next Chapter

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Mary L. Shelman

In 2005, CEO Bruce Rohde has almost completed the integration of ConAgra Foods' collection of 90 independent operating companies into a focused, value-added firm and was beginning to think about his successor. ConAgra had become the second largest food company and No.... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Corporate Strategy; Leading Change; Management Succession; Strategic Planning; Brands and Branding; Food; Agribusiness; Product Marketing; Management Teams; Transformation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States

Web

Hiring at HBS: How Summer Interns Make an Impact at Emerson Collective - Recruiting

growth stage (Series B+), early stage (pre-Seed - Series A), climate (Series B+, with a focus on energy and mobility), or media and journalism. Interns complete two projects over the summer, in addition to sourcing and evaluating companies. These projects include... View Details

December 2011
Article

Globalization and Beauty: A Historical and Firm Perspective

By: G. Jones

This paper uses the beauty industry to explore the impact of globalization over the very long run. As the first wave of modern globalization started in the nineteenth century, there began a massive homogenization of beauty ideals around the world that has, to some... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Business Ventures; Trends; Societal Protocols; Value; Brands and Branding; Perception; Entrepreneurship; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry