Publications

01 Dec 2020
News

New News

United States. Our goal is to make fact-first news extremely easy to consume, by publishing a daily digest that covers the day’s most important stories stated factually, with any relevant context. BA: Media businesses in general are... View Details

Keywords: entrepreneuship; digital media; startups; news; business models; young alumni; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

30 Aug 2021
News

The World Is Still Short of Everything. Get Used to It.

23 Nov 2020
Research & Ideas

COVID Was Supposed to Increase Bankruptcies. Instead, They've Gone Down.

Bankruptcy filings in the United States were expected to soar during this year’s economic recession, induced by COVID-19. Instead, they dropped 27 percent year-over-year through August, driven by an unexpected drop in consumer and small View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

11 Feb 2014
News

The Trouble with Sunspots

10 Dec 2014
News

Lessons for Private Equity Learned From the Last Merger Frenzy

October 2022 (Revised July 2025)
Case

Driving Decarbonization at BMW

By: Shirley Lu, George Serafeim and Michael W. Toffel

The case describes BMW’s electrification and decarbonization strategy, and how the company measured carbon emissions throughout the life cycle of its vehicles and used tools like carbon abatement cost curves to evaluate decarbonization opportunities. In mid-2022,... View Details

October 2022
Case

Weapons of Self Destruction: Zak Pym Williams and the Cultivation of Mental Wellness

By: Lauren Cohen, Ronnie Stangler and Grace Headinger

Zak Pym Williams, mental health advocate, grappled with the question of how to create a proactive mental health family environment for his children. Having witnessed how mental health challenges such as addiction and depression had impacted the past four generations of... View Details

Keywords: Family; U.S.; Mental Health; Family Business; Entertainment; Values and Beliefs; Ethics; Leading Change; Family and Family Relationships; Well-being; Social Issues; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States; California

September 1986 (Revised March 1987)
Case

Graves Industries, Inc. (B): Lohnes Marine Hardware Division

Describes events occurring over a four-year period in one division of Graves Industries. The division goes through a business cycle and uses several methods of managing earnings to meet its budget targets. The purpose of the case is to allow the exploration of the... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Crime and Corruption; Ethics

20 Dec 2004
Research & Ideas

How an Order Views Your Company

Over a dozen years ago, HBS professors Ben Shapiro and Kash Rangan conducted research with colleague John J. Sviokla, focusing on the impact that a company's order management cycle (OMC) has on customers. Think of OMC as the process that... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston

Article

The Asymmetric Experience of Positive and Negative Economic Growth: Global Evidence Using Subjective Well-being Data

By: Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, George Ward, Femke De Keulenaer, Bert Van Landeghem, Georgios Kavetsos and Michael I. Norton

Are individuals more sensitive to losses than gains in terms of economic growth? We find that measures of subjective well-being are more than twice as sensitive to negative as compared to positive economic growth. We use Gallup World Poll data from over 150 countries,... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Business Cycles; Welfare; Perception; Global Range

Find at Harvard

Read Now

24 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Five Questions for Debora L. Spar

In the long run, even the most fundamental innovations have a way of being influenced by government, says Harvard Business School professor Debora Spar. That's why business leaders need political skills,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

November 1994 (Revised February 1996)
Case

Toy World, Inc.

By: W. Carl Kester

A shift from seasonal to level production of toys will change the seasonal cycle of Toy World's working capital needs and necessitate new bank credit arrangements. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Working Capital; Business Cycles; Cash Flow; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment Funds; Financial Statements

12:30 PM – 2:30 PM EDT, 30 Apr 2019
HBS Online

HBS Online Scaling Ventures

Scaling Ventures is for startup founders and senior leaders who have achieved product-market fit and now need to successfully guide their company through cycles of rapid growth and organizational change. Program Dates: April 30, 2019 - June 18, 2019 (Every Tuesday from... View Details

February 2023
Article

Nonprofits in Good Times and Bad Times

By: Christine L. Exley, Nils H. Lehr and Stephen J. Terry

Need fluctuates over the business cycle. We conduct a survey revealing a desire for nonprofit activities to countercyclically expand during downturns. We then demonstrate, using comprehensive U.S. nonprofit data drawn from millions of tax returns, that the public's... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Business Cycles; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

Read Now

07 Jul 2015
News

What Makes You So Special?

Kevin P. Mohan

Kevin Mohan joined the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets unit at Harvard Business School in 2012 after a long career as a private equity investor. He teaches Negotiation in the MBA program and the Owners, Presidents, and Managers program. He also teaches War... View Details

October 1991 (Revised November 1993)
Case

Dynashears, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Piper

A senior loan officer is reviewing the recent performance of a company that has failed to repay its loan as scheduled. The failure results from a cyclical downturn in sales, coupled with a lag in cutting back production. Inventory risk is minimal. Teaching objective:... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Business Cycles; Financial Condition; Risk and Uncertainty; Failure