Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(762)
- Faculty Publications (292)
- 2020
- Working Paper
Determinants of Early-Stage Startup Performance: Survey Results
To explore determinants of new venture performance, the CEOs of 470 early-stage startups were surveyed regarding a broad range of factors related to their venture’s customer value proposition, product management, marketing, technology and operations, financial... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
The Stock Market Value of Human Capital Creation
By: Matthias Regier and Ethan Rouen
We develop a measure of firm-year-specific human capital investment from publicly disclosed personnel expenses (PE) and examine the stock market valuation of this investment. Measuring the future value of PE (PEFV) based on the relation between lagged... View Details
- September 2020
- Case
Uber at a Crossroads (2017)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman
This case describes the history of Uber, its business model—including the ways it differed from that of the traditional taxi industry—and its competition with Lyft. The case is set in 2017, a year in which Uber was plagued by even more scandals than usual, though its... View Details
Keywords: Business Startups; Business Model; Customer Satisfaction; Fairness; Values and Beliefs; Price; Profit; Revenue; Investment; Government Legislation; Business History; Compensation and Benefits; Resignation and Termination; Employment; Wages; Lawfulness; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Management Style; Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Product Design; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges; Attitudes; Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Transportation Networks; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Valuation; Transportation Industry; Technology Industry; United States
- 2020
- Chapter
Reserve Accumulation, Sovereign Debt, and Exchange Rate Policy
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries increased dramatically. Additionally, emerging countries are increasingly deviating from inflation targeting regimes, managing their exchange rate and engaging in... View Details
- August 2020 (Revised November 2020)
- Case
Gogoro: From Electric Scooter to Energy Platform
By: Tarun Khanna and Billy Chan
The founder of Gogoro had always wanted to revolutionize the energy market from day one since he started the electric scooter business that featured an innovative battery swapping technology. Over the course of five years, he had developed a premium line of electric... View Details
- June 2020
- Teaching Note
Shiseido Acquires Drunk Elephant
By: Jill Avery
On October 7, 2019, the Shiseido Group announced that it would acquire clean skincare brand Drunk Elephant for $845 million, a valuation of 8.5 times sales. Did Shiseido pay too much or too little for this brand asset? How much was the Drunk Elephant brand worth and... View Details
Keywords: Brand Management; Brand Valuation; Brand Equity; Brand Value; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Startup; DTC; Brand Portfolio Strategy; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Mergers and Acquisitions; Valuation; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Japan; Asia; North America
- June 2020 (Revised October 2020)
- Case
Muddy Waters vs. eHealth: The Debate of a 'Lifetime'
By: Jonas Heese and Cristo Liautaud
In May 2020, an analyst was assessing eHealth’s performance. eHealth was an online / tele-sales broker of health insurance products. The stock had recently hit all-time highs, closing at a peak of $146 on March 4, 2020. But now, May 4, 2020, eHealth traded at $103. The... View Details
- June 2020 (Revised September 2020)
- Case
Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (A)
By: Tsedal Neeley and John Masko
With the economy in a freefall, MetricStream is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash and struggling to make payroll. Several board members are threatening to quit. Others are pressing to sell the company even at dismally low valuations. It’s 2008 and lightning has... View Details
- June 2020
- Supplement
Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (B)
By: Tsedal Neeley and Briana Richardson
With the economy in a freefall, MetricStream is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash and struggling to make payroll. Several board members are threatening to quit. Others are pressing to sell the company even at dismally low valuations. It’s 2008 and lightning has... View Details
- May 2020 (Revised August 2022)
- Teaching Note
Direct to Consumer Brands
By: Sunil Gupta
In recent years, we have seen a dramatic rise of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands. Many of these brands, such as Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, Glossier, and Allbirds, entered mature markets dominated by established companies, and yet they grew rapidly to attain valuations... View Details
- May 2020 (Revised November 2021)
- Supplement
Valuing Peloton
Peloton Interactive, a well-known unicorn in the connected fitness space, had gone public with a market capitalization of over $8.0 billion. In the weeks following its public debut, Peloton’s stock price fell by over 25%. Taylor Knox, a stock analyst and enthusiastic... View Details
- May 2020 (Revised October 2021)
- Case
Valuing Peloton
Peloton Interactive, a well-known venture-capital-backed unicorn in the connected fitness space, recently had gone public with a market capitalization of over $8.0 billion. However, in the weeks following its public debut, Peloton’s stock price had fallen by over 25%.... View Details
- March 2020
- Case
Sizmek Chapter 11: Surviving Walled Gardens in Their Ad Tech Empire
By: Ayelet Israeli, Danilo Tauro and Sarah Gulick
This case provides a post-mortem of the advertising technology (adtech) company Sizmek. Sizmek grew via multiple acquisitions, with the vision of becoming an integrated adtech company that could leverage AI to buy digital media, while creating and serving display and... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Corporate Environmental Impact: Measurement, Data and Information
By: David Freiberg, DG Park, George Serafeim and T. Robert Zochowski
As an organization’s environmental impact has become a central societal consideration, thereby affecting industry and organizational competitiveness, interest in measuring and analyzing environmental impact has increased. We develop a methodology to derive comparable... View Details
Keywords: Environment; Impact; Measurement; Environmental Ratings; Corporate Valuation; Financial Materiality; Sustainability; Environmental Impact; Environmental Strategy; Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Measurement and Metrics; Valuation
- February 28, 2020
- Article
How Tesla Sets Itself Apart
By: Lou Shipley
Tesla and its flamboyant, and sometimes erratic, innovator Elon Musk have turned the more than a century old industry upside down in a mere 16 years. Traditional automakers are ill prepared to compete in today’s software-centered world. Unlike nimble Tesla, they are... View Details
- January 2020 (Revised May 2020)
- Case
Direct to Consumer Brands
By: Sunil Gupta
Recent years have seen the dramatic rise of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands by several startups. Many of these brands, such as Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, Glossier, and Allbirds, entered mature markets dominated by established companies, and yet they grew rapidly to... View Details
- November 2019 (Revised May 2020)
- Case
Collibra
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Jeffrey F. Rayport and Julia Kelley
Founded in 2008 at Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Collibra was a data intelligence company that found product-market fit in the years after the global financial crisis when many companies were under pressure from consumers and governments to improve their data management... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Governance; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Markets; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Expansion; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Europe; Belgium; Brussels; North and Central America; United States; New York (city, NY); New York (state, US)
- November 2019
- Supplement
United Technologies Corp.: Are the Parts Worth More Than the Whole?
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
After spending more than 50 years creating a diversified industrial conglomerate that Fortune Magazine described as “arguably the most profitable conglomerate in America” in 2014, UTC’s CEO Greg Hayes was under pressure from activist investors (Dan Loeb and Bill... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Business Conglomerates; Financial Management; Corporate Governance; Organizational Structure; Diversification; Valuation; Investment Activism; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Value Creation; Aerospace Industry; Electronics Industry; Industrial Products Industry; United States
- November 2019 (Revised June 2020)
- Case
Shiseido Acquires Drunk Elephant
By: Jill Avery
On October 7, 2019, the Shiseido Group announced that it would acquire clean skincare brand Drunk Elephant for $845 million, a valuation of 8.5 times sales. Did Shiseido pay too much or too little for this brand asset? How much was the Drunk Elephant brand worth and... View Details
Keywords: Personal Care; Startup; Brand Equity; Brand Valuation; Brand Value; Brand Storytelling; Brand Management; Brands and Branding; Valuation; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Japan