Publications

May 2010 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Friend Bank: The Time for Hope

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

In 2010, Friend Bank was entering the fifth year of Hope Harris Johnson's ambitious 20-year growth plan to transform her family's one branch community bank into an institution with a substantial presence in southeastern Alabama. Harris Johnson was pleased, so far, with... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk Management; Family Ownership; Competitive Advantage; Banking Industry; Alabama

November 2010 (Revised October 2012)
Background Note

Farmland Investing: A Technical Note

By: Ray Goldberg, Arthur I Segel, Gustavo Herrero and Andrew Terris

This note seeks to provide an overview of farmland investing, the investment thesis behind investing in agriculture, how and why investors would choose farmland, and the general risks and return characteristics of this asset class. In recent years, a growing number of... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Investment; Investment Return; Risk Management; Property; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry; Asia; United States; South America

February 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Fondeadora

By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui and Mitchell Weiss

Norman Müller and René Serrano, cofounders of Fondeadora, a Mexican “neobank,” had lined up a $12.5 million in Series A funding round in 2020 only to run into a major obstacle: The lead investor was Gradient Ventures, a venture firm launched by Alphabet, Inc., and... View Details

Keywords: Fundraising; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Financial Institutions; Business Startups; Government Legislation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Mexico City; Latin America

November 1992
Case

Montecito State College

A state college seeks to boost enrollment in its extension courses and continuing education programs. Competition from other educational institutions is strong. Satellite campuses, developed to offer students greater convenience, have not proved popular. The college... View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Marketing Communications; State Ownership; Education Industry

May 2009
Article

Asymmetric Information Effects on Loan Spreads

By: Victoria Ivashina

The paper estimates the cost arising from information asymmetry between the lead bank and members of the lending syndicate. In a lending syndicate, the lead bank retains only a fraction of the loan but acts as the intermediary between the borrower and the syndicate... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Interest Rates; Capital; Investment Portfolio; Credit; Diversification; Risk and Uncertainty

SSRN

Find at Harvard

07 Aug 2007
First Look

First Look: August 7, 2007

that both effects are operative. Instrumental variables analysis indicates that plausibly exogenous changes in payout policy result in shifting institutional ownership patterns. Similarly, exogenous changes... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Nov 2011
First Look

First Look: Nov. 1

short-term profits and returns to shareholders at the expense of worker safety and health, the environment, and society in general. In this article, I argue that a very different logic informs the practices of most high-performing and sustainable companies: View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2009
Background Note

Financial Networks and Informal Banking in China: From Pawnshops to Private Equity

By: Elisabeth Koll

Provides an analysis of why informal financial networks and institutions still play an extremely important role in China's economy in the 21st century. Although China has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, it still suffers from a weak... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Private Equity; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; State Ownership; Business and Government Relations; Networks; China

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

governance, which I describe in detail, I do not suggest that boards of public companies can or should copy it directly. Public and private companies clearly differ markedly in their ownership structures and in the rules governing... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

19 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Activist Board Members Increase Firm’s Market Value

write in their report. Firms in which historically activist institutions held significant ownership stakes lost considerable value on the announcement: a drop in 55 basis points for a 10 percentage point... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

August 2001 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Doral Costa

By: William J. Poorvu, John H. Vogel Jr., Arthur I. Segel and Amy Silverstein

Doral Costa is a proposed 277,803 square foot Class A office park development in Miami, FL. Trammell Crow Co. would like to develop this office park in joint venture with a partner. Samantha Spar, the acquisitions partner at Titan Associates, a large real estate... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Joint Ventures; Acquisition; Investment; Partners and Partnerships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Fair Value Accounting; Construction; Property; Real Estate Industry; Consulting Industry; Miami

23 Jun 2023
HBS Case

This Company Lets Employees Take Charge—Even with Life and Death Decisions

patients as they see fit. A new Harvard Business School case study explores Buurtzorg’s decentralized model in depth, with lessons for institutions struggling with morale and productivity. Buurtzorg’s approach has yielded patient... View Details

Keywords: by Annelena Lobb; Health

June 2010
Case

Digital Link (A)

The Digital Link (A) and (B) cases present the struggles of a small public technology company to get and maintain analyst and investor attention during the "dot-com boom" of the 1990's. The case can be used in MBA or Executive Education classes. The (A) case takes... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Institutional Investing; Public Ownership

Find at Harvard

November 2010
Technical Note

Technical Note: An Abridged History of the American Corporation

By: Rakesh Khurana, Andrew David Klaber and Eric Baldwin

This note examines the development of the corporate form in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present, focusing primarily on legal issues. It identifies several major trends in the history of the American corporation: the transition of corporations... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Corporate Accountability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; History; Code Law; Managerial Roles; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Private Ownership; United States

Find at Harvard

03 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 3

other forms of competition in strategy and organizations. Next, we organize and review the findings of three ostensibly separate theoretical perspectives that have arisen from game theory, competitive dynamics, and institutional... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2015 (Revised February 2016)
Case

CrossFit (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Ali Huberlie and Christopher Payton

The case provides a sense of motivations of venture capital firms, the pivotal role that founders play, and explores the limits of founder-driven growth.
CrossFit (CF) describes the approach taken by its founder Greg Glassman in setting up one of the most... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Venture Capital; Strategy; Organizational Culture; Entrepreneurship; Franchise Ownership; Innovation and Invention; United States; North America

December 2013
Article

Land Politics and Local State Capacities: The Political Economy of Urban Change in China

By: Meg Rithmire

Despite common national institutions and incentives to remake urban landscapes to anchor growth, generate land-lease revenues, and display a capacious administration, Chinese urban governments exhibit varying levels of control over land. This article uses a paired... View Details

Keywords: China; Land Politics; Urban Planning; Local Government; Northeast China; Property Rights; Urban Development; Property; Government and Politics; China

February 1996 (Revised November 2003)
Case

Indianapolis: Activity-Based Costing of City Services (A)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

A new administration in the City of Indianapolis is initially determined to privatize many municipal services. Before taking this action, however, the city managers want to know the current cost of performing these services with the municipal workers. Existing... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Public Sector; Activity Based Costing and Management; Service Delivery; Privatization; City; Indianapolis

February 2009 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Fannie Mae: Public or Private?

By: David A. Moss, Cole Bolton and Kimberly Hagan

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan established the President's Commission on Privatization to identify federal government functions that could be shifted to the private sector. One agency that the Commission considered was the Federal National Mortgage Association, or... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Financial Institutions; Mortgages; Government and Politics; Business History; Privatization; Private Sector; Laws and Statutes; United States