Publications

June 2025
Case

Vail Resorts: Responding to Activist Pressure (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer

On January 27, 2025, the head of a relatively small hedge fund named Late Apex Partners sent a highly critical letter to the board of directors of Vail Resorts, the world’s largest ski resort operator. In his letter, and the 88-slide presentation that accompanied his... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Finance; Capital Budgeting; Corporate Governance; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Leading Change; Valuation; Investment Activism; Climate Change; Management Succession; Financial Management; Risk Management; Business and Shareholder Relations; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Travel Industry; United States; Australia; Canada

September 2007
Article

Investigative Negotiation

By: Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. Negotiators often fail to achieve results because they channel too much effort into... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Tactics; Motivation and Incentives; Perspective; Pharmaceutical Industry

Find at Harvard

06 May 2021
HBS Case

How Four Women Made Miami More Equitable for Startups

small fish in a huge, huge ocean. You won’t get into any of the accelerators. It's just too bro-ville." But Tuchman was determined to do business in Miami. “In San Francisco and New York you’re a View Details

Keywords: by Carolyn DiPaolo

Program

Foundations of Private Equity and Venture Capital

executives from various backgrounds, industries, and countries across the globe Build relationships with a diverse group of peers who can provide wide-ranging insights into your business challenges and career decisions Who Should Attend... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Finance

19 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

Fed Up Workers and Supply Woes: What's Next for Dollar Stores?

stores,” which now outnumber all of the Starbucks and McDonald’s in the United States combined. They will account for 40 percent of all new store openings this year, according to a Coresight Research report. Willy Shih, the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Management... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Retail

14 Sep 2018
Blog Post

10 Things I Learned During My First Month in the MS/MBA: Engineering Sciences Program

skills with big-picture business vision. I chose Harvard’s MS/MBA: Engineering Sciences Program to become a strong leader while also refining the skills I would need to succeed in deeply technical fields. I arrived in Boston on an... View Details

13 Jan 2021
Research & Ideas

How 'Small C' Change Can Beat Large-Scale Rebuilding

German Soccer League over a season. Our research results show that leaders can reinvigorate a failing business using team members already in charge, and without large-scale change of direction. We observed that View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Sascha L. Schmidt, and Sebastian Flegr; Sports

04 Feb 2002
Research & Ideas

How a Juicy Brand Came Back to Life

Rush Limbaugh. Stern was an especially effective spokesperson. He got to know the founders of the business personally and conveyed to his listeners a genuine and infectious regard for the products and the people behind them. The brand's... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton; Food & Beverage

October 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Thermax—Changing of the Guard

By: Christina R. Wing and Inakshi Sobti

Thermax is an engineering company in India that provides integrated solutions in energy, environment, and chemicals. The Aga family along with family trusts owns 62% of the company. Post a restructuring exercise in 2000, Thermax transforms itself from a small family... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Transformation; Business Conglomerates; Strategy; Management Succession; Selection and Staffing; Organizational Culture

01 Nov 2016
First Look

First Look - November 1, 2016

seeks to complete its clinical trials with very little startup funding and a small staff when compared to its competitors. Purchase this case: https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/315045-PDF-ENG Harvard View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2014
Article

The Consequences of Entrepreneurial Finance: Evidence from Angel Financings

By: William R. Kerr, Josh Lerner and Antoinette Schoar

This paper documents that ventures that are funded by two successful angel groups experience superior outcomes to rejected ventures: they have improved survival, exits, employment, patenting, web traffic, and financing. We use strong discontinuities in angel funding... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Financing and Loans; Interests; Employment; Patents; Internet and the Web; Operations; Entrepreneurship; Business Exit or Shutdown

Read Now

14 Jun 2023
Research & Ideas

Four Steps to Building the Psychological Safety That High-Performing Teams Need

Perks like remote work or unlimited vacation time might be nice, but when it comes to true fulfillment in a post-pandemic workscape, psychological safety is essential. Harvard Business School Professor Amy C. Edmondson coined the term... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

23 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Are Great Teams Less Productive?

Learning promotes performance—is there any argument? Without learning, organizations, teams, and managers are stuck in yesterday's world. In fact, says Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, there are built-in tensions between... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

October 2002 (Revised December 2003)
Case

eShip-4U

By: Roy D. Shapiro and Timothy M. Laseter

eShip is a small Israeli start-up with a potentially exciting new concept for the residential package-delivery value chain--the Automatic Delivery Machine (ADM). Much like today's ubiquitous ATMs, ADMs would allow consumers to have parcels delivered to a nearby ADM... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Model; Service Operations; Logistics; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation; Saving; Innovation and Invention; Transportation Industry; Service Industry; Shipping Industry; Israel; United States

19 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

$15 Billion in Five Years: What Data Tells Us About MacKenzie Scott’s Philanthropy

infrastructure that were likely to be able to use such large unrestricted grants effectively. The typical nonprofit in the US is very small in terms of revenue. The average grant size among organizations that reported them was $8.4... View Details

Keywords: by Matthew Lee, Brian Trelstad, and Ethan Tran

June 2015
Case

Beacon Group of Hong Kong: Finding Light in the Shadow Education Industry

By: Christopher Marquis, Qi Li and Guy Leung

After more than 25 years of operation, Beacon Group had grown from having 3 small classrooms on the fourth floor of a commercial building, to a network of 21 centers across Hong Kong with over 60,000 students enrolled per year. The key long-term challenge for the... View Details

Keywords: Online Education; Education; Tutoring; Incentives; Hong Kong; Motivation and Incentives; Internet and the Web; Family Business; Education Industry; Hong Kong

September 1998 (Revised May 1999)
Case

Arnold Communications

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Jeremiah Weinstock

The new owner and CEO of Arnold Advertising, a relatively small regional agency, aims to build it into Arnold Communications--a much larger, stronger firm competing successfully for national accounts. As part of this growth strategy, the agency develops a process for... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Creativity; Entrepreneurship; Advertising; Business Processes; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Advertising Industry