Publications

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April 2005 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Pegasus Capital: The Musimundo Decision

By: Michael Chu and Barbara Zepp Larson

The five managing directors of Pegasus Capital were meeting in June 2003 to make a go/no-go decision regarding the investment of Musimundo, one of the largest entertainment retailers in Argentina. Just four days before the planned closing of the sale, Pegasus' 50%... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Debates; Decision Choices and Conditions; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Financial Crisis; Music Entertainment; Investment; Business or Company Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Opportunities; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Argentina

Srikant M. Datar became the eleventh dean of Harvard Business School on 1 January 2021. During his tenure as a faculty member, he served as Senior Associate Dean for University Affairs (including Faculty Chair of the Harvard Innovation Lab), for Research, for... View Details

Keywords: accounting industry; airline; automobiles; banking; biotechnology; communications; consumer products; e-commerce industry; health care; high technology; investment banking industry; management consulting; manufacturing; pharmaceuticals; venture capital industry

August 2020 (Revised November 2024)
Case

NextView Ventures

By: Jo Tango and Nori Gerardo Lietz

David Beisel, Rob Go, and Lee Hower are non-partners at different-and-established venture capital (VC) firms. They decide to leave their positions to start a new seed-stage VC firm. The case covers the genesis of the firm, the formulation of its strategy and... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Strategy

February 2025
Case

Hyperscaling Dreams: Ualá’s Path from Startup to Fintech Champion

By: Juan Alcacer and Manuel Franck

Ualá, founded by Pierpaolo Barbieri in 2017, is a fast-growing fintech company on a mission to revolutionize financial services in Latin America. Starting with a 14-person team and a prepaid card linked to a digital app, Ualá rapidly expanded into a comprehensive... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Leadership; Venture Capital; Talent and Talent Management; Strategy; Credit; Banking Industry; Argentina; Mexico; Colombia; Latin America

October 2005 (Revised February 2008)
Case

Sales Force Integration at FedEx (A)

By: David B. Godes

Federal Express' (FedEx) recent acquisition of RPS--a ground delivery firm--gave the firm the potential to offer a single source for a client's delivery needs. However, to deliver on this potential, the firm needed to deliver the integrated solution through a single... View Details

Keywords: Horizontal Integration; Salesforce Management; Transportation; Compensation and Benefits; Transportation Industry

Research Summary

Managing the Manufacturer-Retailer Interface

By: Janice H. Hammond

Janice H. Hammond is studying the impact of coordination on the performance of manufacturing and retail channels. The focus of her research is on the supply "channel", the set of firms that undertakes the chain of activities that begins with acquisition of raw... View Details

November 2021
Case

LKQ-Stahlgruber

By: Guhan Subramanian and Caeden Brynie

Through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions, LKQ Corp. became the leading aftermarket auto parts distributor in the U.S. by the early 2000s. Beginning in 2012, the company began similarly consolidating the European marketplace. However, by 2017, the... View Details

Keywords: Consolidation; Acquisition; Decision Making; Strategy; Opportunities; Europe; Germany

11 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 11

that it would merge with American Airlines to create the world’s largest airline. Doug Parker, the CEO of US Airways, would become CEO of the new American Airlines Group (AAL). The case describes a number of critical decisions Parker made View Details

2011
Working Paper

From Single Deals to Negotiation Campaigns

By: David A Lax and James K. Sebenius

Negotiation scholars typically take the individual deal, or a few linked deals, as the unit of analysis. While analyzing one deal requires a familiar conceptual framework, doing the same for a broader "negotiation campaign" calls for a different focus and set of... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Deal; Framework; Business Subsidiaries; Agreements and Arrangements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Information Management; Finance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Business and Government Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues

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May 2007
Article

Corporate Financing Decisions When Investors Take the Path of Least Resistance

By: Malcolm Baker, Joshua Coval and Jeremy Stein

We explore the consequences for corporate financial policy that arise when investors exhibit inertial behavior. One implication of investor inertia is that, all else equal, a firm pursuing a strategy of equity-financed growth will prefer a stock-for-stock merger to... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Investment; Policy; Corporate Finance

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August 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

Busbud: Building a Data Company

By: Srikant M. Datar, Alistair Croll and Caitlin N. Bowler

The case features the work of LP Maurice (HBS '08) as he decides to take on the fragmented bus travel industry and launch an online business that aggregates and shares bus schedules for routes around the world. His first challenge: finding that the data he needs is... View Details

Keywords: Data Science; Analytics and Data Science; Business Startups; Knowledge Acquisition; Customers; Measurement and Metrics; Transportation Industry

Research Summary

Globalization & Corporate Transformation in India

By: Nitin Nohria

Political and economic reforms in India, which started in 1992, have led to a dramatic transformation of Indian companies. The first decade of this transformation focused on improving operational efficiency to rival world class competitors. Having proved to themselves... View Details

July 2019 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Peabody Essex Museum: What Next?

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Jeffrey F. Rayport

The case describes the 25-year transformation of Peabody Essex Museum, which was created in 1993 by the merger of two sub-scale predecessor cultural institutions, operating since 1799, in Salem, Massachusetts. Dan Monroe, its founding CEO, began a process of building... View Details

Keywords: Museums; Strategy; Leadership; Transformation; Innovation Leadership; Strategic Planning

February 2015
Case

Beckman Coulter, 2011

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In early 2011, Danaher was contemplating the acquisition of Beckman Coulter. With $3.7 billion of revenues in 2010 and $431 million in operating profits, California-based Beckman Coulter was a global leader in blood cell count diagnostic systems and also supplied a... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

March 2021 (Revised February 2025)
Teaching Note

Afterpay U.S.: The Omnichannel Dilemma

By: Antonio Moreno and Anibha Singh

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-086. In 2018, Nick Molnar, the founder of the Australia-based online payment service Afterpay began its expansion to the U.S. market. The service had gained a loyal following in Australia by enabling customers to pay for online... View Details

March 2012
Article

The Incentive Bubble

By: Mihir Desai

The past three decades have seen American capitalism quietly transformed by a single, powerful idea—that financial markets are a suitable tool for measuring performance and structuring compensation. Stock instruments for managers, high-powered incentive contracts for... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Financial Markets; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Equality and Inequality; Human Capital; United States

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November 2012 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Talking Strategy at Greighton Partners

By: Boris Groysberg and Kerry Herman

Since its inception, London-based private equity firm Greighton Partners had managed over $15 billion in investor capital. The firm employed about 150 professionals around the globe and had completed over 175 company acquisitions since its founding. Started with a... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Asia; Europe

January 2025
Case

Real Madrid Club de Fútbol

By: Anita Elberse, Juan Pasquín and Íñigo Pasquín

On June 1, 2024, Spanish soccer club Real Madrid captures its fifteenth Champions League title—more than double the tally of the nearest competitor. Under Florentino Pérez’s leadership, the club has now won six of the last eleven UEFA Champions League titles, and has... View Details

Keywords: Sports; Soccer; Football; Entertainment; Media; Talent Management; Superstars; Marketing; Strategy; General Management