Publications

04 Jan 2022
What Do You Think?

Firing McDonald’s Easterbrook: What Could the Board Have Done Differently?

offender and hope that he would apologize and go quietly, sparing the company bad publicity in the long run. Perhaps investors, employees, and others would forget the entire matter. Alternatively, the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

September 2003
Case

Driving Change at Seagate

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Douglas A Raymond and Lyn Baranowski

A new CEO, Steve Luczo, together with COO Bill Watkins, have led a turnaround of Seagate, raising productivity dramatically and increasing innovation through teamwork, cross-functional collaboration, and other transformations in the culture of this manufacturer of disk... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development; Transformation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Groups and Teams; Performance Productivity; Initial Public Offering; Going Public; Information Technology Industry

May 1998 (Revised February 1999)
Case

Diamond in the Rough (A)

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Catherine M. Conneely

Diamond Technology Partners, a consulting firm based in Chicago, was founded in 1994 by Mel Bergstein and Chris Moffitt, with investment from founding partners and Safeguard Scientifics. In April 1996, just after fiscal year-end, the two largest clients withdrew from... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Entrepreneurship; Going Public; Crisis Management; Finance; Consulting Industry; Chicago

25 Jul 2020
News

Don't hold your breath for a coronavirus vaccine. Here are 7 big challenges we need to overcome

July 2000 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Sycamore Networks

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Daniel J. Green

Founders Desh Deshpande and Dan Smith reflect on Sycamore's sales strategies and consider how going public might affect the morale of its key employees. In the optical networking sector, technological change and exploding demand has created a market for talent in which... View Details

Keywords: Applied Optics; Entrepreneurship; Sales; Business Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Retention; Employees; Communication Technology; Technological Innovation; Communications Industry; Telecommunications Industry

23 Jan 2024
Book

More Than Memes: NFTs Could Be the Next Gen Deed for a Digital World

verify ownership—and potentially exchange it—NFTs enable markets to emerge. NFTs have enabled trade in digital images and media files (such as those Ape images we mentioned), as well as new business models around everything from rewards programs to online education.... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Information Technology; Technology; Financial Services

March 1992 (Revised December 1992)
Case

Harley-Davidson, Inc.--1987

By: W. Carl Kester and Julia Morley

After an LBO and near bankruptcy in the early 1980s, Harley-Davidson makes an astonishing recovery, going public in 1986. Its listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1987 provides the occasion of an equity analyst to publish a research report in which she must issue... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Currency Exchange Rate; Reports; Crisis Management; Going Public; Research; Competition; Auto Industry; Japan; New York (city, NY)

18 Oct 2010
Lessons from the Classroom

Venture Capital’s Disconnect with Clean Tech

going public or getting bought. A few clean-tech start-ups, including Tesla and A123 Systems, have gone public, but many others appear stalled. Solyndra announced plans to file for an IPO in December 2009,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities; Financial Services

04 Oct 2017
HBS Seminar

Tania Babina, Columbia Business School

March 2007 (Revised September 2019)
Case

Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.: An IPO in India

By: Felda Hardymon, Joshua Lerner and Ann Leamon

The executives of Motilal Oswal Financial Services, Ltd., one of the largest brokerages in India, are considering an IPO on the Indian markets. The company recently received a small private equity investment from two global private equity firms, which it has not yet... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Initial Public Offering; Investment; Emerging Markets; Financial Services Industry; India

June 2010
Supplement

Digital Link (B)

The Digital Link (A) and (B) cases present the struggles of a small public technology company to get and maintain analyst and investor attention during the "dot-com boom" of the 1990's. The case can be used in MBA or Executive Education classes. The (A) case takes... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Privatization

Find at Harvard

November 2013
Article

Investment Cycles and Startup Innovation

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We find that VC-backed firms receiving their initial investment in hot markets are more likely to go bankrupt, but conditional on going public are valued higher on the day of their IPO, have more patents, and have more citations to their patents. Our results suggest... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Market Cycles; Financing Risk; Risk and Uncertainty; Venture Capital; Investment; Innovation and Invention