Publications

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

April 2023 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Fermenting Accounting Problems at Vermont Kombucha Corp.

By: Tatiana Sandino and Marshal Herrmann

Founded in 2005, Vermont Kombucha Corp. (V-Ko) was an early mover in the fledgling U.S. market for kombucha, a drink brewed for its health benefits. Early on, the company captured more than 90% of market share. Under the leadership of its founder and CEO, Joe Williams,... View Details

Keywords: Going Public; Business Model; Financial Reporting; Ethics; Corporate Governance; Stock Shares; Food and Beverage Industry

November 2007
Article

Measuring Consumer and Competitive Impact with Elasticity Decompositions

Marketing investments are designed to change consumer behavior in ways that help goods compete in the marketplace. Previous research has focused on using elasticity decompositions to measure how these investments affect either consumer decision making or competing... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment Return; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Measurement and Metrics; Mathematical Methods; Competitive Advantage

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Spring 2014
Article

Leveraging Crowdsourced Peer-to-Peer Assessments to Enhance the Case Method of Learning

By: Jill Avery

Many marketing educators use the case method to help their students strengthen their decision-making skills. Rigorous class participation is essential to achieving learning objectives in case method learning. One challenge for case method instructors is the assessment... View Details

Keywords: Case Method Teaching; Marketing; Business Education; Teaching; Education Industry

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02 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 2, 2019

comment-letter reviews (CLs) on firms’ financial reporting. We exploit a major change in the SEC’s disclosure policy: in 2004, the SEC decided to make its CLs publicly... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Making the Right Technical Hire

For many CEOs, particularly those running startups, hiring the right people is the single biggest determinant of whether a new business survives. And so it makes sense that the chief executive should be View Details

Summer 2013
Article

Real Estate Prices During the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression

By: Tom Nicholas and Anna Scherbina

Using new data on market-based transactions we construct real estate price indexes for Manhattan between 1920 and 1939. During the 1920s prices reached their highest level in the third quarter of 1929 before falling by 67% at the end of 1932 and hovering around that... View Details

Keywords: Property; Market Transactions; Price; Value; Financial Crisis; Investment; Real Estate Industry; New York (state, US)

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October 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture

By: Frances X. Frei, Robin J. Ely and Laura Winig

On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its board of directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

March 2010 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Mirae Asset: Korea's Mutual Fund Pioneer

By: Mukti Khaire, Michael Shih-ta Chen and G.A. Donovan

Park Hyeon-Joo, the founder and chairman of Korea's earliest and largest mutual fund company, plans to expand internationally. After first offering emerging market funds to its Korean customers, the company then began selling local-currency funds in India and Brazil.... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Global Strategy; Emerging Markets; Financial Services Industry; South Korea

July 2020
Case

Amanda and Kristen: Mented Cosmetics

By: Steven Rogers, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Alterrell Mills

The co-founders (Black HBS alumnae) of an e-commerce beauty startup explore the unmet needs within the beauty industry. This case study examines the entrepreneurial opportunities that come from identifying an underserved market, specifically within the Black community... View Details

Paul Gompers, Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, specializes in research on financial issues related to start-up, high growth, and newly public companies. Professor Gompers has an appointment in both the View Details

Keywords: electronics; health care; high technology; information technology industry; investment banking industry; pharmaceuticals; semiconductor; venture capital industry

02 Jan 2020
News

British invasion: The UK fintechs taking on the US

23 May 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas and Research: May 23, 2017

Corporate Debt in Emerging Markets By: Alfaro, Laura, Gonzalo Asis, Anusha Chari, and Ugo Panizza Abstract—This paper documents a set of stylized facts about leverage and View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

David E. Bell

David E. Bell is a Baker Foundation Professor at HBS. He has taught marketing many times in the MBA program including as course head.

During his career at HBS, David has taught a variety of other courses to both MBAs and executives, including risk... View Details

Keywords: marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry

February 2018 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Wellington Global Impact

By: Shawn Cole and Lynn Schenk

Wellington Global Impact is one of the first public equities impact investing strategies in the market. The case explores how the strategy was developed at Wellington, including an analysis of the culture that supported its development. It also explores the difficulty... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Impact Investing; Investment; Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Culture; Analysis

2009
Working Paper

Does Competition Favor Delegation?

By: Christian Alejandro Ruzzier

This paper studies the consequences of product-market competition on firms' decisions to delegate more or fewer decision-making responsibilities to managers. By simultaneously addressing the choice of both competitive actions and organizational design, the paper makes... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Competition; Decision Making

Samuel L. Hayes holds the Jacob H. Schiff Chair in Investment Banking Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School. He has taught at the School since 1970, prior to which he was a tenured member of the faculty of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He... View Details

January 2009 (Revised November 2011)
Case

The Tip of the Iceberg: JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns (A)

By: Clayton S. Rose, Daniel Baird Bergstresser and David Lane

"Bear Stearns & Co. burned through nearly all of its $18 billion in cash reserves during the week of March 10, 2008, and an unprecedented provision of liquidity support from the Federal Reserve on Friday, March 13 was insufficient to reverse the decline in Bear's... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Crisis; Capital; Financial Liquidity; Financial Strategy; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Competition; Valuation; Financial Services Industry