Publications

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24 Jan 2024
Op-Ed

Why Boeing’s Problems with the 737 MAX Began More Than 25 Years Ago

Business School, and former Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic. He doesn't hold a financial stake in Boeing, its competitors, or any airlines. You Might Also Like: What Went Wrong with the Boeing 737 Max? Courage: The Defining... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Air Transportation; Transportation; Aerospace

April 1991 (Revised July 1994)
Case

Southland Corp. (B)

By: Richard S. Ruback

Examines Southland's financial difficulties following the LBO in 1987 up to the first restructuring plan in July 1990. The teaching objectives are: to explore the complexities of a failed leverage buyout and the operating restrictions that result from financial... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financing and Loans; Crisis Management

July 2010
Technical Note

Note on the Banking Industry

By: Clayton S. Rose and Scott Waggoner

This note provides an overview of the structure and function of the banking industry, with a primary focus on the U.S. It was designed to support the HBS MBA course "Managing the Financial Firm." View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Business or Company Management; Industry Structures; Banking Industry; United States

Andy Zelleke is the MBA Class of 1962 Senior Lecturer of Business Administration. A member of the General Management unit, he is the Faculty Chair of HBS’ Middle East & North Africa Research Center.

Since Spring 2021, Dr. Zelleke has taught “Unpacking... View Details

Keywords: financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services

February 2001 (Revised March 2003)
Case

ICICI (A)

By: Bharat N. Anand, Nitin Nohria and John Pegg

ICICI was the first Indian company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. This case is set in 1998, when the company had to decide whether to enter the retail credit segment of the Indian financial market. Although the retail credit sector presents attractive... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Strategic Planning; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Growth Management; Markets; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; India

29 Jul 2013
Research & Ideas

A Manager’s Moral Obligation to Preserve Capitalism

possible—indeed, Friedman went further to say that any attempt to curb the free market was harmful to the good of society. This is the view Ramanna grapples with in a new working paper, Managers and Market Capitalism, cowritten with... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

June 2017
Article

The Social Trajectory of a Finance Professor and the Common Sense of Capital

By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana

This paper traces the career of Michael Jensen, a Chicago finance PhD turned Harvard Business School professor to reveal the intellectual and social conditions that enabled the emergence and institutionalization of what we call the “neoliberal common sense of capital,”... View Details

Keywords: Executive Pay; The Firm; Michael Jensen; Neo-Liberalism; Shareholder Value; Agency Theory; Corporate Governance; Executive Compensation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Transformation

Find at Harvard

21 Aug 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Banks’ Risk Exposures

Keywords: by Juliane Begenau; Financial Services; Financial Services; Financial Services

June 2020
Case

RBC: Transforming Transformation (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Aldo Sesia

In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian financial icon, mandated a swat team of “enablers of collaboration” (their job description) to support the personal and commercial bank in the enterprise-wide RBC Cultural Transformation initiative. Historically,... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Transformation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Decision Making; Human Resources; Management Systems; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada

July 2010
Case

Monmouth, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Piper and Heide Abelli

The management of Monmouth Inc. is considering whether to acquire the Robertson Tool Company and the value and form that the acquisition should take. Value can be assessed using a variety of approaches including a DCF with WACC analysis, impact on EPS and market... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Bidding; Forecasting; Stock Offerings; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Margins; Stocks; Valuation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Forecasting and Prediction; Bids and Bidding; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry

07 Jun 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The Institutional Logic of Great Global Firms

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

November 2000 (Revised May 2002)
Case

FleetBoston Financial: Online Banking

By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

As the ninth largest bank holding company in the United States in 2000, FleetBoston Financial Corp. provided a myriad of financial services, including retail banking, loan origination, and brokerage accounts. This case explores how FleetBoston responded to the Internet... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Borrowing and Debt; Cost Management; Banks and Banking; Consumer Behavior; Service Operations; Competition; Online Technology; Banking Industry; United States

September 2002 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Dimensional Fund Advisors, 2002

By: Randolph B. Cohen

Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) is an investment management firm that prides itself on basing its investment strategies on sound academic research. Many of the best-known finance research papers of the past two decades (especially those by Eugene Fama and Kenneth... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Research; Success; Investment; Financial Services Industry

04 Oct 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Cold Call: Corporate Governance and Growth Strategy at Capital SAFI

Keywords: Re: V.G. Narayanan; Financial Services

November 1999 (Revised November 2000)
Case

International Business Machines Corporation (C)

By: David F. Hawkins

A financial analyst is examining IBM's 1998 tax note to understand better how the company's 1998 tax note was determined. Teaching purpose: Illustrates deferred tax accounting. View Details

Keywords: History; Earnings Management; Taxation; Decision Making; Business Model; Business Earnings; Information Infrastructure; Mathematical Methods; Private Sector; Accounting Audits; Accounting Industry; Computer Industry

October 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

BlackRock (A): Selling the Systems?

By: Ranjay Gulati, Jan W. Rivkin and Kelly McNamara

As the case opens in 1999, several key leaders at BlackRock, Inc., then a relatively small asset management firm, are trying to convince CEO Larry Fink and others that the firm should begin to offer Aladdin—its proprietary analytics and trading platform—to other asset... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Competition; Information Technology; Asset Management; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; United States

Research Summary

Optimal Decision Making Under Uncertainty

Inventory control problems in supply chains. In this stream of theoretical research, Professor Goh has investigated how inventory should be optimally managed in supply chains. Specifically, he has studied how supply chains can make decisions to operate... View Details

March 2012 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Boston Children's Hospital: Measuring Patient Costs

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Mary L. Witkowski and Jessica A. Hohman

The case describes two pilot projects on applying activity-based costing to measuring the cost of treating patients. It presents process maps and financial data relating to the processes used during (1) an office visit to a plastic surgeon for three different diagnoses... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Costing; Hospitals; Activity Based Costing and Management; Mathematical Methods; Health Industry