Publications

May 1996 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Ecolab, Inc.

By: Ashish Nanda

By 1993, Ecolab has established a dominant market position in the institutional cleaning industry. As the company’s principal competitor, Diversify, drives sales aggressively, Ecolab president Al Schuman faces a choice about how best to market Ecolab’s offerings.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Employees; Retention; Marketing Strategy; Risk Management; Service Industry

November 2018
Case

The Bundesliga in the U.S.

By: Stephen A. Greyser, Sascha L. Schmidt and Florian Holzmayer

The Bundesliga, Germany’s premier football (soccer) league, is assessing its global broadcast and marketing strategy, with special focus on the very lucrative but highly competitive U.S. market. Its CEO Christian Seifert believed that a strong international position... View Details

Keywords: Media; Sports; Global Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Sports Industry; United States

October 2011 (Revised June 2014)
Case

inge watertechnologies, GmbH

By: Ramana Nanda, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Markus Mittermaier

Using the financing history and exit choices of a German clean-tech startup as a lens, this case explores the reasons why venture-backed entrepreneurship is much lower in Germany than the US, despite a robust SME sector and large-corporate innovation in Germany. It... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Finance; Venture Capital; Negotiation; Entrepreneurship; Technology Industry; Germany

December 2004 (Revised March 2007)
Case

Cutlass Capital, L.P.

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Brian DeLacey

David Hetz and Jon Osgood are forming a new venture capital fund in 2001 to invest in health care start-ups. Describes their fundraising activities at a time when venture capital investing has reached an all-time high. Although their background skills and experiences... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Negotiation Process; Entrepreneurship; Investment Funds; Health Care and Treatment; Business Startups; Health Industry; United States

Ana Antolin is a doctoral candidate in the Strategy unit at Harvard Business School. She received her B.S. in Quantitative Economics and International Relations from Tufts University. Prior to joining Harvard, she worked as a full-time research assistant in... View Details

August 2014 (Revised September 2016)
Case

ANA (A)

By: Doug J. Chung and Mayuka Yamazaki

All Nippon Airways (ANA) became the largest airline in Japan in 2013. Having been designated as a domestic carrier by the Japanese government till the mid-1980s and Japan being the sixth largest domestic airline market, two-thirds of ANA’s passenger revenue came from... View Details

Keywords: Demand and Consumers; Analysis; Economics; Price; Marketing Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Product; Policy; Air Transportation Industry; Japan

February 2024
Case

FIGS: Scrubbing the Status Quo

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Nicole Tempest Keller

In October 2023, FIGS had revolutionized the medical scrubs industry with its fashionable and functional designs, but the venture was at a critical juncture. The digitally native vertical brand (DNVB) had gone public in a successful IPO in 2021 and reached $500 million... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Channels; Corporate Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry; United States; California; Los Angeles; Europe; Canada

2016
Working Paper

Managers' Cultural Background and Disclosure Attributes

By: Francois Brochet, Gregory S. Miller, Patricia Naranjo and Gwen Yu

We examine how a manager’s ethnic cultural background affects managers’ communication with investors. Using a sample of earnings conference calls transcripts with 26,430 executives from 42 countries, we find that managers from ethnic groups that have a more... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure Tone; Individualism; Conference Calls; Ethnic Group; Management Style; Communication Intention and Meaning; Ethnicity; Corporate Disclosure; Financial Reporting

SSRN

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11 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

so the trading companies followed in the wake. A final determinant of the diversification of the British trading companies in particular was capital availability arising from Britain's booming capital... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

2009
Working Paper

Labor Regulations and European Private Equity

By: Ant Bozkaya and William R. Kerr

European nations substitute between employment protection regulations and labor market expenditures (e.g., unemployment insurance benefits) for providing worker insurance. Employment regulations more directly tax firms making frequent labor adjustments than other labor... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Private Equity; Insurance; Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Taxation; Employment; Europe

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May 2012
Article

Global, Local, and Contagious Investor Sentiment

By: Malcolm Baker, Jeffrey Wurgler and Yu Yuan

We construct investor sentiment indices for six major stock markets and decompose them into one global and six local indices. In a validation test, we find that relative sentiment is correlated with the relative prices of dual-listed companies. Global sentiment is a... View Details

Keywords: Business and Shareholder Relations; Globalization; Stocks; Markets; Capital; Financial Services Industry

Find at Harvard

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10 Mar 2020
News

Why Capitalists Need to Save Democracy

Emil N. Siriwardane

Emil Siriwardane is an associate professor of business administration in the Finance Unit.

Professor Siriwardane’s research studies the ways in which financial intermediaries influence capital markets, how perceptions of risk impact business cycles,... View Details

2009
Working Paper

Labor Regulations and European Private Equity

By: Ant Bozkaya and William R. Kerr

European nations substitute between employment protection regulations and labor market expenditures (e.g., unemployment insurance benefits) for providing worker insurance. Employment regulations more directly tax firms making frequent labor adjustments than other labor... View Details

Keywords: Employment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Taxation; Insurance; Investment; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Europe

David E. Bell is a Baker Foundation Professor at HBS. He has taught marketing many times in the MBA program including as course head.

During his career at HBS, David has taught a variety of other courses to both MBAs and executives, including risk... View Details

Keywords: marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry

26 Apr 2023
In Practice

Is AI Coming for Your Job?

irrelevant construct when considering how to harness generative AI’s capabilities. Processes ranging from negotiating contracts with vendors to developing marketing messages will be redesigned from the ground up in order to exploit the... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Technology

July 2022
Case

boAt Lifestyle

By: Rajiv Lal and Kairavi Dey

boAt began as a lifestyle brand in the consumer electronics category in 2016 with the aim of bringing affordable, durable, and fashionable audio products and accessories to millennials and Gen-Z customers in India. Born in 2016 with Amazon India as its only sales... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands and Branding; Initial Public Offering; Digital Marketing; Product Development; Product Marketing; Business or Company Management; Electronics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Web Services Industry; Asia; India

Career Coach

Kurt Piemonte

Kurt has been helping international students and professionals navigate US immigration regulations for 25 years. He also works with individuals seeking opportunities in Asia, including tactical approaches to identifying organizations and... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Emerging Markets

November 1978 (Revised June 1985)
Case

Hanson Industries (B)

By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Julie H. Hertenstein

Provides a complete description of the processes used in preparing a budget (annual operating plan). Starting with basic product line decisions, management prepares a budget that integrates production and marketing within constraints of financial feasibility. The... View Details

Keywords: Production; Negotiation; Marketing; Financing and Loans; Budgets and Budgeting; Planning