Publications

May 2019
Background Note

Founders' Agreements

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Shweta Bagai and Sanchali Pal

Crafting a Founders’ Agreement is an important component of startup infrastructure as it documents a complex set of decisions that build a company’s roots. Its four key elements are: roles and responsibilities, rights (decision rights, rewards, position on board),... View Details

Keywords: Founders' Agreements; Team Management; Contingency Planning; Business Startups; Equity; Entrepreneurship

Educators

18 Feb 2002
Research & Ideas

Wrap-up: Software, Telecom, and Recovery

manage funds of half a billion dollars or more now face the challenge of creating processes that are appropriate for a large team rather than individual venture capitalists, as in family-style firms of the... View Details

Keywords: by Wendy Guild & Martha Lagace; Financial Services; Technology; Communications; Telecommunications

21 Jan 2016
Blog Post

HBS and the Arts

opportunity to combine my interests in art and finance by working for an asset management firm where I helped to establish a group focused on financial services for the art community. We worked with museums,... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government; Entertainment / Media / Sports

2017
Working Paper

Task Selection and Workload: A Focus on Completing Easy Tasks Hurts Long-Term Performance

By: Diwas S. KC, Bradley R. Staats, Maryam Kouchaki and Francesca Gino

How individuals manage, organize, and complete their tasks is central to operations management. Recent research in operations focuses on how under conditions of increasing workload, individuals can increase their service time, up to a point, to complete work more... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Decision Making; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Productivity

SSRN

January 2025
Article

Overcoming Barriers to Employee Ownership: Insights from Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

By: John Guzek and Ashley Whillans

This research investigates the limited adoption of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) among small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. Through interviews with 30 SMB owners across various industries, we identify the key barriers to ESOP adoption as lack of... View Details

Keywords: Profit Sharing; Employee Ownership; Management Practices and Processes; Compensation and Benefits; Small Business; Adoption; Employees

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Web

Course Overview - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

so that the faculty are well-informed about each CEO’s business issues. Participants are asked to prepare a short prior assignment that encourages personal reflection on the challenges they face and how to address them. View Details

January 2023
Teaching Note

The Opioid Settlement and Executive Pay at AmerisourceBergen

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

Teaching Note for HBS Case No 122-014. In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged... View Details

December 2006 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Lion Capital and the Blackstone Group: The Orangina Deal

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

The managing partners of two private equity firms are hoping to forestall a third bidding round for a target company, the European beverage division of Cadbury Schweppes. As they wait to meet with the CEO, they revisit their assumptions on the deal and review the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Private Equity; Negotiation Deal; Negotiation Process; Partners and Partnerships; Valuation; Europe

Educators

2019
Article

The Social Desirability of Offshoring: A Swiss Consensus (1945–1975)

By: Sabine Pitteloud

This article focuses on the evolution of the rhetoric and practice of corporate offshoring in Switzerland from the post-war economic boom to the industrial crisis in the mid-seventies. The virtue of a historical perspective on the issue of offshoring is to show how... View Details

Keywords: Multinationals; Offshoring And Outsourcing; Relocation; Labor Relations; Multinational Firms and Management; Labor and Management Relations; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Switzerland

Register to Read

22 Feb 2023
Blog Post

Meet the Disability Advocacy and Affinity Group (DAAG)

Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. Prior to HBS, I worked as a process engineer for Procter & Gamble and then in engineering and business roles... View Details

18 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 18, 2018

learning capabilities intertwine with managerial cognitive capabilities to support the processes of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring. We draw from the literature on team learning to develop four... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

02 Apr 2009
Working Paper Summaries

The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization

Keywords: by Maria Guadalupe & Julie M. Wulf

23 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Psychology, Pathology, and the CEO

market share. Its Mach3 shaving system was a blockbuster product, but the company was suffering the effects of its own reliance on trade loading—the practice of offering discounts to retail customers at the end of a quarter in order to... View Details

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

August 2013
Case

Pixability: Bettina's Board Walk

By: Noam Wasserman and Yael Braid

Description: Bettina Hein, founder-CEO of Pixability, is meeting with her board of directors to discuss her startup's fundraising prospects and the recent strategic pivot. Though Bettina loves the entrepreneurial exhilaration of "riding a rollercoaster every day,"... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Board Of Directors; Power And Influence; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation

Educators

March 2014
Module Note

Implementing Environmentally Sustainable Operations

By: Michael W. Toffel

29 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

The History and Influence of Andy Grove

biographer Richard S. Tedlow puts it, Grove was "one of the master managers in the history of American business." A new biography, Andy Grove: The Life and Times of an American, will debut next... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Computer

2011
Article

Regulatory Uncertainty and Corporate Responses to Environmental Protection in China

By: Christopher Marquis, Jianjun Zhang and Yanhua Zhou

We develop a framework to analyze the closing gap between regulation and enforcement of environmental protection in China and present a number of resulting implications for doing business there. We identify three major dimensions that characterize change in regulatory... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Law Enforcement; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Business Ventures; Alignment; Risk and Uncertainty; Natural Environment; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Competitive Strategy; China

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