Publications

June 2006 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Creditor Activism in Sovereign Debt: 'Vulture' Tactics or Market Backbone

By: Laura Alfaro and Ingrid Vogel

The role of distressed debt funds, also known as "vulture funds," in sovereign debt restructuring was a hotly debated topic, especially after the success of Elliot Associates in converting an $11 million investment in Peruvian bonds worth $21 million into a $58 million... View Details

Keywords: Vulture Funds; Borrowing and Debt; Bonds; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Sovereign Finance; Government and Politics; Contracts; Business and Government Relations; Peru

April 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Supply Chain Partners: Virginia Mason and Owens & Minor (A) (Abridged)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

Owens & Minor (O&M) performed lean inventory services for Virginia Mason (VM) as its Alpha Vendor, but the outdated industry pricing model created perverse incentives and could not capture O&M's costs. Together, O&M and VM created an activity-based pricing model: Total... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Partners and Partnerships; Activity Based Costing and Management; Business Model; Non-Governmental Organizations; Nonprofit Organizations; Motivation and Incentives; Asset Pricing; Cost Accounting; Fair Value Accounting; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

May 2025
Case

From oneworld to a New World? LATAM’s High-Stakes Alliance Dilemma

By: Juan Alcacer and Valentina Tarzijan

As global alliances evolve and regulatory barriers mount, LATAM Airlines must reassess the strategic logic of partnerships. In 2019, Delta Air Lines proposed a $1.9 billion investment and deeper cooperation via a Joint Business Agreement, prompting LATAM to evaluate... View Details

Keywords: Aviation; Airlines; Transportation; Latin America; North America

December 8, 2023
Article

What Makes a Company Great at Producing Leaders?

By: Sarah Abbott, Robin Abrahams and Boris Groysberg

GE is well known as an “academy company”—a talent incubator that exports effective leaders to other organizations and even industries. To better understand which companies are top talent incubators today, the authors worked with the Official Board, a firm that provides... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Talent and Talent Management; Training; Organizational Culture

Register to Read

February 2003
Article

Which Ties Matter When? The Contingent Effects of Interorganizational Partnerships on IPO Success

By: Ranjay Gulati and M. Higgins

This paper investigates the contingent value of interorganizational relationships at the time of a young firm's initial public offering (IPO). We compare the signaling value to young firms of having ties with two types of interorganizational partnerships: endorsement... View Details

Keywords: Interorganizatonal Relationships; Networks; Venture Capital; Initial Public Offering; Entrepreneurship; Biotechnology Industry

Find at Harvard

April 2025 (Revised May 2025)
Background Note

Customer Acquisition and the Cash Flow Trap

By: E. Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller

Startups as well as existing firms recognize the need to invest in order to acquire customers for their new ventures. And as each customer is expected at some point to have generated sufficient gross margins to cover their CAC, management expects that, soon enough, the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customers; Forecasting and Prediction; Cash Flow; Business or Company Management

20 Oct 2020
Blog Post

Changing the Face of Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital at Harlem Capital

founders to know there are people who look like them willing to invest in and support them, and for the next generation to know that they too can be successful in VC.” The Internship Funnel As Harlem Capital... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital / Private Equity

Rajiv Lal

Rajiv Lal, is the Stanley Roth, Sr. Professor of Retailing at Harvard Business School. He is currently teaching an elective MBA course on the Business of Smart Connected Products/IOT. He has been responsible for the retailing curriculum and has served as the course... View Details

25 Mar 2014
First Look

First Look: March 25

the investor's and the investee's countries, affects the asset allocation decisions of global mutual funds. We find that investors tend to underweight investees with greater accounting distance. Using the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2012
Case

Tracy Palandjian at Social Finance US (A)

By: Alnoor Ebrahim, Catherine Clark and Beth Bafford

It had been eighteen months since Tracy Palandjian had left her position as a managing director at The Parthenon Group to start an ambitious venture called Social Finance US. With a mission "to mobilize investment capital to drive social change," her new organization... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career

13 Feb 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Electronic Hierarchies and Electronic Heterarchies: Relationship-Specific Assets and the Governance of Interfirm IT

Keywords: by Andrew McAfee, Marco Bettiol & Maria Chiarvesio; Technology

2006
Book

Science Business: The Promise, the Reality, and the Future of Biotech

By: Gary P. Pisano

Why has the biotechnology industry failed to perform up to expectations—despite all its promise? In Science Business, Gary P. Pisano answers this question by providing an incisive critique of the industry. Pisano not only reveals the underlying causes of... View Details

Keywords: Science; Business Ventures; Biotechnology Industry

Find at Harvard

30 Jul 2008
Op-Ed

Why the U.S. Should Encourage FDI

difficult one for direct investors. Tilted Playing Field Why is it so difficult to make money as a direct investor in the United States? Indeed, much of the rhetoric on investing environments argues that the... View Details

Keywords: by Mihir A. Desai

September 2017 (Revised January 2019)
Case

FJ Management Inc.

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Matthew G. Preble

In late 2015, Crystal Call Maggelet, president and CEO of FJ Management, is working with her investment committee to help set the company’s strategic direction. Maggelet, daughter of the company’s founder, has led FJ Management since 2009 when she stepped in as CEO... View Details

April 2009 (Revised October 2010)
Case

Bob Beall at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

By: Robert Steven Kaplan and Sophie Hood

Bob Beall is the Chief Executive Officer of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF). CFF is an extremely successful organization, but Beall has to determine how to manage the organization through the financial crisis of 2008-2009. In this situation, donations are likely... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership; Crisis Management; Nonprofit Organizations

26 May 2015
First Look

First Look: May 26

record (EMR) data. Their expertise in analytics, access to demographic and location data, as well as large consumer bases, led Dulin to consider which players consumers would trust to integrate their View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May–June 2023
Article

Should Your Start-up Be For-profit or Nonprofit?: A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs

By: Cait Brumme and Brian Trelstad

Years ago the line between nonprofit and for-profit enterprises was clear, but that has changed. Nonprofits now offer products that compete with those of the best for-profits, and for-profits can deliver as much social value as charities. Despite the blurred... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Social Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Nonprofit Organizations; For-Profit Firms; Decision Choices and Conditions

Register to Read

2005
Working Paper

Pseudo Market Timing and Predictive Regressions

By: Malcolm Baker, Ryan Taliaferro and Jeffrey Wurgler

A number of studies claim that aggregate managerial decision variables, such as aggregate equity issuance, have power to predict stock or bond market returns. Recent research argues that these results may be driven by an aggregate time-series version of Schultz's... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Equity; Market Timing; Financial Instruments; Investment Return; Mathematical Methods