Publications

July 2015 (Revised March 2021)
Case

Proxy Contest at DuPont

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Emily McTague

On January 9, 2015, Nelson Peltz of Trian Fund Management launched a proxy fight for four out of the twelve seats on the DuPont board. The fund had previously published a public letter addressed to shareholders outlining its proposal to break the company into three... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Hedge Fund; Activist Investing; Activist Investors; Proxy Fight; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Investment Activism; Chemical Industry; United States

June 2013 (Revised February 2016)
Teaching Note

The LEGO Group: Publish or Protect?

By: Willy Shih

Senior managers at the LEGO Group are faced with a quandary: Should they patent inventions coming out of their manufacturing process development work, should they keep them as trade secrets, or should they publish them so that they would go into the public domain and... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property Management; Spillovers; Intellectual Property; Patents; Knowledge Dissemination; Manufacturing Industry; Europe

24 Jan 2013
News

Training women for corporate combat

Mark N. Roberge

Mark Roberge is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at the Harvard Business School. He teaches Entrepreneurial Sales and Marketing in the second-year MBA program in the Fall term and The Entrepreneurial Manager and Startup Bootcamp in the... View Details

October 2020
Case

Michael Phelps: 'It's Okay to Not Be Okay'

By: Boris Groysberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Michael Norris

In 2020, Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, with 28 medals in various swimming events, was now retired. As he looked back on his 20+ year athletic career, he considered what had gone into making him the greatest of all time—the highs and lows,... View Details

Keywords: Mental Health; Talent and Talent Management; Training; Health; Success; Performance Improvement; Personal Development and Career; Family and Family Relationships; Sports; Competition; Sports Industry; United States; Baltimore; Arizona; Sydney; Athens; Beijing; London

August 2004 (Revised May 2005)
Background Note

Process of "Going Public" in the United States, The

Summarizes the process of going public: the steps for SEC approval, the role of the SEC, and the roles of major players such as underwriters and printers. View Details

Keywords: Going Public; United States

November 1994
Case

VideoGuide, Inc. (A)

By: William A. Sahlman and Jason Green

VideoGuide is emerging from a development stage start-up and requires a significant capital infusion to commercialize its product. Various financing options are considered including going public, venture capital, private placement, or a strategic partner. Given the... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Capital; Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Initial Public Offering; Markets; Partners and Partnerships; Growth and Development Strategy; Going Public

February 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Case

The LEGO Group: Publish or Protect?

By: Willy C. Shih and Sen Chai

Senior managers at the LEGO Group are faced with a quandary: Should they patent inventions coming out of their manufacturing process development work, should they keep them as trade secrets, or should they publish them so that they would go into the public domain and... View Details

November 2012 (Revised September 2013)
Case

The JOBS Act of 2012

By: Lena G. Goldberg

This Note summarizes the potential of the Jobs Act of 2012 to change the way in which emerging growth companies, or EMGs, access capital markets. Described as among the most significant change to US securities laws in over 20 years, the Jobs Act may reduce the burdens... View Details

Keywords: Laws And Regulation; Crowdfunding; IPO; Quiet Period; Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Law; North and Central America

September 2000 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Netflix (2000)

By: E. Scott Mayfield

The CEO of a successful Internet start-up must decide whether to delay the company's initial public offering following a significant decline in the NASDAQ market during the spring of 2000. The company's CFO is asked to reevaluate the company's projected cash flow needs... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Contracts; Initial Public Offering; Cash Flow; Service Delivery; Financial Strategy; Web Services Industry

September 2016
Case

Partners Group: Ain't No Mountain High Enough

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Ricardo Andrade

Partners Group (PG), a Swiss-based PE manager, initiated a series of strategic shifts and evolved from a predominately fund-of-funds manager into a large, multi-asset class PE firm focused on direct investments. PG was the first PE firm to go public in 2006. A number... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Management Practices and Processes; Entrepreneurship

September 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Perella Weinberg Partners: New Firm, Old Values

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aman Malik

In the five years since it opened its doors, the investment banking boutique Perella Weinberg Partners had grown into a firm that advised a roster of blue-chip clients on critical transactions and had over $8 billion of client assets under management. The three... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Investment Banking; Growth and Development; Compensation and Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Going Public; Banking Industry

27 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Should Share Their DEI Data (Even When It’s Unflattering)

studies, the team investigated how consumers respond when companies voluntarily disclose that data, since sharing those numbers with the public is optional. Maya Balakrishnan and Jimin Nam, doctoral students at HBS, wrote the study with... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

regulation. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55884 April 2019 Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Incentives for Public Goods Inside Organizations: Field Experimental Evidence By: Blasco,... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

March 2010
Article

The Evolution of Corporate Ownership after IPO: The Impact of Investor Protection

By: C. Fritz Foley and Robin Greenwood

We use firm-level data from 34 countries covering the 1995-2006 period to analyze how the characteristics of public markets shape the process by which firms become widely held. Firms in all countries in the sample tend to have concentrated ownership at the time they go... View Details

Keywords: Blockholding; Float; Shareholder Rights; Investor Protection; Ownership; Financial Liquidity; Business History; Market Timing; Going Public; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations

Max H. Bazerman is Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. His recent books... View Details

Keywords: accounting industry; management consulting; pharmaceuticals

20 Mar 2000
Research & Ideas

Incubators: The New Venture Capitalists?

talk of a couple of the new incubators going public themselves. Four leaders in the evolving incubator space — Timothy Rowe of Cambridge Incubator, Toby Corey of Intend Change, Flip Filipowski of Divine... View Details

Keywords: by Kenneth Liss

July 1991 (Revised August 1991)
Case

Philip Morris Companies, Inc. (A)

By: Samuel L. Hayes III

This large tobacco and diversified food processor is seeking to refinance debt funds raised to accomplish a large acquisition. It has filed a large "shelf" registration that authorizes it to issue during the subsequent two years. At the time of the case, the market... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Initial Public Offering; Consumer Products Industry; United States