Publications

Article

The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Ramana Nanda

In recent years, much has been written about how the Blockchain is poised to transform traditional industries such as banking, real estate, and healthcare. More recently, it has gained attention as a way to finance new ventures, through what is known as an Initial Coin... View Details

Keywords: Initial Coin Offerings; Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Finance

Register to Read

September 2016 (Revised April 2020)
Case

Dwyane Wade

By: Anita Elberse and Jennifer Schoppe

In July 2016, while on his annual China tour to help promote the sportswear brand Li-Ning, basketball superstar Dwyane Wade and his long-time business manager, Lisa Joseph-Metelus, face a decision regarding one of his other business partnerships—that with the American... View Details

Keywords: Branding; Fashion; Superstar; Celebrity Endorsement; Innovation; Creative Industries; Talent; General Management; Sports; Entertainment; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Management; Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; Sports Industry; China

2013
Chapter

Weighted Generating Functions for Type II Lattices and Codes

By: Noam D. Elkies and Scott Duke Kominers

We give a new structural development of harmonic polynomials on Hamming space, and harmonic weight enumerators of binary linear codes, that parallels one approach to harmonic polynomials on Euclidean space and weighted theta functions of Euclidean lattices. Namely, we... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods

Find at Harvard

Read Now

August 2016
Case

CSI Ingenieros

By: Jay Lorsch and Emily McTague

CSI's business unit managers gathered around the downstairs conference room for the company's weekly meeting to discuss project bids. Cristina WaldAshley Hartman, who was in charge of finding projects for the engineering firm to work on, read through several she had... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Board; Board Committees; Board Dynamics; Organization; Organization Alignment; Dynamic Capabilities; Organization Design; Organizational Prototyping; Organizational Silence; Organizational Learning; Organization Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Manufacturing Industry; South America; Uruguay

January 2014 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Mittal Steel's Pursuit of Arcelor (A)

By: Paul M. Healy and Penelope Rossano

Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of Mittal Steel, a UK-based company with Indian roots, took advantage of a weakened Arcelor that had successfully won a bidding war for Canadian steel company Dofasco, with an unsolicited bid to buy the company. Mittal's plans for acquiring Arcelor... View Details

Keywords: Fiduciary Duty; Steel; India; Europe; Governance; Mergers; Board Decisions; White Knight; Strategy; Negotiation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Governance; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Steel Industry; Canada; United Kingdom; Russia; India

January 2014 (Revised May 2014)
Background Note

Rail Transportation in the United States

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Matthew Guilford

In the 20th century, automobiles and airlines pushed rail into the background as an often-troubled and neglected mode. After a review of the long history of rail in the U.S., this paper examines the situation in the 21st century, including the rail market structure,... View Details

Keywords: Railroad History; History; Rail Transportation; Rail Industry

August 2012
Supplement

Albert 'Jack' Stanley in Nigeria (C)

By: Lena G. Goldberg and Annelena Lobb

The international joint venture that successfully bid for $6 billion in contracts to build LNG trains on Nigeria's Bonny Island became entangled in a widening bribery and corruption probe triggered by an unrelated accusation against an employee of one of the JV... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Crime and Corruption; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governance Compliance; Law; Joint Ventures; Business Subsidiaries; Government Legislation; Rail Industry; Nigeria; United States; United Kingdom

September 2009
Article

Spousal Control and Intra-Household Decision Making: An Experimental Study in the Philippines

By: Nava Ashraf

Using an experimental design I elicit causal effects of spousal observability and communication on financial choices of married individuals in the Philippines. Making choices public moves men from putting money into their own account to consumption; communication with... View Details

Keywords: Intra-household; Bargaining; Experiments; Economic Development; Saving; Governance Controls; Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Finance; Family and Family Relationships; Household; Gender

Find at Harvard

Read Now

November 2004 (Revised June 2005)
Background Note

Designing Products and Processes: Aligning Hierarchical Problem Levels with Problem-Solving Team Forms

All complex systems have four distinct hierarchical design levels: system objectives, architecture, interfaces, and components. Each level has a distinct design question associated with it. Distinguishing among these levels and understanding the questions associated... View Details

Keywords: Design; Complexity

April 1997
Case

Private Management and Public Schools (B)

Examines the prospects for private management in U.S. public schools. Focuses on the education and business strategies of firms seeking to expand as a result of charter school legislation that allowed for-profit entities to enter and compete for students with access to... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Public Sector; Value; Education; Business Strategy; Government and Politics; Education Industry; United States

December 1987 (Revised August 1990)
Case

Florida Power & Light's Quality Improvement Program

Describes a major electric utility's highly successful effort to institute a comprehensive quality improvement program throughout the organization. Designed to be used in a comparative analysis of the quality improvement effort described in Paul Revere Insurance Co.... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Quality; Performance Productivity; Utilities Industry; Florida

19 Oct 2018
News

7 projects win Harvard Global Institute grants

20 Oct 2015
HBS Seminar

Elizabeth Pontikes, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

26 Sep 2023
Book

Digital Strategy: A Handbook for Managing a Moving Target

characterized the industrial age (Birkinshaw, 2018). Second, we define what digital strategy is and explain how it matters to competition. Third, we highlight a few themes from this book’s chapters that illustrate how digital strategy is different from traditional... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Information Technology; Technology

17 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: January 17

specifically express interest in a suitable product are more likely to receive an appropriate recommendation, though most still receive bad advice. Agents cater to the beliefs of uninformed consumers, even when those beliefs are wrong. We then test how regulation and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2013 (Revised January 2015)
Case

Restructuring JAL

By: Malcolm Baker, Adi Sunderam, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

Hideo Seto, the recently appointed chairman of the investment committee of the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation, must decide whether to push JAL group, Japan's largest airline, into bankruptcy or to act as a sponsor in an out-of-court restructuring. The... View Details

Keywords: Bankruptcy; Costs Of Financial Distress; Cost vs Benefits; Air Transportation; Restructuring; Capital Structure; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Air Transportation Industry; Japan; United States

2008
Chapter

The Evidence Does Not Speak for Itself: Expert Witnesses and the Organization of DNA-Typing Companies

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich

During the past 15 years, new biotechnology companies have promoted DNA typing as a sophisticated criminal and paternity identification technique. Private testing laboratories produce results that link individuals with crime scenes and fathers to their children.... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Courts and Trials; Organizational Structure; Practice; Genetics; Science-Based Business; Trust; Commercialization; Vertical Integration