Publications

July 2009 (Revised May 2010)
Case

The Millennium Challenge Corporation and Ghana

By: Alnoor Ebrahim and V. Kasturi Rangan

A U.S. government agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), provides aid to developing countries, focusing on poverty reduction through economic growth. It measures results through an economic rate of return based on increases in farmer incomes anticipated... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Investment Return; Measurement and Metrics; Welfare; Ghana; United States

Program

Foundations of Private Equity and Venture Capital

responsible for small funds Entrepreneurs who are seeking private financing Families and institutions in the process of raising their first fund or considering private equity View Details

Keywords: Finance; Finance

April 2001 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Verge Software (A)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Elizabeth Kind

Scott Rozic, CEO of start-up Verge Software, has just told his board that he is taking the company in a totally new direction, moving from enterprise knowledge management software to Internet direct marketing. This case covers the start-up of the business, and Rozic's... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Business Strategy; Technological Innovation; Applications and Software; Management Teams; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Product Development; Information Technology Industry; United States

October 2000 (Revised February 2007)
Case

Harvard Management Company and Inflation-Protected Bonds, The

By: Luis M. Viceira

In March 2000, the board of The Harvard Management Co. (HMC) approved significant changes in the policy portfolio determining the long-run allocation policy of the Harvard University endowment. These changes included a sharp reduction of the allocation to U.S. equities... View Details

Keywords: Bonds; Investment Portfolio; Investment Funds; Asset Management; Corporate Governance; Capital Markets; Financial Services Industry; United States

2010
Working Paper

Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors

By: Rebecca Henderson and Richard G. Newell

A combination of concerns about climate change and energy security has recently led to significant increases in public funding for energy R&D. Some commentators are suggesting that these increases need to be sustained, and are advocating for increases of as much as... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Research and Development; Pollutants; Climate Change; Energy Industry

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Live from Klarman Hall - Alumni

Tsedal Neeley Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration Harvard Business School Mitchell Weiss (MBA 2004) Richard L. Menschel Professor of Management Practice Harvard Business School Co-Intelligence Ethan Mollick Associate Professor Wharton School of the... View Details

May 2014
Article

How to Outsmart Activist Investors

By: Bill George and Jay W. Lorsch

We offer opinions on how management and corporate boards of directors can best manage investor relations with activist stockholders such as hedge funds who are demanding major changes within a corporation to improve stockholder return. Beverage industry firm PepsiCo is... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism

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June 2001 (Revised November 2004)
Case

Kingsley Management

By: Richard G. Hamermesh

Includes a brief overview of key challenges facing recent HBS graduates seeking funding for a business, followed by a 22-page excerpt from the Kingsley Management business plan. Describes Matthew Lieb and Chris Jones, two of the partners who developed the business plan... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Plan; Opportunities; Investment Return; Organizational Structure

January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

PortageBay and ESG Analytics

By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Radhika Kak

In 2023, sustainable investors faced several challenges. The first was the lack of access to standardized and vetted environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data, and equally, the interpretation of this data into investment-useful insights. Reducing reliance on... View Details

Keywords: ESG Ratings; Investment Funds; Governance; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

February 2004 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Orchid Partners: A Venture Capital Start-up

By: Myra M. Hart and Kristin Lieb

The development of a new venture partnership and the challenges associated with raising its first fund are chronicled. The decision to focus on early-stage investments, the determination of the appropriate size of the fund, the fund-raising process, and the steps in... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Partners and Partnerships; Investment; Motivation and Incentives; Financing and Loans; Personal Development and Career

Snap, the disappearing message app, went public at $17 per share on March 2, 2017, making its two 20-something founders the youngest self-made billionaires in the country. Over the next three weeks, 14 analysts make investment recommendations on Snap: two with buy... View Details

September 2003 (Revised May 2004)
Case

New Partnership for Africa's Development, The

By: Laura Alfaro, Debora L. Spar and Cate Reavis

In a world context of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund and their interaction with developing countries, this case looks at an African development initiative to address its own problems: The New Economic... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Developing Countries and Economies; International Finance; Investment; Poverty; Africa

December 2022
Article

Initial Coin Offering (ICO) Success and Post-ICO Performance

By: Evgeny Lyandres, Berardino Palazzo and Daniel Rabetti

We compile a comprehensive data set of initial coin offerings (ICOs) from 19 data sources including 11 ICO aggregators. We alleviate severe limitations of available ICO data by performing the first systematic analysis of ICO data quality. We use our data set to study... View Details

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Investment Return; Entrepreneurial Finance; Success; Performance