Publications

September 2013
Case

United Rentals (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch, Kathleen Durante and Emily McTague

In December 1997 United Rentals (URI) went public on the NYSE. Ten years later, during the peak of the economic meltdown, the company's performance was in decline. United Rentals had experienced its share of problems in the prior years and was still struggling to... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Dynamics; Accounting Fraud; Governance; Board Committees; Merger; Corporate Governance; Construction Industry; United States

01 Oct 2024
Cold Call Podcast

Choosing Passion: A Founder’s Mission to Meet a Need for Obesity Care

Keywords: Re: Jon M. Jachimowicz; Health

2014
Book

Reinventing State Capitalism: Leviathan in Business, Brazil and Beyond

By: Aldo Musacchio and Sergio G. Lazzarini

In this book we describe the transformation of state capitalism from a model in which governments owned and ran corporations and broadly controlled the allocation of financial resources into two new varieties of state capitalism: Leviathan as a majority and as a... View Details

10 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Encouraging Entrepreneurs: Lessons for Government Policy

start a new business because they don't have access to capital," says Nanda. "Yes, it's a real problem that we do in fact have this 10 percent of low wealth, high human capital individuals who are... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

28 Jan 2002
Research & Ideas

Read All About It! Newspapers Lose Web War

facing the Internet. Note that in the newspaper industry, digital content initially started with different advertising customers, a different business model, and a whole set of performance characteristics that made it appear unattractive... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Entertainment & Recreation; Information; Publishing

17 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

Resisting the Seductions of Success

ahead of him—in a recent election, he almost beat a heavily entrenched incumbent. Tony is a veteran, with a Silver Star for bravery in Korea, and an entrepreneur. With his good friend Max, another attorney, he has started a law firm and... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.; Entertainment & Recreation; Information; Publishing

March 2023 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Close Concerns: Diabetes Research and Advocacy

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Brian L. Walker

This case describes the Exit considerations of Kelly Close, HBS MBA, and founder of the primary distributor of diabetes newsletters. It is part of the fourth module in the Innovating in Health Care HBS MBA course, which contains cases of other health care firms that... View Details

Keywords: Diabetes; Health; Health Care; Health Care And Treatment; Health Care Outcomes; Health Care Industry; Knowledge Dissemination; Outcome or Result; Equality and Inequality; Business Model; Entrepreneurship

02 Sep 2013
Research & Ideas

The Curse of Double-Digit Growth

Werker's study. "Legal rights were weaker, it took more time to register property [and] more money to start a business, and there were higher corporate taxes and informal payments to government officials. Infrastructure was poorer... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

01 Jul 2013
Research & Ideas

Crowdfunding a Poor Investment?

of creating a business. A few years ago, the amount of money needed to fund a new company would make this kind of investing just a drop in the bucket for most startups. Today, the bar to start a company has been lowered thanks to cloud... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

23 May 2000
Research & Ideas

The Emerging Art of Negotiation

of ethical standards are also tightly linked with how negotiators understand and define the game. Laboratory research on ethics in negotiation is starting to reveal, for instance, just how flexible and ambiguous such "standards"... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

07 Feb 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Creating the Founders’ Dilemmas Course

four sections of the course, with 68 students in each section. Some 170 more students were wait-listed. The course's popularity is a reflection of its universal nature—it addresses quandaries that virtually all entrepreneurs will face when trying to realize the dream... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education

19 Feb 2013
First Look

First Look: Feb. 19

Society Starts Here Authors:Eccles Robert G., and George Serafeim Publication:CSR Report 2013 Abstract No abstract available. Book: http://www.mediatenor.com/pdf/CSR_2013_web.pdf The New Patent Intermediaries: Platforms, Defensive... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2004 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Enterprise IT at Cisco (2004)

By: Andrew P. McAfee, F. Warren McFarlan and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Illustrates the challenges associated with centralizing IT decisions at Cisco after a decade of decentralized planning and project funding. When Brad Boston became Cisco's new CIO in 2001, he found that managers were starting to get frustrated with the results of their... View Details

Keywords: Management; Resource Allocation; Information Technology; Problems and Challenges; Business Ventures; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Projects; Planning; Corporate Finance; Information Technology Industry

07 Oct 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Securing Online Advertising: Rustlers and Sheriffs in the New Wild West

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman; Advertising

13 Aug 2008
Research & Ideas

The Inner Life of Leaders

Hedgehogs and Foxes is my 15th book. It is a study of leaders acting in a role but wittingly or unwittingly bringing to this enactment their character. An individual's character is outwardly represented while it is a product of development View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

February 2020 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Getting Brexit Done

By: Alberto Cavallo

In the early hours of Friday, December 13, 2019, a triumphant Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, stood in front of his supporters and declared, “We did it – we pulled it off, didn’t we? We broke the deadlock, [. . .] we smashed the roadblock. [. . .] This election... View Details

Keywords: Economic Integration; Brexit; Economics; Trade; Political Elections; Government Administration; Policy; Negotiation; Globalized Economies and Regions; Problems and Challenges; European Union; Europe

September 1995
Case

Richina Capital Partners Limited

By: William A. Sahlman and Jason Green

Richard Yan and Suzanne Foels raise a $52.5 million fund to invest in Chinese companies in concert with major multinational companies. They face all the challenges of starting a business from scratch in addition to the challenges of operating in a cross-cultural... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Venture Capital; Problems and Challenges; Emerging Markets; Multinational Firms and Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governance Compliance; Business Strategy; Expansion; Investment Return; China