Publications

January 2003 (Revised March 2003)
Case

Southwest Airlines 2002: An Industry Under Siege

By: James L. Heskett

The company's management is faced with long-term questions regarding the rate and manner of growth in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and general industry malaise. View Details

Keywords: Cost; Product; Risk and Uncertainty; Growth and Development; Air Transportation Industry

July 2002 (Revised August 2002)
Supplement

Australia-Japan Cable: Structuring the Project Company

By: Benjamin C. Esty

Spreadsheet to (9-203-024). Download only. View Details

Keywords: Projects; Customers; System; Capital; Competition; Investment Return; Risk and Uncertainty; Telecommunications Industry; Australia; Japan

1971
Chapter

Risk, the Pricing of Capital Assets, and the Evaluation of Investment Portfolios

By: Michael Jensen

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Risk and Uncertainty; Capital; Asset Pricing; Performance Evaluation

July 2012 (Revised June 2018)
Case

MC Tool

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Two partners acquired MC Tool in October 2007 for $5 million. The company was a machine shop that manufactured parts for a wide variety of applications in the energy, automotive, and industrial equipment industries. In their first year of ownership, the partners... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Risk Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Problems and Challenges; Transformation; Production; Business Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; United States

22 May 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 22, 2018

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54476 Trust and Disintermediation: Evidence from an Online Freelance Marketplace By: Gu, Grace, and Feng Zhu Abstract—As an intermediary improves trust between two sides of its market to facilitate matching and... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

23 Dec 2008
First Look

First Look: December 23, 2008

management. This would reduce the danger of an expectations gap opening around particular risk management approaches that are adequate for certain banks but remain ill-suited for others. Finance and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2001
Case

Lakeside

By: Michael A. Wheeler

This case presents an ethical choice: How should a prospective buyer respond when a homeowner quotes a price that the buyer knows is significantly below market value? The case describes a private transaction in which the prospective seller is fully competent mentally... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Price; Negotiation Process; Property; Risk and Uncertainty; Real Estate Industry

01 Dec 2012
News

Corruption 101

Corruption doesn't announce itself with a capital C. It is subtler and thornier than that—as one HBS student learned the hard way during a recent summer internship in Tanzania. In a new case detailing his experience, the student struggles to navigate the systemic... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Finance; Finance; Finance

03 Apr 2019
Book

Fintech's Game-Changing Opportunities for Small Business

firm with fewer than 500 employees, in my book I focus on three kinds: sole proprietorships, Main Street businesses, and suppliers. All three groups seek financing from loans and have traditionally used banks as their source. Of the 30... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Banking; Financial Services

14 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Keeping Credit Flowing to Consumers in Need

The credit crunch and subsequent collapse of the nonprime mortgage market claimed many victims, including hundreds of thousands of low- and moderate-income Americans who lost their homes and savings. Today, regulators and policymakers are debating ways to reform the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

25 Feb 2025
Blog Post

Alumni Career Journey: Lee Scott (MBA 2023) - Scaling Climate Tech Innovation

uncertainty for project finance risk appetite, leaving a capital gap for FOAK projects. Trellis Climate was founded to help startups deploy their FOAK climate projects. In my role, I lead pipeline... View Details

Article

Institutional Portfolio Flows and International Investments

By: K. A. Froot and T. Ramadorai

Keywords: Loss Aversion; International Investment; Portfolio Investment; Asset Allocation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Currency; Investment; Risk Management; Behavioral Finance; Asset Pricing

Find at Harvard

20 Mar 2025
Blog Post

Scaling Climate Tech Innovation with Lee Scott (MBA 2023)

uncertainty for project finance risk appetite, leaving a capital gap for FOAK projects. Trellis Climate was founded to help startups deploy their FOAK climate projects. In my role, I lead pipeline... View Details

06 Dec 2021
News

Truth Be Told

alike are increasingly relying on whistleblowers to prevent and investigate fraud, the professors realized, there is little understanding about the real risks faced by an employee who steps forward. Dey and Heese set out to study the... View Details

Keywords: April White; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices; Management

October 1997 (Revised March 1998)
Case

Komatsu Ltd.: Project G's Globalization

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

This case describes the major strategic and organizational transformation at Komatsu aimed at changing it from a Japan-based producer of construction equipment to a truly global company with the ability to leverage its groupwide portfolio of resources and capabilities... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Construction; Asset Pricing; Investment Portfolio; Global Strategy; Leadership; Resource Allocation; Risk Management; Expansion; Manufacturing Industry; Japan

1998
Chapter

Configuring a Supply Chain to Reduce the Cost of Demand Uncertainty

By: J. H. Hammond, Marshall L. Fisher, Walter Obermeyer and A. Raman

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Cost Management; Demand and Consumers; Risk Management; Risk and Uncertainty

12 Sep 2007
Op-Ed

Building Sandcastles: The Subprime Adventure

the subprime lenders—willing to take the risk on riskier borrowers, for a price. Thus far the tale testifies to America's entrepreneurial spirit. New mortgage banks specializing in subprime loans sprang up. Their panoply of products... View Details

Keywords: by Nicolas P. Retsinas; Banking; Construction; Real Estate

July 1997
Case

Treasury Inflation-Protection Securities (TIPS)

Explores the development of a new product offering based on the first issuance of "real" bonds in the United States. Looks at a specific organization's efforts to position itself to profit from this market development. Follows naturally from a case on nominal bonds. View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Bonds; Inflation and Deflation; United States

2017
Working Paper

Economic Uncertainty and Earnings Management

By: Luke C.D. Stein and Charles C.Y. Wang

In the presence of managerial short-termism and asymmetric information about skill and effort provision, firms may opportunistically shift earnings from uncertain to more certain times. We document empirically that when financial markets are less certain about a firm's... View Details

Keywords: Discretionary Accruals; Uncertainty; Implied Volatility; Earnings Response Coefficient; Risk and Uncertainty; Earnings Management; Financial Markets