Publications

July 2008
Case

Aurora Capital Group - Douglas Dynamics

Aurora Capital, a U.S. Private Equity firm, contemplates whether to acquire Douglas Dynamics, the leading U.S. maker of snow plows. Does a business that is highly dependent on the weather, and is seasonal, make a good LBO candidate? This case provides a good... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Private Equity; Investment; Goods and Commodities; Value Creation

February 2013
Article

Towards an Understanding of the Role of Standard Setters in Standard Setting

By: Abigail M. Allen and Karthik Ramanna

We investigate the effect of standard setters in standard setting: we examine how certain professional and political characteristics of FASB members and SEC commissioners predict the accounting "reliability" and "relevance" of proposed standards. Notably, we find FASB... View Details

Keywords: FASB; Politics; Relevance; Reliability; Standard Setting; Accounting; Standards; Fair Value Accounting; Government and Politics; Personal Characteristics

SSRN

September 2009 (Revised September 2010)
Case

Avid Radiopharmaceuticals and Lighthouse Capital Partners

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Ann Leamon

In fall 2008, a venture lender must decide whether to make a loan to Avid, a small but promising venture-backed life sciences firm. In reviewing her proposal, Cristy Barnes considers the company's characteristics and how they differ from a typical investment. At the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Financing and Loans; Investment; Financial Services Industry; Health Industry

December 15, 2023
Article

What Every Leader Needs to Know About Carbon Credits

By: Varsha Ramesh Walsh and Michael W. Toffel

Many companies have begun to look into credits to offset their emissions as a way to support their net zero goals as their target years get closer and closer. As it stands, the carbon credit market is too small to bear the brunt of reducing companies’ impacts on the... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Credits; Climate; Accounting; Carbon Offsetting; Carbon Abatement; Carbon Emissions; Carbon Footprint; Climate Change; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Regulation

Article

Optimizing Organic Waste to Energy Operations

By: Baris Ata, Deishin Lee and Mustafa H. Tongarlak

A waste-to-energy firm that recycles organic waste with energy recovery performs two environmentally beneficial functions: it diverts waste from landfill and it produces renewable energy. At the same time, the waste-to-energy firm serves and collects revenue from two... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Energy Generation; Renewable Energy; Revenue; Customers; Strategy; Corporate Governance; Wastes and Waste Processing; Environmental Sustainability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Cost Management; Urban Scope

2024
Working Paper

Navigating Software Vulnerabilities: Eighteen Years of Evidence from Medium and Large U.S. Organizations

By: Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Ran Zhuo and Shane Greenstein

How prevalent are severe software vulnerabilities, how fast do software users respond to the availability of secure versions, and what determines the variance in the installation distribution? Using the largest dataset ever assembled on user updates, tracking server... View Details

Keywords: Cybersecurity; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Consumer Behavior

2022
Working Paper

Feeling Seen: Leader Eye Gaze Promotes Psychological Safety, Participation, and Voice

By: Nicole Abi-Esber, Alison Wood Brooks and Ethan Burris

Psychological safety is a hallmark of effective team functioning. Although prior work shows that characteristics of the leader influence employee judgments of psychological safety (and subsequent decisions to speak up), we know very little about “the specific behaviors... View Details

Keywords: Eye Gaze; Psychological Safety; Voice; Participation; Nonverbal Behavior; Verbal Behavior; Ostracism; Conversation; Groups; Groups and Teams; Social Psychology; Safety; Leadership; Behavior

17 Jul 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Why Do We Redistribute So Much but Tag So Little? The Principle of Equal Sacrifice and Optimal Taxation

Keywords: by Matthew Weinzierl

28 Jun 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Film Rentals and Procrastination: A Study of Intertemporal Reversals in Preferences and Intrapersonal Conflict

Keywords: by Katy Milkman, Todd Rogers & Max H. Bazerman; Entertainment & Recreation

January 1974 (Revised January 1987)
Case

Gillette Safety Razor Division: Blank Cassette Project

Gillette is trying to decide whether to enter the fast-growing blank recording cassette business. The vice president of new business development is charged with developing a marketing plan to be used as the basis for a go/no go decision. In part, the issue is whether... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Consumer Products Industry

17 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Why Global Brands Work

world. They're no longer on that list, but Toyota now is. How did Toyota—and the other nine companies—do it? There are 5 characteristics that all top global brands have in common: 1. The same positioning worldwide. This provides a... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Auto

06 Apr 2009
Research & Ideas

Cheers to the American Consumer

Editor's Note: Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes a blog on marketing issues, called Marketing Know: How, for Harvard Business Online. It is reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge. A recent Economist magazine includes a special report on entrepreneurship... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

March 2023 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Wilshire Lane Capital

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Lindsay N. Hyde and Stacy Straaberg

In September 2021, Adam Demuyakor (MBA 2017) was faced with decisions about how to launch his venture capital (VC) investment firm. His previous investment activities were a series of angel investments and special purpose vehicles alongside two part-time general... View Details

Keywords: Ownership Stake; Investment Funds; Venture Capital; Business and Shareholder Relations; Real Estate Industry; Technology Industry; Los Angeles; California; United States

2021
Working Paper

The Project on Impact Investments' Impact Investment Database

By: M. Diane Burton, Shawn Cole, Abhishek Dev, Christina Jarymowycz, Leslie Jeng, Josh Lerner, Fanele Mashwama, Yue (Cynthia) Xu and T. Robert Zochowski

Impact investing has grown significantly over the past 15 years. From a niche investing segment with only $25 billion AUM in 2013 (WEF 2013), it experienced double-digit growth and developed into a market with an estimated $502 billion AUM (Mudaliapar and Dithrich... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Investment; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis

SSRN

December 2021
Case

Grace Capital

By: Sara Fleiss, Robin Greenwood, Eren Kuzucu and Denise Han

In March 2020, the global pandemic was delivering a dose of volatility to the U.S. economy. Catherine Faddis, the CIO of Grace Capital, a Boston-based long-only equity manager, analyzed movements in her portfolio while eyeing previously shelved opportunities to invest... View Details

Keywords: Preferred Stock; COVID-19 Pandemic; Economy; Health Pandemics; Volatility; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Investment; Strategy; Decision Making; Investment Portfolio; Financial Services Industry; United States

Research Summary

Masters of Strategy

By: David B. Yoffie

Over the last two decades, Professor Yoffie has written numerous cases on Intel, Microsoft, and Apple. In a new research project with Professor Michael Cusumano of MIT, the authors are examining what made Andy Grove of Intel, Bill Gates of Microsoft, and Steve Jobs... View Details

March 2016
Article

The Cost of Friendship

By: Paul A. Gompers, Vladimir Mukharlyamov and Yuhai Xuan

We investigate how personal characteristics affect people's desire to collaborate and whether this attraction enhances or detracts from performance in venture capital. We find that venture capitalists who share the same ethnic, educational, or career background are... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Partners and Partnerships; Entrepreneurship; Personal Characteristics

June 2017
Article

Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol

By: Silvia Bellezza, Neeru Paharia and Anat Keinan

While research on conspicuous consumption has typically analyzed how people spend money on products that signal status, we investigate conspicuous consumption in relation to time. We argue that a busy and overworked lifestyle, rather than a leisurely lifestyle, has... View Details

Keywords: Status and Position; Perspective; North America; Europe