Publications

April 2025
Case

Techint: Strategic Choices for Community Impact

By: Lauren Cohen, Virak Prum, Kenneth Charman, Pedro Levindo and Mariana Cal

In early 2024 Erika Bienek, Chief Community Relations Officer at Techint, had to decide whether to invest in a new company-owned and operated technical school in Veracruz, Mexico, or invest instead in strengthening the city’s public education system. Techint, a global... View Details

Keywords: Technical Institutes; Community Relations; Social Impact; Argentina; Mexico; Brazil; Conglomerate; Stakeholder Management; Government And Business; Community Impact; Philanthropy; Business Conglomerates; Business Subsidiaries; Business Headquarters; Family Business; Decision Making; Private Sector; Public Sector; Education; Curriculum and Courses; Middle School Education; Secondary Education; Teaching; Training; Learning; Energy; Engineering; Construction; Values and Beliefs; Geography; Global Range; Local Range; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Globalized Firms and Management; Government Legislation; Recruitment; Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Knowledge; Resource Allocation; Industry Clusters; Infrastructure; Family Ownership; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business and Community Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Creativity; Reputation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Poverty; Strategy; Construction Industry; Construction Industry; Construction Industry; Construction Industry; Construction Industry; Construction Industry; Europe; Italy; Latin America; North and Central America; Mexico; North America; United States; South America; Argentina; Buenos Aires; Brazil

November 2013
Teaching Note

8 Spruce Street

By: Arthur I Segel

The case begins in March 2009 during the depths of the recession with Forest City Ratner (FCR) Companies, a New York City based developer, facing the decision to halt construction half-way on 8 Spruce Street, the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere, or... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Investment; Real Estate Industry; Japan

October 2008 (Revised March 2011)
Case

Curled Metal Inc.—Engineered Products Division

By: Benson P. Shapiro and Frank V. Cespedes

Curled Metal Incorporated has declining sales but has developed a new product (curled metal pile driver pads) that, in field tests, deliver customer benefits that are many times CMI's manufacturing costs. Joseph Fernandez and Rajiv Sanwal of CMI's Engineered Products... View Details

Keywords: Price; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Business Strategy

21 Sep 2020
Video

Pedro Gómez

Pedro Gómez, who founded the construction company Pedro Gómez y Cia in Colombia in 1968, sums up the lessons of his long career for young Colombians, especially the need to behave ethically and to challenge corruption. View Details

July 2000
Case

Aerospace Technologies, Inc.

By: Paul M. Healy and Jacob Cohen

Ben Galil's privately held engineering consulting firm represents aerospace products manufacturers in Israeli government biddings. The company incurs expenses for years before getting paid. This case deals with the alternative methods for booking revenues and expenses... View Details

Keywords: Accrual Accounting; Accounting; Revenue; Cost; Business or Company Management; Profit; Engineering; Bids and Bidding; Government and Politics; Private Ownership; Consulting Industry; Israel

May 2002 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Yangcheng: AES in China

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

AES, an American electric power company with 141 plants worldwide, is just completing construction of a 2,100-MW plant in China--the largest ever. The project, a joint venture with five local companies, has several environmental, ownership, and operational issues as... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Joint Ventures; Foreign Direct Investment; Environmental Sustainability; Problems and Challenges; Energy Industry; China

1998
Article

Alternative Models of Uncertain Commodity Prices for Use with Modern Asset Pricing Methods

By: Malcolm Baker, E. S. Mayfield and John Parsons

This paper provides an introduction to alternative models of uncertain commodity prices. A model of commodity price movements is the engine around which any valuation methodology for commodity production projects is built, whether discounted cash flow (DCF) models or... View Details

Keywords: Asset Pricing; Goods and Commodities; Price; Risk and Uncertainty; Valuation; Production; Projects; Cash Flow

23 May 2018
News

Teen Rocket Scientists Offer a Peek Into the Future

27 Apr 2015
News

HBS “Topping Off” of the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center

21 Nov 2013
News

Improving Management at Google

Video

Anu Aga

Anu Aga, former head of Thermax, an engineering and energy company in India, describes her decision to hire a consultant company in response to operational losses at the company, and of the skepticism she faced... View Details

December 1994 (Revised January 1995)
Case

Zoll Medical Corporation (A)

When is a product ready for the market? In this case, engineers present a prototype medical device product to the CEO for approval. The product, developed under a tight deadline, is essentially identical to the main competitor's product, but that competitor is... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Product Development; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Article

A New Proof of Serre's Homological Characterization of Regular Local Rings

By: Ravi Jagadeesan and Aaron Landesman

We give a new proof of Serre’s result that a Noetherian local ring is regular if and only if it has finite global dimension. Our proof avoids the explicit construction of a Koszul complex. View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods

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10 Mar 2022
Blog Post

How I Spent My HBS 2+2 Deferral: Vika Wasyliw

had the opportunity to do engineering co-ops (longer-term internships) at three different companies. During these experiences, I noticed that the vast majority of technical leaders either had very strong business instincts View Details

21 Sep 2020
Video

Pedro Gómez

Pedro Gómez, who founded the construction company Pedro Gómez y Cia in Colombia in 1968, discusses how he built the first shopping mall in Bogotá by visiting foreign projects and contacting an old friend to secure finance. View Details

August 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Icario Health: AI to Drive Health Engagement

By: David C. Edelman

Icario Health has built a market-leading artificial intelligence (AI) engine to help health insurers drive better health behaviors for their members, enabling the insurers to improve their Medicare performance. View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Health Care and Treatment; AI and Machine Learning; Health Industry; United States

January 1996 (Revised February 1996)
Case

Peterson Industries: Louis Friedman

By: David A. Garvin

Louis Friedman, the president and CEO of Peterson Industries, must make decisions about two engineering projects and the level at which they should be funded. In the process, he must manage the overall resource allocation process and the company. A rewritten version of... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Motivation and Incentives; Resource Allocation; Budgets and Budgeting; Projects; Engineering

April 2021 (Revised June 2021)
Case

IBM: Design Thinking

By: Srikant M. Datar, Amram Migdal and Paul Hamilton

This case describes the 2012-2020 effort at IBM to implement design thinking throughout the company and hire thousands of designers to serve on every product team alongside technical engineers and developers and product managers. IBM’s design transformation is told... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Divisions; Business Units; Business Organization; Change; Change Management; Transformation; Competency and Skills; Talent and Talent Management; Design; Human Resources; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Innovation and Invention; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Jobs and Positions; Job Design and Levels; Leading Change; Management; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Operations; Product; Product Design; Product Development; Organizations; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Strategy; Adaptation; Adoption; Technological Innovation; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States