Business Earnings - Publications - Faculty & Research

16 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

The Times Captures History of American Business

worked, how the pie has been divided, how employees have thought about their work and themselves, and how enormously that has changed through time. There are big junctures in the history of American business where we can see that how... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Journalism & News

20 Jan 2009
Research & Ideas

Risky Business with Structured Finance

the value of the assets." In their paper, the authors recount how, over the past decade, risks have been repackaged to create triple-A-rated securities. By mid-2007, they write, 37,000 structured finance issues in the United States had View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Banking; Financial Services

31 May 2023
HBS Case

Why Business Leaders Need to Hear Larry Miller's Story

served time in prison. While incarcerated, he earned an accounting degree, but after a prospective employer rescinded a job offer, he vowed not to reveal his past. In this video, Gibson discusses why View Details

Keywords: by Jamal Meneide; Entertainment & Recreation; Consumer Products

02 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Digital Initiative Summit: The Business of Crowdsourcing

Gaining the community's trust is vital to building a successful business with crowdsourcing, agreed business leaders at the Digital Initiative Summit at Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

13 Sep 2004
Research & Ideas

Cash and the Woman-Owned Business

Building sufficient cash reserves to launch a business and managing subsequent fundraising are challenges for every entrepreneur, but they are particularly daunting tasks for women. Women often come up short of cash at start-up and, when... View Details

Keywords: by Candida Brush, Nancy M. Carter, Elizabeth Gatewood, Patricia G. Greene & Myra M. Hart

September 12, 2022
Article

Merit or Inherit: How to Approach Succession in a Family Business

By: Josh Baron

One of the most critical questions facing family businesses is how to treat the next generation. They are clearly different from other employees, as current or potential owners of the company, whose wealth and reputation are on the line. On the flip side, most parents... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Family and Family Relationships; Management Succession

Citation

Register to Read

Purchase

22 Sep 2014
Op-Ed

Online Banks Fill Funding Needs for Small Business

(Editor's note: This is the last in a series of four articles based on a Harvard Business School working paper by Karen Mills that analyzes the current state of availability of bank capital for small business.) Banks are the principal... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Banking; Financial Services

October 2016 (Revised October 2023)
Case

Bootstrapping at Lightricks

By: Robert White, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Christine Snively

By August 2015, two-year-old mobile imaging software startup Lightricks had developed and released two best-selling paid mobile apps, grown to a team of 30, earned a revenue run rate of nearly $10 million, and achieved modest profitability. The bootstrapped company had... View Details

Keywords: Business Startup; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Information Infrastructure; Business Startups; Digital Marketing; Finance; Strategy; Technology Industry; Israel

Citation

Educators

Purchase

25 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Could a Business Model Help Big Pharma Save Lives and Profit?

by harnessing a new business model. The bold approach worked. Gilead, one of the world’s leading antiviral makers, would sell its branded Hepatitis C medicines while offering local manufacturers voluntary licenses to produce generics,... View Details

Keywords: by Esther Schrader; Pharmaceutical; Health

06 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

How Younger Immigrants Gain an Edge in American Business

For refugees fleeing troubled regions as disparate as Afghanistan and Ukraine, finding meaningful work in the United States is not only key to their own success, but also crucial for businesses navigating labor shortages. New research... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

12 Aug 2002
Op-Ed

Using Big Business to Fight Poverty

the long run. This last element is critical, for there is not enough charity or taxpayer money to make a sustainable difference; only the profit motive can do that. Earning And Learning Rather than merely applying superficial aid, the... View Details

Keywords: by George C. Lodge

25 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

Being a Team Player: Why College Athletes Succeed in Business

Members of these colleges’ sports teams secure higher-level jobs and better pay after graduation than their non-athlete peers, finds the analysis of more than 400,000 Ivy Leaguers over the past half-century. Ivy jocks tend to earn some... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

07 Sep 2007
What Do You Think?

Are Elite Business Schools Fostering the Deprofessionalization of Management?

hundred e-mail inquiries from prospective students at his business school. All but two inquired primarily about the earnings of previous graduates. Eric Mueller comments that management will not be a... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

13 Oct 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Building a Business in the Context of a Life

When MBAs start the second semester of their second year at Harvard Business School, most have already lined up new jobs--but that doesn't mean they have a clear idea what they want out of the rest of their lives. The same could be said... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Education

09 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Hold or Fold? Sizing Up Business Risk

2002 when it sold its HDD (hard disk drive) business to Hitachi and continued to build its position in consulting, where it had better odds of earning the kinds of returns it wanted. And that's also the... View Details

Keywords: by Eileen C. Shapiro & Howard H. Stevenson

03 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

The Tricky Business of Managing Web Advertising Affiliates

When the FBI charged Shawn Hogan and two others with defrauding eBay of about $21 million in affiliate marketing sales, Benjamin G. Edelman was watching closely behind the scenes. Edelman's name rarely came up at the time of the 2010 arrests, but the Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Advertising; Publishing

January 2017 (Revised January 2019)
Case

The Rise and Fall of Lehman Brothers

By: Stuart C. Gilson, Kristin Mugford and Sarah L. Abbott

With nearly $700 billion in assets, Lehman was the largest U.S. bankruptcy in history. In 2007, Lehman achieved record earnings of over $4 billion on revenues of $60 billion. By September 2008 the fourth largest investment bank in the world was bankrupt. How had a... View Details

Citation

Educators

Purchase

23 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Businesses Need a 'Catalyst' to Make CSR Practices Stick

says. The catalyst approach Some companies are now exploring a different approach to CSR, partnering with local communities on businesses that can help them earn a profit and empower locals, while also... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

26 Apr 2022
Book

What Does Your Business Stand For? Why Building Trust Starts with Purpose

To be successful, companies must build trust with their employees and consumers. But how can companies do so in these turbulent times when they are being pulled in many directions all at once? First, businesses must realize that trust is... View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati

December 2008
Case

Merrimack Tractors and Mowers: LIFO or FIFO?

By: William J. Bruns Jr., Sharon Bruns and Susan S. Hameling

At Merrimack Tractors and Mowers in 2008, product manufacturing costs are increasing faster than competitors' costs, and as a result earnings are likely to fall below those reported in 2007. The company president and the company controller have discussed this problem,... View Details