Publications

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An entrepreneur recently said to me “When it gets really hard, I feel like I’m doing it wrong.” She went on to say that sometimes she’s not sure how her investors could be helpful — even if it’s just validating what’s hard vs. advising on how to work through... View Details

13 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

The Color of Private Equity: Quantifying the Bias Black Investors Face

Black venture capital and growth investors have a much harder time getting funding than white investors, because—despite efforts to bring more racial diversity to financial services—private equity’s gatekeepers remain mostly white,... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds; Financial Services

May 2011
Article

Higher Risk, Lower Returns: What Hedge Fund Investors Really Earn

By: Ilia Dichev and Gwen Yu

The returns of hedge fund investors depend not only on the returns of the hedge funds they hold but also on the timing and magnitude of their capital flows in and out of the funds. We use dollar-weighted returns (a form of IRR) to assess the properties of actual... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Investment Return; Capital Markets; Market Timing; Currency

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13 Dec 2012
News

Is ESG Information for Investors Losing its Competitive Edge?

20 Dec 2006
Op-Ed

Investors Hurt by Dual-Track Tax Reporting

of being able to characterize their income separately depending on the audience. Something as simple as interest expense can be engineered to be an expense for tax authorities and a dividend for capital markets. Investors On The Short End... View Details

Keywords: by Mihir Desai

2021
Working Paper

Studying the U.S.-Based Portfolio Companies of U.S. Impact Investors

By: M. Diane Burton, Gurveen Chadha, Shawn A. Cole, Abhishek Dev, Christina Jarymowycz, Leslie Jeng, Laura Kelley, Josh Lerner, Jaime R. Diaz Palacios, Yue (Cynthia) Xu and T. Robert Zochowski

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the reliance on market-based solutions to social and environmental problems around the world (Barman 2016; Horvath and Powell 2020). The growth of impact investing is a vivid example of this trend and, although there have... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Impact Portfolio Companies; Investment; Social Issues; Environmental Sustainability; Investment Portfolio; Business Ventures; Analytics and Data Science; Performance; United States

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July 2002 (Revised April 2003)
Case

Computer Associates International, Inc.: Governance and Investor Communication Challenge

By: Paul M. Healy and Krishna G. Palepu

Sanjay Kumar, the CEO of Computer Associates, faces investor communication challenges following the company's implementation of a new business model and the accompanying change method used to recognize revenue. Despite management's confidence that the new business... View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Earnings Management; Stock Shares; Problems and Challenges; Communication Strategy; Accrual Accounting; Business Model; Budgets and Budgeting; Corporate Governance; Revenue; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry

Educators

March 2015
Article

Signaling to Partially Informed Investors in the Newsvendor Model

By: William Schmidt, Vishal Gaur, Richard Lai and Ananth Raman

We investigate a puzzling phenomenon in which firms make investment decisions that purposefully do not maximize expected profits. Using an extension to the newsvendor model, we focus on a relatively common scenario in which the firm's investor has imperfect information... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment

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12 Nov 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Catering to Investors Through Product Complexity

Keywords: by Boris Vallee & Claire Célérier; Financial Services; Banking

October 2023
Supplement

Hey Jane: Early Investor Pitch Deck

By: Rembrand Koning

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Operations; Entrepreneurial Finance; Health Industry; Technology Industry; United States

March 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Supplement

Relational Investors and Home Depot (B)

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kaitlyn Simpson

Keywords: Investment; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry

12 May 2014
News

How Activist Investors Change the Game

January 2025
Case

A Tiger in the Tank: Exxon Sues Investors

By: Clayton S. Rose, Sarah Sasso and James Weber

In June 2024, investors were trying to make sense of ExxonMobil’s (Exxon) lawsuit against two impact investors, Arjuna Capital (Arjuna) and Follow This, that had just been dismissed by the U.S. District Court of Northern Texas. Exxon’s suit challenged the rights of two... View Details

Educators

winter 1985
Article

Sovereignty en Garde: Negotiating with Foreign Investors

By: L. T. Wells Jr. and D. Encarnation

Keywords: Negotiation; Investment

26 Mar 2015
News

Why investors should care about integrated reporting

09 Apr 2008
News

Giving Investors a Say on CEO Pay

03 Oct 2019
News

At Harvard B-School, lessons for impact investors

24 Apr 2014
News

Guiding social impact for foundations and investors

Courtney Moyer (MBA 2008) provides guidance to family foundations and instiutional investors to leverage their assets for the greatest social impact. (Published April 2014) View Details

2023
Working Paper

How Private Investors Value 'Platformness': An Exploratory Study of Unicorns

By: David B. Yoffie, Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer, Sarah von Bargen and Kwesi Acquay

This paper explores the premium investors have been willing to pay for private companies (unicorns) that are digital platforms vs. traditional companies. View Details

Keywords: Platforms And Ecosystems; Digital Platforms; Investment Portfolio