Publications

2024
Book

Deals: The Economic Structure of Business Transactions

By: Guhan Subramanian and Michael Klausner

Drawing on real-life cases from a wide range of industries, two acclaimed experts offer a sophisticated but accessible guide to business deals, designed to maximize value for your side.

Business transactions take widely varying forms—from multibillion-dollar... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Contracts

July 2017 (Revised January 2020)
Background Note

Primer on Multiples Valuation and Its Use in the Private Equity Industry

By: Victoria Ivashina and Henrik Boe

This note explores the mechanics of multiples, different types of multiples, when and how to use them, and common pitfalls associated with multiples valuation. While a multiples approach is a very convenient valuation method, breaking down the underlying assumptions... View Details

Keywords: Valuation Methods; Multiples; Private Equity; Valuation; Measurement and Metrics

September 2023 (Revised January 2025)
Case

To Found or to Cofound? That Is the Question

By: Christina Wallace and Jo Tango

Entrepreneurs often struggle with the question of whether to found solo or alongside one or more cofounders. This case is comprised of three vignettes detailing common founding scenarios: the first-time technical founder; the serial commercial founder; and the MBA... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Partners and Partnerships

August 22, 2017
Article

Find the Right Metrics for Your Sales Team

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Robert Marsh

This article reports the results of a survey of key performance indicators (KPIs) used by more than 800 sales groups across industries. The most common KPIs are closed deals and salesperson performance against quota, which, on average, firms measure monthly. But a... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Performance Evaluation; Measurement and Metrics; Salesforce Management

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August 2002
Article

Creativity Under the Gun

By: Teresa Amabile, Constance N. Hadley and Steven J. Kramer

If you're like most managers, you've worked with people who swear they do their most creative work under tight deadlines. You may use pressure as a management technique, believing it will spur people on to great leaps of insight. You may even manage yourself this way.... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Innovation and Invention; Time Management; Working Conditions; Performance Evaluation

May–June 2021
Article

How to Close the Gender Gap

By: Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg

Most companies say they’re committed to advancing women into leadership roles. What they may fail to recognize, though, is that systemic barriers are holding women back. As a result, women remain disadvantaged at every stage of their employment and underrepresented in... View Details

Keywords: Gender Discrimination; Employment; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Talent and Talent Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation

Research Summary

International Comparison of the Management of Information Technology

Having set out to compare Western and Japanese IT-management practices, we were startled to discover that Japanese companies rarely experience the IT problems so common in the United States and Europe. In this project, we seek to further explore the five principles of... View Details

January 2014 (Revised May 2014)
Case

Tech Mahindra and the Acquisition of Satyam Computers (A)

By: Srikant M. Datar, Anjali Raina and Namrata Arora

Set in 2008, the case details Tech Mahindra, an information technology (IT) company within the Mahindra Group, an Indian multi-industry company with a diverse stable of businesses including automotives, farm equipment, and financial services, and its decision to... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Computer Industry; India

January 1999 (Revised August 1999)
Background Note

Doing Business in Russia: Note on Negotiating in the "Wild East"

By: James K. Sebenius and Randall A Fine

Based on an MBA's experience, this anecdotal note explores cross-border negotiations between U.S. executives and Russian counterparts. The first section guides the reader through general aspects of the Russian market. Next follows a characterization of the Russian... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Deal; Problems and Challenges; Negotiation Style; Decisions; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Negotiation Participants; Russia; United States

2011
Working Paper

Organizations in the Shadow of Communities

By: Siobhan O'Mahony and Karim R. Lakhani

The concept of a community form is drawn upon in many subfields of organizational theory. Although there is not much convergence on a level of analysis, there is convergence on a mode of action that is increasingly relevant to a knowledge-based economy marked by porous... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Organizational Culture; Civil Society or Community; Boundaries; Information Technology; Theory; Value Creation

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18 Feb 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence and Exceptions

Keywords: by Lyra Colfer & Carliss Y. Baldwin

2023
Working Paper

Estimating Productivity in the Presence of Spillovers: Firm-Level Evidence from the U.S. Production Network

By: Ebehi Iyoha

This paper examines the extent to which productivity gains are transmitted across U.S. firms through buyer-supplier relationships. Many empirical studies measure firm-to-firm spillovers using firm-level productivity estimates derived from control function approaches.... View Details

Keywords: Supply and Industry; Partners and Partnerships; Production

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17 Dec 2012
Research & Ideas

Teaming in the Twenty-First Century

highly trained staff involved with the scan performed his or her job well, but it was the hospital's hierarchical and siloed structure—so common in health care—that no longer... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish

January 2005 (Revised December 2005)
Case

KAMCO and the Cross-Border Securitization of Korean Non-Performing Loans

Covers the first international nonperforming loan securitization done in Korea. The CEO of KAMCO is trying to dispose of a portfolio of nonperforming commercial loans that the organization acquired from a number of banks. A group of investment bankers have proposed... View Details

Keywords: Debt Securities; Decision Choices and Conditions; Capital Markets; Financing and Loans; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Financial Services Industry; South Korea

Article

Weak Corporate Insolvency Rules: The Missing Driver of Zombie Lending

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

"Zombie lending"—lending to less-productive firms at subsidized rates—can help banks with misaligned incentives in the short run, but it prolongs economic downturns. We propose that inefficient resolution of insolvency is a significant contributor to this problem. We... View Details

Keywords: Zombie Credit; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financing and Loans; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation

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03 Jan 2017
Research & Ideas

5 New Year's Resolutions You Can Keep (With the Help of Behavioral Science Research)

of the common contracts people sign with themselves each year. If you have resolved to eat healthier, try ordering your groceries a week in advance of delivery. Internet delivery services make it all too... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

23 Nov 2021
Research & Ideas

The Vinyl Renaissance: Take Those Old Records Off the Shelf

now for whom music has always been a free commodity. The more that we talk to college students and teenagers about why they buy vinyl, the common thread is that having vinyl in... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Music

May 2014
Article

Right Up the Middle: How Israeli Firms Go Global

By: Jonathan Friedrich, Amit Noam and Elie Ofek

The article considers international business enterprises based in Israel and how they successfully expanded from their origins as small businesses. A common technique of those companies in which they focused on market entry in other countries whose markets were too... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Israel