Publications

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October 2015 (Revised January 2017)
Case

P&G Canada: Old Company, New Tricks

By: Brian J. Hall, Tiffany Y. Chang and Theresa Morin Hall

P&G Canada faces ongoing global pressure to increase productivity and reduce spending. Thom Lachman, president of P&G Canada, is seemingly out of options that will make a large enough impact without harming the business, until the idea of a radical space reduction... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Human Resources; Change Management; Transition; Consumer Products Industry; Canada

29 May 2007
First Look

First Look: May 29, 2007

worldwide. The organization is at a crossroads as it attempts to reach the ambitious goal of serving 10% of the 20 million Egyptians living in poverty by 2023, while at the same time developing the local NGO capacity to serve the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July 2020
Teaching Plan

Girls Who Code

By: Brian Trelstad and Amy Klopfenstein

This teaching plan serves as a supplement to HBS Case No. 320-055, “Girls Who Code.” Founded 2012 by former lawyer Reshma Saujani, Girls Who Code (GWC) offered coding education programs to middle- and high school-aged girls. The organization also sought to alter... View Details

March 2025
Article

Do Public Financial Statements Influence Private Equity and Venture Capital Financing?

By: Brian K. Baik, Natalie Berfeld and Rodrigo S. Verdi

We study whether private firm public financial statements influence the probability of raising venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) financing. In particular, we propose that private firms’ public financial statements can help the VC/PE search process by... View Details

Keywords: Business Economics; Search Costs; Accounting; Venture Capital; Governance; Private Equity; Financial Statements

SSRN

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10 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, October 10, 2017

doctrines more narrowly construed. The first decade of the twenty-first century, bookended by 9/11 and a global financial crisis, witnessed the clamorous and urgent return of both “the political” and “the economic” to historiographical... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Sep 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, September 5, 2017

sports television network in the U.S., Street League President Brian Atlas had become impatient with the network’s lack of support. Atlas planned to meet with network representatives in the coming months to discuss their 2014 contract,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2002
Supplement

Circon

By: Brian J. Hall and Guhan Subramanian

This case consists of two parts. Part one contains portions of a panel discussion on corporate governance, the poison pill, and hostile takeover attempts/defenses. Part two contains clips from separate visits by George Cloutier and Richard Auhll to the HBS classroom. View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Strategy

December 2008 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

By: David E. Bell and Brian Matthew Milder

In 2006, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation joined together to form a new organization, AGRA, to tackle the historic challenge of increasing agricultural production in Africa. Launched with much fanfare and led by former U.N.... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Investment Funds; Food; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business and Government Relations; Non-Governmental Organizations; Poverty; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa

October 2021
Article

Can European Electric Utilities Manage Asset Impairments Arising from Net Zero Targets?

By: Conor Hickey, John O'Brien, Ben Caldecott, Celine McInerney and Brian O' Gallachoir

This paper develops a framework to assess the ability of electric utilities to sustain the forced impairment of carbon emitting power plants and applies it to the European market. We present a new method to measure asset impairment, for both the company and the... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Environmental Regulation; Transition; Utilities Industry; Europe

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2014
Working Paper

Linguistic Complexity in Firm Disclosures: Obfuscation or Information?

By: Brian J. Bushee, Ian D. Gow and Daniel Taylor

Prior research argues that the linguistic complexity of a firm’s disclosures reflects managerial obfuscation. However, complex language can be used either to obfuscate or to convey information, with the effect likely depending on the incentives of the source. We... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Financial Reporting

June 2000 (Revised December 2000)
Case

Compensation and Performance Evaluation at Arrow Electronics

By: Brian J. Hall and Carleen Madigan

Describes a company's struggles in implementing a subjective performance rating system for its employees. In particular, it describes the difficulties faced by the CEO in getting managers to combat "ratings inflation"--that is, to produce numerical ratings that are... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits; Electronics Industry

April 2021 (Revised April 2021)
Teaching Plan

Nehemiah Mfg. Co.: Providing a Second Chance

By: Brian Trelstad and John Masko

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 320-008. In 2009, Dan Meyer and Richard Palmer, two veterans of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry, founded Nehemiah Manufacturing to build FMCG brands while providing jobs to Cincinnati, Ohio’s beleaguered urban core. Two... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Employment; Human Capital; Growth Management; Brands and Branding; Social Marketing; Mission and Purpose; Prejudice and Bias; City; Urban Scope; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Ohio; United States

24 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 24, 2006

political conflict and individual and group biases occasioned by organizational differentiation. We categorize the sources of functional bias into intentional, driven by misalignment of incentives, and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Jul 2012
First Look

First Look: July 3

Understanding Variation across Local Communities Authors:Christian Seelos, Johanna Mair, Julie Battilana, and M. Tina Dacin Publication:In Communities and Organizations. Vol. 33, edited by Christopher Marquis, Michael Lounsbury, and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2020
Case

LifeBank Nigeria

By: Brian Trelstad, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal

The aspiration of addressing maternal deaths in Nigeria, which were mostly caused by blood shortages, led Temie Giwa-Tubosun to found LifeBank in 2015. LifeBank developed an online platform that enabled hospitals to connect and purchase blood from local blood banks and... View Details

Keywords: Systems Design; Social Business; Business At The Base Of The Pyramid; Health Care; Blood; Social Enterprise; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Finance; Health Industry; Transportation Industry; Africa; Nigeria

September 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Sawiris Foundation: Elevating Education in Egypt

By: Brian Trelstad and Alpana Thapar

Founded in 2001 by the Sawiris family, one of the wealthiest families in Egypt, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD) invested in human capital and provision of basic social services for the most marginalized Egyptians. In 2015, Noura Selim’s (MBA 2013)... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Development; Social Enterprise; Education; Social Issues; Partners and Partnerships; Growth and Development Strategy; Education Industry; Egypt

September 2004 (Revised June 2005)
Case

Otis Elevator: Accelerating Business Transformation with IT

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Brian DeLacey

Focuses on a major transformation of Otis Elevator's infrastructure. Led by the CEO, this transformation represents a remarkable long-term reengineering of all the processes of the firm to drive its operating costs down and service image up. The transformation is the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Cost Management; Infrastructure; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology

28 Feb 2019
Interview

Pursuing Precision Medicine at Intermountain Healthcare

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Brian Kenny