Publications

02 Jul 2020
News

Pro VC Health Pulse: Fighting Health-Care Fraud, New Playbook for Disease-Focused Nonprofits, Rhode Island Backs Data Collective Bio Fund

Research Summary

Overview

My research examines internal governance, leadership, and the strategy and performance of organizations. I have published papers on the evolution of corporate structure, financial and non-financial incentives, the allocation of decision rights, innovation and... View Details

September 2004 (Revised December 2005)
Case

Chardonnay Shortage at Mondavi Winery, The

Mondavi Winery is facing a shortage of its Chardonnay wine. This shortage will disrupt its positioning in wine outlets and impact earnings. Allows students to discuss how to communicate such temporary--but financially important--shocks to the capital markets and... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Earnings; Production; System Shocks; Capital Markets; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

November 2010
Case

Spudnik, Inc.

By: William A. Sahlman and Elizabeth A. Kind

This case describes the plan to finance a revolutionary new television set manufacturing business in late 2009. Yatin Mundkur, a venture capitalist at Artiman Ventures, has recruited a team of veteran eecutives from the optical disk drive business, to design large... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Venture Capital; Disruptive Innovation; Corporate Finance; Electronics Industry

January 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Digital Transformation at Tata Steel

By: Krishna Palepu, Das Narayandas, Radhika Kak and Rachna Tahilyani

T.V. Narendran, CEO of Tata Steel, India’s oldest steel manufacturing firm, had taken concrete business and cultural transformation steps to future-ready the firm since taking over in 2013. He had deleveraged and instilled financial discipline, acquired new businesses,... View Details

Keywords: Digital Transformation; Digital Strategy; Change Management; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Steel Industry; Asia; India

September 1986 (Revised February 1991)
Case

Graves Industries, Inc. (C): Consumer Hardware Division

Describes events occurring over a three-year period in a division of Graves Industries. The division is being squeezed for profit, and managers in the division get involved in some fraudulent financial reporting schemes involving revenues and capitalization of... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Financial Reporting

July/September 2005
Article

Le consensus de Paris: la France et les règles de la finance mondiale

By: Rawi Abdelal

This article is about the institutional foundations of the globalization of finance. These institutional foundations are both informal and formal. Until the 1980s the formal rules of the international financial architecture – most consequentially in the European Union... View Details

Keywords: Policy; International Finance; Globalization; France; European Union

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E. Scott Mayfield

Scott Mayfield is a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration in the Finance Unit at the Harvard Business School. Prior rejoining the faculty in 2011, Professor Mayfield was an assistant professor and member of the Finance Unit at HBS from 1997 to... View Details

January 2013
Case

Omidyar Network: Pioneering Impact Investment

By: Michael Chu and Lauren Barley

Omidyar Network, having deployed to date over $500 million in ways ranging from donations to commercial equity capital, must decide whether to back Anudip, an Indian organization dedicated to providing the rural unemployed and marginalized with livelihoods linked to... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Investment; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; India

October 1981 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Quabbin Cablevision Company

By: Henry B. Reiling

Several entrepreneurs are considering the purchase of an existing cable TV business with the financial assistance of several investors. They must decide whether to establish the company as a partnership or a corporation, and how to capitalize the company for an optimal... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Organization; Television Entertainment; Entrepreneurship; Capital Structure; Taxation; Telecommunications Industry; Massachusetts

Research Summary

Entrepreneurial Finance

By: William A. Sahlman

William A. Sahlman is examining the investment and financing decisions made at all stages in the development of entrepreneurial ventures. Related lines of inquiry concern the role of financial institutions in providing risk capital, and the role of government policy in... View Details

April 1961 (Revised April 1986)
Background Note

Case of the Unidentified U.S. Industries, The

Examines the impact of the nature of an industry on: 1) general patterns of the need for funds (asset allocation); 2) the methods of meeting these needs; and 3) the financial results of most firms in the industry. View Details

Keywords: Analysis; Markets; Finance; United States

Find at Harvard

October 2015
Teaching Note

Molycorp: Financing the Production of Rare Earth Minerals (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield

Molycorp, the western hemisphere's only producer of rare earth minerals, was in the middle of a $1 billion capital expenditure project in its effort to become a vertically integrated supplier of rare earth minerals, oxides, and metals. Yet it had just reported lower... View Details

October 2023
Case

Leading Transformation at IHCL

By: Krishna G. Palepu, V.G. Narayanan and Malini Sen

In November 2017, Puneet Chhatwal, took charge as MD and CEO of IHCL, popularly referred to as the Taj Hotels. Despite being India’s largest hospitality company by market capitalization and respected for its values and service, IHCL had made losses for the last seven... View Details

Keywords: Turn Around Management; Hospitality Industry; Brand Management; Financial Strategy; Business Model; Restructuring; Asset Management; Leadership Style; Crisis Management; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Segmentation; Asia; India

08 Dec 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Are There Too Many Safe Securities? Securitization and the Incentives for Information Production

Keywords: by Samuel G. Hanson & Adi Sunderam; Financial Services

30 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

‘Intrinsic Joy’ Sparks Ideas Better than Cash

GitHub’s sponsorship program To parse how financial rewards help or hurt innovation, the authors examined data for some 100,000 GitHub users. GitHub introduced the sponsorship program in May 2019, and more than 14,000 users qualified for... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology

February 2011 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Countrywide plc

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

One of the world's leading investors in distressed companies, Oaktree Capital Management, is contemplating a "loan to own" investment in the debt of Countrywide plc, a financially troubled residential real estate agent based in the U.K. Only sixteen months earlier,... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Restructuring; Financial Crisis; Capital Structure; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financial Management; Investment; Real Estate Industry; United Kingdom