Publications

October 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Eastern Bank: Innovating Through Eastern Labs

By: Karen Mills, Dennis Campbell and Aaron Mukerjee

Eastern Bank is a 200-year-old New England mutual bank with a community focus. Eastern specializes in small business lending, having made strategic investments to become the top SBA lender in New England in the midst of the Great Recession, when other banks were... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Management

September 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

DBS: Purpose-Driven Transformation

By: Ranjay Gulati, Adina Wong, Dawn H. Lau and Joseph Mesfin

Singapore-based bank DBS went through three waves of purpose-driven transformation, overhauling the bank’s systems, upgrading employee skills, and re-centering its customer focus, with the bank’s purpose growing bolder with each key milestone achieved. Find out how the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Alignment; Business Strategy; Balanced Scorecard; Technology Adoption; Mission and Purpose; Change Management; Banking Industry; Banking Industry; Asia; Singapore

June 2015 (Revised July 2016)
Case

Gilbert Lumber Company

By: Steven Rogers and Kenneth Cooper

The Gilbert Lumber Co. is faced with a need for increased bank financing due to its rapid sales growth and low profitability. Students must determine the reasons for the rising bank borrowing, estimate the amount of borrowing needed, and assess the attractiveness of... View Details

Keywords: Commercial Banking; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Strategy; Financing and Loans; Capital Structure; Forecasting and Prediction

October 1991 (Revised January 2002)
Case

Butler Lumber Company

By: Thomas R. Piper

The Butler Lumber Co. is faced with a need for increased bank financing due to its rapid sales growth and low profitability. Students must determine the reasons for the rising bank borrowing, estimate the amount of borrowing needed, and assess the attractiveness of the... View Details

Keywords: Commercial Banking; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Strategy; Financing and Loans; Capital Structure; Forecasting and Prediction

22 Feb 2021
Blog Post

I Found My Future at HBS and You Can Too

community’s lifeblood sat dormant along the banks of the Ohio River. Consumed by poverty, the soft bigotry of low expectations had crept into the social construct, sentencing families in underserved communities like mine to a lifetime of... View Details

17 Apr 2014
News

York Street Partners and Busbud Take Top Honors in Harvard Business School Alumni New Venture Competition

Research Summary

Credit Supply Shocks, Network Effects, and the Real Economy

By: Laura Alfaro

We consider the real effects of bank lending shocks and how they permeate the economy through buyer-supplier linkages. We combine administrative data on all firms in Spain with a matched bank-firm-loan dataset with information on the universe of corporate loans for... View Details

September 2011 (Revised May 2013)
Case

New Resource Bank: In Pursuit of Green

By: Christopher Marquis and Juan Almandoz

New Resource Bank was founded in San Francisco in 2006 with a mission focused on environmental sustainability. The case illustrates the opportunities and challenges of banking on values and the challenges of organizations defining a social and environmental commitment.... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Banking Industry; San Francisco

09 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Accounting Scholarship That Advances Professional Knowledge and Practice

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan; Education

February 2002 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Argentina's Financial System: The Case of Banco de Galicia

By: Rafael M. Di Tella, Tarun Khanna, Huw Pill, Alexandra de Royere and Ingrid Vogel

Describes the development of Argentina's financial system after the "Tequila Crisis" that came about as a result of the speculative attack on the Mexican peso's peg to the U.S. dollar in December 1994. Although Argentina's banking system was strengthened overall due to... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Emerging Markets; Macroeconomics; Business Strategy; Banks and Banking; Financial Crisis; Family Business; Acquisition; Banking Industry; Argentina

2014
Teaching Note

Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant: Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Culture (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Weiku Wu and Jia Guo

Meizhou Dongpo is a large catering group in China. On June 6, 1996, the first Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant was opened in Beijing. The enterprise entered the stage of rapid development in 2000, and set up Beijing Meizhou Restaurant Management Co., Ltd. In June 2003 the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Leadership; National Culture; China; Restaurants; China

May 2025
Case

The Micro-Family Office: Aamir Rehman

By: Lauren Cohen and Sophia Pan

With a successful career and strong academic credentials, Aamir Rehman sought to design a life grounded in autonomy. For him, this meant serving on boards, continuing his professorship, and ensuring a secure and comfortable life for his family. While he didn’t possess... View Details

01 Jul 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Cyclicality of Credit Supply: Firm Level Evidence

Keywords: by Bo Becker & Victoria Ivashina; Banking

March 2014
Article

Cyclicality of Credit Supply: Firm Level Evidence

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

Theory predicts that there is a close link between bank credit supply and the evolution of the business cycle. Yet fluctuations in bank-loan supply have been hard to quantify in the time series. While loan issuance falls in recessions, it is not clear if this is due to... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Banks and Banking; Bonds; Financial Markets; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry

SSRN

Find at Harvard

December 2006 (Revised February 2009)
Case

China Merchants Bank: Here Just For You

By: F. Warren McFarlan, GuoQing Chen, HengYuan Zhu, Bin Yang, Michael Shih-ta Chen, G.A. Donovan, Waishun Lo and Yan Yang

Founded in 1987, China Merchants Bank (CMB) is a pioneer in the use of technical innovation and IT as a competitive tool in the rapidly evolving Chinese banking sector. With a relatively small branch network when compared to its larger competitors, CMB uses an... View Details

Keywords: Credit Cards; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Innovation Leadership; Competitive Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Emerging Markets; Opportunities; Banking Industry; China; Hong Kong