Publications

February 1997
Case

Advent of Venture Capital in Latin America, The

By: Debora L. Spar

Widely regarded as the leader in international private equity, Advent International is considering the establishment of a private equity fund in Latin America in 1996. Typically, Advent entered new private equity markets through the creation of multicountry regional... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Joint Ventures; Market Entry and Exit; Globalized Markets and Industries; Financial Services Industry; Boston; Latin America

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Research Summary

Land in China's Political Economy

By: Meg Rithmire

Land Bargains and Chinese Capitalism: The Politics of Property Rights under Reform

Published October 2015

China since the 1980s has been the scene of unprecedented efforts at urban construction and growth, even in the absence of privatization... View Details

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Finance Curriculum - Faculty & Research

Markets Luis Viceira , Emil Siriwardane Fall 2024 Q1Q2 3.0 Investment Strategies William Vrattos Spring 2025 Q4 1.5 Managing and Innovating in Financial Services David Scharfstein Spring 2025 Q3Q4 3.0 Market... View Details

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Harvard Business School Online Courses & Learning Platforms

Choose a subject area: Digital Transformation Marketing Business Essentials Leadership & Management Entrepreneurship & Innovation Strategy Finance & Accounting Business in Society Featured Courses Strategic View Details

February 2018 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Haier: Incubating Entrepreneurs in a Chinese Giant

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Nancy Hua Dai

CEO Zhang Ruimin must plan how to accelerate the growth of self-managed microenterprises. Platforms were Haier’s business platforms operating in five major sectors: white goods transformation, investment and incubation, financial holdings, real estate, and cultural... View Details

Keywords: China; Microenterprise; Appliances; Platform; Change; Innovation; Opportunities; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Transformation; Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; China

December 2021
Case

Grace Capital

By: Sara Fleiss, Robin Greenwood, Eren Kuzucu and Denise Han

In March 2020, the global pandemic was delivering a dose of volatility to the U.S. economy. Catherine Faddis, the CIO of Grace Capital, a Boston-based long-only equity manager, analyzed movements in her portfolio while eyeing previously shelved opportunities to invest... View Details

Keywords: Preferred Stock; COVID-19 Pandemic; Economy; Health Pandemics; Volatility; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Investment; Strategy; Decision Making; Investment Portfolio; Financial Services Industry; United States

05 Jun 2007
First Look

First Look: June 5, 2007

supplement: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=807158 Westin Hotels and Resorts: Operations of a Lifestyle Experience Harvard Business School Case 607-129 Westin Hotels and Resorts adopted a new "lifestyle" brand View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Fraunhofer: Innovation in Germany

By: Diego A. Comin, J. Gunnar Trumbull and Kerry Yang

Fraunhofer is one of the largest applied research organizations in the world. With 17,000 employees and a 1.6 billion euros budget, Fraunhofer has 60 institutes in Germany that cover most fields of science. The case examines the consequences that Fraunhofer has for the... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Entrepreneurship; Financial Markets; Government and Politics; Labor; Markets; Outcome or Result; Research and Development; Competitive Strategy; Germany

February 2000 (Revised January 2008)
Case

Merrill Lynch: Integrated Choice

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell

Merrill Lynch, a full-service brokerage firm with $1.5 trillion in client assets, is under attack from both discount and electronic brokerage firms. It responds with Integrated Choice, a suite of products designed to capture clients from the do-it-yourself investor who... View Details

Keywords: Distribution Channels; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry

October 1998 (Revised August 1999)
Case

Amazon.com--Going Public

By: William A. Sahlman and Laurence E. Katz

Amazon.com, an early pioneer in electronic commerce, prepares its initial public offering in the face of turbulent market conditions. Joy Covey, Amazon.com's CFO and the case protagonist, discusses the risks and opportunities of going public and the nature of... View Details

Keywords: Going Public; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Model; Financial Strategy; Business Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Electronics Industry; Retail Industry

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Finance - Faculty & Research

Working Paper The Evolution of Financial Services in the United States By: Robin Greenwood , David S. Scharfstein and Robert Ialenti This article surveys the literature on the historical growth and transformation of the U.S. View Details

January 2008
Case

Parks Capital - Investment in US Retail, Inc.

Parks Capital acquired a Children's Apparel Manufacturer , American Child Clothing Manufacturers, Inc. (ACCM), in 2001. Two years later ACCM's largest retail customer, U.S. Retail, Inc., decided to evaluate strategic alternatives due to financial difficulties. Parks... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Value and Value Chain; Private Equity; Vertical Integration; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; United States

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October 1995 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Aspen Technology, Inc.: Currency Hedging Review

By: Peter Tufano

The chief financial officer of a rapidly growing U.S.-based software firm that sells its process-control software to industrial users around the globe must review the goals, strategies, and policies of the firm's currency hedging program. This review is prompted by... View Details

Keywords: Currency Exchange Rate; Applications and Software; Investment; Business Startups; Business Strategy; Information Technology Industry; United Kingdom; United States

February 2016
Case

BancoSol and Microfinance in Bolivia

By: Rajiv Lal and Annelena Lobb

BancoSol, a microfinance bank headquartered in La Paz, Bolivia, was forced to adjust its lending strategy and business model because of a regulatory change—60% of the bank's lending portfolio would have to move to the productive sector of the Bolivian economy by 2018,... View Details

Keywords: Microfinance; Banks and Banking; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business Model; Strategy; South America; Bolivia

Program

Driving Nonprofit Performance and Innovation—Virtual

Summary Performance measurement is essential for organizational innovation, learning, and success. Nonprofits, however, must evaluate social or environmental outcomes as well as financial performance, and the ideal metrics are not always... View Details

2023
Working Paper

Corporate Website-based Measures of Firms' Value Drivers

By: Wei Cai, Dennis Campbell and Patrick Ferguson

We develop and validate new text-based measures of firms’ financial and non-financial value drivers. Using the Wayback Machine to access public US firms’ archived websites from 1995-2020, we scrape text from corporate homepages. We use Kaplan and Norton’s (1992)... View Details

Keywords: Value; Corporate Strategy; Accounting; Analytics and Data Science

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Podcasts - Managing the Future of Work

supporting carers in the workforce 23 OCT 2024 | Managing the Future of Work Employers can benefit by remapping their talent strategies to match the realities of workers with caregiving responsibilities. Bill Kerr is joined by his... View Details

June 1990 (Revised August 1990)
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc.--1987 (A)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

An integrated sequence of three cases on the financing of a technical workstation manufacturer. This case focuses on Sun's competitive strategy which requires an inordinately high rate of growth (over 20% per quarter) and commensurate amounts of working capital.... View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow; Competitive Strategy; Financing and Loans; Capital; Financial Strategy; Public Equity; Corporate Finance; Information Technology Industry

February 2008 (Revised April 2009)
Case

Citigroup: Re-Branding in 2007 (A)

By: Rohit Deshpandé and Carin-Isabel Knoop

With its history of growth through acquisition, Citigroup has a conglomeration of sub-brands that need to be integrated and rationalized. Ajay Banga, CEO of Citi's Global Consumer Group International, chairs a task force to work through the process of re-branding the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Customer Focus and Relationships; Globalization; Growth Management; Brands and Branding; Organizational Culture; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry