Publications

13 Mar 2023
Op-Ed

How Leaders Should Leave

and in the industry about your reasons for leaving. You want to control the narrative around your departure and avoid any hint of acrimony. You will also need to agree on a date of departure. Keep in mind that you may be explaining your... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

Web

Faculty & Research - Business History

Business History in Emerging Markets By: Geoffrey Jones This article describes the motivation, structure and use of the Creating Emerging Markets (CEM) oral history-based project at the Harvard Business School. The project consists of... View Details

August 1977 (Revised April 1987)
Case

Crown Cork & Seal Co., Inc.

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Karen Gordon Mills and John P. Reed

Describes the technical, economic, and competitive trends in the metal container industry. The strategy of Crown Cork and Seal is then described in relation to these trends. Focuses on two immediate threats to Crown's strategy: the future of aerosol cans, given the... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Industry Structures; Environmental Sustainability; Trends; Manufacturing Industry

December 2001 (Revised April 2003)
Case

Poland's A2 Motorway

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

Autostrada Wielkopolska S.A. (AWSA) is a consortium of 18 firms that won a concession to build and operate Poland's first private toll road. In June 2000, AWSA's chief financial officer, Wojciech Gebicki, is preparing for a meeting with the projects' lead bankers to... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Cost vs Benefits; Project Finance; Projects; Construction Industry; Construction Industry; Poland

August 2024 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Novo Nordisk Foundation

By: Debora L. Spar and Julia M. Comeau

In 2024, Novo Nordisk A/S was one of the most profitable firms in the world, thanks largely to just two GLP-1-based drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy. Unusually, this incredibly profitable firm was controlled not by individual private shareholders, but by a non-profit... View Details

Keywords: Pharmaceutical Companies; Diabetes; Obesity; Foundation; Non-profit Management; Profit; Corporate Governance; Business or Company Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Expansion; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Nonprofit Organizations; Pharmaceutical Industry; Denmark; Europe

2013
Working Paper

Imprinting: Toward A Multilevel Theory

By: Christopher Marquis and Andras Tilcsik

The concept of imprinting has attracted considerable interest in numerous fields—including organizational ecology, institutional theory, network analysis, and career research—and has been applied at several levels of analysis, from the industry to the individual. This... View Details

Keywords: History; Situation or Environment; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure

SSRN

Read Now

October 2017 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Snap Inc. Goes Public (A)

By: Lynn Sharp Paine and Will Hurwitz

Snap Inc.’s chairman must decide how to address investor concerns about the company’s unprecedented plans to issue only non-voting shares in its upcoming IPO. The case is set in early 2017 following the public availability of Snap’s IPO filing with the U.S. Securities... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Capital Structure; Corporate Accountability; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Going Public; Business and Shareholder Relations; Leadership; Management; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Venture Capital; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; United States; California

March 2021
Case

Astralis Group: Determining a Brand Strategy

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej and Emilie Billaud

After launching a Danish esports company in July 2019, and going public in December 2019 with multiple brands associated with different games, the Astralis leadership team was contemplating a shift to a single, corporate brand. While the original arguments for... View Details

Web

Creating an Inclusive Recruiting Process for Candidates with Diverse Abilities - Recruiting

Insights & Advice 16 Sep 2024 Creating an Inclusive Recruiting Process for Candidates with Diverse Abilities Becca Carnahan Author HBS Team tag All Industries All Locations Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging Recruiting Advice Looking... View Details

26 May 2022
HBS Case

Apple vs. Feds: Is iPhone Privacy a Basic Human Right?

privacy comes under fire An industrial engineer known for his practical work style and deep manufacturing expertise, Cook has used his position to take on several hot-button topics, including fighting discrimination against people who... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

December 2009 (Revised February 2010)
Case

The Investment Fund for Foundations (TIFF) in 2009

By: Luis M. Viceira and Brendon Christopher Parry

In late June 2009, management at The Investment Fund for Foundations (TIFF) was considering expanding the footprint of the TIFF Diversified Fund (TDF), the first truly comprehensive endowment management vehicle offered under the TIFF banner. The recent large capital... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Asset Management; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Risk Management; Product Marketing; Financial Services Industry; United States

Elon Kohlberg is the Royal Little Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. His research is mainly in Game Theory, in particular the study of non-cooperative equilibrium.

Professor Kohlberg has taught many courses in the MBA,... View Details

Keywords: education industry; education industry; education industry; education industry; education industry

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Make Restructuring Work for Your Company

appropriately staged over a number of years. This situation could be said to characterize the mainframe computer industry during the 1980s, when business customers moved away from mainframes towards UNIX-based "open... View Details

Keywords: by Stuart C. Gilson

09 Mar 2023
Blog Post

African American Student Union Spotlight on Joint Degrees

before and during the MBA program. Chris Egi (JD/MBA 2026) Where is your hometown? My hometown is Markham, Ontario, Canada, a suburb of the Greater Toronto Area. What was your pre-MBA industry and role? Before HBS, I was an investment... View Details

22 Feb 2018
Book

The New History of American Capitalism

taking the subject as given, they explore it as politically constituted. If “the market” is neither a discrete phenomenon nor marginal to human experience, then basic structures of governance become important. Rather than assuming that... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing

February 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Fondeadora

By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui and Mitchell Weiss

Norman Müller and René Serrano, cofounders of Fondeadora, a Mexican “neobank,” had lined up a $12.5 million in Series A funding round in 2020 only to run into a major obstacle: The lead investor was Gradient Ventures, a venture firm launched by Alphabet, Inc., and... View Details

Keywords: Fundraising; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Financial Institutions; Business Startups; Government Legislation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Mexico City; Latin America