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

June 1999
Supplement

Conversation with Donna Dubinsky, A (Video)

Donna Dubinsky, president and CEO of Handspring, Inc. and former president of Palm Computing, speaks about her career. Topics include: early mentors, strategies for building and maintaining business and personal relationships, developing her personal style and... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career

August 2019 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Paradigm Capital Value Fund

By: Luis M. Viceira and Elena Corsi

Karl Jan Erick Hummel had founded Paradigm Capital Value Fund in 2007 together with Columbia Business School Professor Bruce Greenwald, an expert in value investing and now chairman of the fund. The fund followed the principles of value investing to their target... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Investment Portfolio; Financial Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Investment Funds; Financial Services Industry

May 2024
Supplement

gWorks (B)

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

In January of 2019, Joe Heieck, CEO of gWorks, was deciding whether to proceed with his acquisition of Data Tech, that was a business roughly the same size as gWorks. gWorks, which provided geospatial software to small city and rural county governments, was acquired by... View Details

September 2009 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Intellectual Ventures

By: Andrei Hagiu, David B. Yoffie and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Intellectual Ventures creates and acquires intellectual property, which it then seeks to monetize through non-exclusive licensing. In early 2009, as an increasing number of companies were trying to position themselves as leading intermediaries in the market for... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Intellectual Property; Rights; Service Operations; Research and Development; Technology; Service Industry

Jeff Polzer is the UPS Foundation Professor of Human Resource Management in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. He studies how people collaborate in teams and across organizational networks to accomplish their individual and collective... View Details

April 1989 (Revised March 1991)
Case

New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (A)

Concerns a 1983 joint venture between General Motors and Toyota to produce small cars in the United States. Describes the globalization of the auto industry and the competitive positions of the two companies. View Details

Keywords: Competition; Joint Ventures; Globalized Markets and Industries; Auto Industry; Japan; United States

January 2018 (Revised August 2020)
Background Note

Continuous Software Development: Agile's Successor

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Samuel Clemens and Olivia Hull

In recent years, the twin software development methodologies of continuous delivery and continuous deployment have risen to prominence in the start-up world and beyond. These methods have enabled technology companies large and small to accelerate their product... View Details

11 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

Economic Jitters Push Pandemic Job Seekers to Big Companies, Not Startups

talent to draw from, write the authors of a recent working paper titled Flight to Safety: How Economic Downturns Affect Talent Flows to Startups. This has important implications, says Shai Bernstein, an associate professor of business... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

06 Nov 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, November 6, 2018

average, NPEs appear to behave as opportunistic “patent trolls.” NPEs sue cash-rich firms and target cash in business segments unrelated to alleged infringement at essentially the same frequency as they target cash in segments related to... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

December 1973 (Revised November 1993)
Case

Cooper Industries, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Piper

The executive president of a major industrial company must decide 1) whether to acquire a small hand tool company and, if so, 2) the value and form that the acquisition package should take. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Valuation; Acquisition; Management Teams; Consumer Products Industry

June 2020
Case

gWorks

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

In January of 2019, Joe Heieck (HBS '14), CEO of gWorks, was deciding whether to proceed with his acquisition of Data Tech, that was a business roughly the same size of gWorks. gWorks, which provided geospatial software to small city and rural county governments, was... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Finance

29 Jun 2021
News

What the “Beer Game” Can Teach about Supply Chain Challenges

04 Jan 2020
News

Wellbeing: Six Ways to Put a Smile Back on Your Face in 2020

March 1999 (Revised April 1999)
Case

AccuFlow, Inc.

By: Jay O. Light

A small hydraulic-valve manufacturer attempts a second buyout in order to take out its current equity partners. A three-way deal must be negotiated between management, the new mezzanine lender, and the departing equity owners. View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Types; Leveraged Buyouts; Equity; Manufacturing Industry; Industrial Products Industry