Publications

October 2015 (Revised September 2016)
Technical Note

Flight: Now without Humans Aboard

By: Mitchell Weiss, Karim Lakhani, HT Kung and Kerry Herman

This note provides an overview of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) industry in September 2015. UAVs offered many potential applications in industries as diverse as aerial imaging and photography, agriculture, construction, infrastructure inspection and... View Details

Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Drones; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Product Design; Research and Development; Technological Innovation; Rights; Ethics; Strategy; Transportation Networks; Market Entry and Exit; Innovation and Management; European Union; Asia; United States

24 Feb 2014
News

Why Raising Retail Pay Is Good for the Gap

Keywords: human capital; minimum wage; Retail Trade

29 Jul 2010
News

Lifetime Achievement in Venture Capital Award

2022
Article

Towards Robust Off-Policy Evaluation via Human Inputs

By: Harvineet Singh, Shalmali Joshi, Finale Doshi-Velez and Himabindu Lakkaraju

Off-policy Evaluation (OPE) methods are crucial tools for evaluating policies in high-stakes domains such as healthcare, where direct deployment is often infeasible, unethical, or expensive. When deployment environments are expected to undergo changes (that is, dataset... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Research

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August 2009 (Revised February 2011)
Background Note

Managing Individual Human Capital: Research Resources

By: Boris Groysberg and Emilie Codega

This technical note provides a list of library resources for researching executives and a bibliography of books on managing one's own career. View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Human Capital; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Personal Development and Career; Research

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2013
Working Paper

Managers and Market Capitalism

By: Rebecca Henderson and Karthik Ramanna

In a capitalist system based on free markets, do managers have responsibilities to the system itself? If they do, should these responsibilities shape their behavior when they are engaging in the political process in an attempt to structure the institutions of... View Details

Keywords: Market Design; Economic Systems; Managerial Roles; Government and Politics

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September 2021 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Harambe: Mobilizing Capital in Africa

By: Anywhere (Siko) Sikochi, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Francesco Tronci

Harambe was a non-profit organization whose mission was to build an ecosystem to identify promising young African entrepreneurs and provide them access to training, markets, capital, and support networks. From 2007 to 2021, Harambe had grown to a network of 367... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Business Model; Strategy; Organizational Structure; Business Startups; Capital; Venture Capital; Social and Collaborative Networks; Networks; Developing Countries and Economies; Emerging Markets; Africa; South Africa

March 1996 (Revised February 2002)
Case

Portfolio Capital Flows to Emerging Markets

By: Huw Pill

Presents some data showing the magnitude, direction, and composition of capital flows to less developed countries (the so-called emerging markets) in the period 1990-1995. Some potential explanations for these flows are discussed. A number of policy responses to the... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Emerging Markets; Policy; Capital; Developing Countries and Economies

January 2018
Case

PrimeStone Capital and dormakaba

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

London-based activist hedge fund PrimeStone Capital identifies a potential investment in Swiss security company Kaba. PrimeStone believes that the company is undervalued because it has been pushing back various financial targets and thinks it can help by proposing a... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Value Creation; Executive Compensation; Performance Improvement

2016
Book

Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development

By: Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman

During the nineteenth century, the United States entered the ranks of the world's most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage. This was no mere coincidence. Slavery's Capitalism... View Details

Keywords: History; Development Economics; Ethics; Social Issues; United States

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October 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Cost of Capital at Ameritrade

By: Mark L. Mitchell and Erik Stafford

Ameritrade Holding Corp. is planning large marketing and technology investments to improve the company's competitive position in deep-discount brokerage by taking advantage of emerging economies of scale. In order to evaluate whether the strategy would generate... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Asset Pricing; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Investment; Marketing; Mathematical Methods; Competition; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Financial Services Industry

May 1999 (Revised December 2007)
Case

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Development Strategy

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell

Despite revenues in excess of $93 million in 1998, world-renowned Dana-Farber Cancer Institute constantly faces an operating shortfall and looks to its highly successful development office to help cover the deficit. The development office raises money annually (with a... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Capital; Revenue; Growth and Development Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Nonprofit Organizations

October 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Case

YES BANK: Mainstreaming Development into Indian Banking

By: Michael Chu and Namrata Arora

YES BANK, founded in 2003 and highly successful, has consistently been profitable meeting the Indian government's Priority Sector Lending (PSL) requirements, unlike virtually all other private sector banks, which view PSL activity as a necessary but loss-making part of... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Private Equity; Microfinance; Investment; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Expansion; Banking Industry; India

February 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Stock Reform of Shenzhen Development Bank

By: Li Jin, Li Liao, Aldo Sesia and Jianyi Wu

Shenzhen Development Bank, China's first publicly traded company, was undergoing the non-tradable share reform. Its current controlling shareholder, private equity firm Newbridge Capital LLC, needs to negotiate with its diverse minority shareholders to find a... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Private Equity; Investment; Corporate Governance; Managerial Roles; Emerging Markets; Negotiation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Conflict of Interests; Banking Industry; China

August 2004
Article

Capital Controls, Risk and Liberalization Cycles

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

The paper presents an overlapping-generations model where agents vote on whether to open or close the economy to international capital flows. Political decisions are shaped by the risk over capital and labor returns. In an open economy, the capitalists (old) completely... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Development Economics; Voting; Risk and Uncertainty; Cash Flow; Saving; Investment; Economy; Wages

Editorial

How to Survive a Company Scandal You Had Nothing to Do With

By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin, George Serafeim and Robin Abrahams

Keywords: Misconduct; Reputation; Human Capital

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November 1999
Case

SUPERVALU, Inc.: Professional Development Program

By: Francis Aguilar

SUPERVALU examines the creation and implementation of a training program for attracting and retaining college graduates for the nation's largest wholesale food distribution company. It addresses: 1) program design and 2) the management of the design effort and program... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Recruitment; Retention; Training; Organizational Culture; Design; Business or Company Management; Higher Education; Programs; Food and Beverage Industry; Distribution Industry

Research Summary

Venture Capital Organizations and Entrepreneurial Finance

By: Paul A. Gompers

Paul A. Gompers is examining corporate control and governance issues in venture capital organizations and entrepreneurial firms in an effort to understand how their relationships with their investors affect the venture capitalists' investment decisions. Using... View Details

March 2001 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Venture Capital Vignettes

By: G. Felda Hardymon

Presents three fictionalized but realistic situations in which a venture capitalist may find himself. One situation requires crisis intervention to quell a dispute between a vice president of sales and a CEO; another poses the problem of working out the composition of... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Crisis Management; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Teams; Executive Compensation; Situation or Environment; Employee Relationship Management; Problems and Challenges; Financial Services Industry