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Harvard Business School

Broadcast executive and businessman W. Don Cornwell was hired by Goldman Sachs in 1971 and later promoted to chief operating officer of the investment banking division's corporate finance department. In 1988, Cornwell left the securities... View Details

January 2025
Case

COMAC - Chinese Aviation Soars to New Heights

By: William C. Kirby and Daniel Fu

COMAC's C919 manifested the first challenge to the Boeing-Airbus duopoly since it came to dominate aircraft manufacturing in the 1990s. Beijing sought to export the C919 abroad in its quest to become a "transportation superpower." Was it a wise decision for COMAC to... View Details

Keywords: Aviation; Boeing; Airbus; Aircraft; State-owned Enterprise (SOE); Chinese Manufacturing; Airline Industry; Airports; Global Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Supply Chain; Expansion; Aerospace Industry; China; United States; Europe

July 2021
Case

A Close Shave at Squire

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Zoë B. Cullen, William R. Kerr, Benjamin N. Roth and Michael Norris

In 2020, just after closing a $34 million Series B financing round, Dave Salvant and Songe LaRon consider how to adjust their business, Squire Technologies, to the new realities posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their barbershop technology, including tools to run a shop... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Pandemics; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Technology Industry; New York (city, NY); San Francisco

18 Oct 2011
First Look

First Look: October 18

find that involuntary closures are most frequent in U.S. counties with high rates of households headed by single mothers, low levels of college education, high rates of property crime, a strong presence of multi-market vs. local banks,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

22 Jun 2010
First Look

First Look: June 22

advertising market—one that suffers quite a different set of problems. Display advertising systems place ads-typically, rectangular "banners"—on the majority of popular web sites. Though display ads are widespread, they are also troubled—ignored View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

16 Dec 2014
First Look

First Look: December 16

after the team scaffolds were implemented and showed a 40% improvement in patient throughput time. Working Papers Transition to Clean Technology By: Acemoglu, Daron, Ufuk Akcigit, Douglas Hanley, and William R. View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 19

claims about the benefits of broader operational scope. The performance benefits of focus are typically attributed to reduced complexity, lower uncertainty, and the development of specialized expertise, while the benefits of greater breadth are linked to the economies... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2023
Case

Swanson Health: Becoming a Super Seller

By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and Paige Boehmcke

Founded in 1969, Swanson Health sold vitamins, supplements, natural health products, and organic foods. Over the years, the company had successfully navigated multiple industry transitions as it expanded from a print catalog to sell products on its own... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Transition; Growth Management; Distribution Channels; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Health Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

June 2025
Article

In the Red: Overdrafts, Payday Lending and the Underbanked

By: Marco Di Maggio, Angela Ma and Emily Williams

The reordering of transactions from “high-to-low” is a controversial bank practice thought to maximize fees paid by low-income customers on overdrawn accounts. We exploit multiple class-action lawsuits resulting in mandatory changes to this practice, coupled with... View Details

Keywords: Overdraft; Payday Loans; Excessive Fees; Underbanked; Underserved; Income; Personal Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Banks and Banking

12 Feb 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, February 12, 2019

that hold back progress in resource mobilization research. We then propose a path ahead for future research guided by two overarching goals. First, we advocate for a process perspective, focusing attention on how an individual actor’s... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

03 Mar 2008
First Look

First Look: March 4, 2008

and largely unregulated securities market was William Duer, who ultimately became a major player on the Street. As it turned out, however, Duer's financial dealings proved unsustainable, and his financial collapse helped to bring the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 2021
Supplement

HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics (C)

By: William C. Kirby, Billy Chan and John P. McHugh

July 2017 was supposed to be a triumphant month for HNA Group. The latest Fortune Global 500 list showed the company had again skyrocketed in its ranking to no. 170, an improvement of over 200 positions from the year prior. Yet earlier that same July, the mysterious... View Details

Keywords: Conglomerate; Airline Industry; Coronavirus; Financial Risk; Debt; Bankruptcy; Global Strategy; Restructuring; Health Pandemics; Financial Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Condition; Globalized Firms and Management; Business and Government Relations; Air Transportation Industry; Financial Services Industry; China

April 2022
Article

Consumers Value Effort over Ease When Caring for Close Others

By: Ximena Garcia-Rada, Mary Steffel, Elanor F. Williams and Michael I. Norton

Many products and services are designed to make caregiving easier, from premade meals for feeding families to robo-cribs that automatically rock babies to sleep. Yet, using these products may come with a cost: consumers may feel they have not exerted enough effort.... View Details

Keywords: Effor; Caregiving; Close Relationships; Symbolic Meaning; Signaling; Relationships; Consumer Behavior; Perception

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2021
Article

Venture Capital Booms and Startup Financing

By: William Janeway, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We review the growing literature on the relationship between venture capital booms and startup financing, focusing on three broad areas: First, we discuss the drivers of large inflows into the venture capital asset class, particularly in recent years—which are related... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Policy

February 2011
Case

Chegg: Textbook Rental Takes Flight

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, William A. Sahlman and Evan W. Richardson

In late 2010, Silicon Valley-based Chegg, the leading online college textbook rental company, is scaling rapidly. The case recounts Chegg's history from its origins as a distant competitor to Craigslist in college classified listings through a pivot into textbook... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Higher Education; Entrepreneurship; Books; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Service Operations; Renting or Rental; Online Technology; Education Industry; Service Industry; California

2020
Working Paper

Collusion in Brokered Markets

By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery

The U.S. residential real estate agency market presents a puzzle for economic theory: commissions on real estate transactions have remained high for decades even though entry is frequent and costs are low. We model the real estate agency market, and other brokered... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; ＂Repeated Games＂; Collusion; Antitrust; Brokered Markets; Game Theory; Real Estate Industry