Publications

February 1992 (Revised September 2003)
Supplement

Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation (A-2)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Bronwyn Halliday and Michael Santoro

Beech-Nut's CEO must decide what to do. Asks students to consider how much evidence of impurity should be enough to trigger management's acknowledgment of a problem. What are the cognitive and attitudinal factors and pressures that lead people to persist in beliefs... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Risk Management; Attitudes; Nutrition; Cognition and Thinking; Food and Beverage Industry

April 1995
Case

Phelps Dodge Corporation

By: W. Carl Kester and Kendall Backstrand

A prolonged decline in copper prices prompts Phelps Dodge, one of the world's largest independent copper companies, to consider corporate diversification as a means of protecting itself from copper price volatility. View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Price; Volatility; Risk Management; Mining Industry; Arizona; United States

March 2005
Article

Sovereign Debt As a Contingent Claim: A Quantitative Approach

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

We construct a dynamic equilibrium model with contingent service and adverse selection to quantitatively study sovereign debt. In the model, benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. For a wide set of parameters, the only equilibrium is one... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Interest Rates; Balance and Stability; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Mathematical Methods; Management Style; Segmentation; Debt Securities; Banking Industry

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July 1997
Case

Treasury Inflation-Protection Securities (TIPS)

Explores the development of a new product offering based on the first issuance of "real" bonds in the United States. Looks at a specific organization's efforts to position itself to profit from this market development. Follows naturally from a case on nominal bonds. View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Bonds; Inflation and Deflation; United States

July 1991 (Revised August 1991)
Supplement

Philip Morris Companies, Inc. (C)

By: Samuel L. Hayes III

Supplements the (B) case. View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Stocks; Initial Public Offering; Consumer Products Industry; United States

15 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

Going Green Makes Good Business Sense

business is simplistic, said Reinhardt. Companies always operate based on imperfect information about their competitive arena. To succeed as a viable concern with an environmental conscience, "you have to look deeper. And look through other lenses," he said.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

December 2006 (Revised November 2008)
Case

West Wacker Drive: To Build or Not to Build?

In 1980, Thomas J. Klutznick, president of a Chicago-based development company, was considering whether he should build a Class A building on a second-rate site outside the Central Loop or not. He had a promising design, but the economic conditions, concurrent... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Interest Rates; Geographic Location; Risk Management; Urban Development; Construction Industry; Real Estate Industry; Chicago

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March 2006 (Revised April 2007)
Case

Cinco de Mayo

By: Arthur I Segel, Nicolas P. Retsinas, David Margain and Andres Caldera Radonski

In 2004, Adrian Pandal is seeking financing for a residential conversion of a building in Mexico City's historic center district. He must convince potential lenders that the project is viable and that it makes sense to bet on the future potential of an area that, until... View Details

Keywords: History; Risk Management; Opportunities; Urban Development; Investment; Property; Real Estate Industry; Mexico City

23 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

New Challenges for Long-Term Investors

individual's portfolio to his or her age (young investors should take more risk with stocks) and attitudes toward risk (conservative investors should hold more cash). Research done by Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

July 2011
Background Note

Just an MOU or a Real Deal?

By: Lena G. Goldberg and Mary Beth Findlay

Notwithstanding the professed intention of a party to an MOU, a "preliminary" agreement can have binding effect. This note explores the circumstances under which MOUs may give rise to binding and enforceable agreements. View Details

Keywords: Curriculum and Courses; Contracts; Legal Liability; Management; Risk Management

December 1995 (Revised February 1997)
Case

Student Educational Loan Fund, Inc.

By: Peter Tufano

Rick Melnick oversees the Student Educational Loan Fund (SELF), which provides loans to Harvard Business School students. SELF is changing the terms of student loans from variable-rate with semiannual payments to fixed-rate loans with equal monthly payments. Melnick... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Financing and Loans; Interest Rates; Financial Services Industry

February 2003 (Revised January 2004)
Case

Mission to Mars (A)

By: Alan D. MacCormack and Jay Wynn

This case is set in spring 2000, several months after two successive, failed missions to the planet Mars. Students are asked to evaluate the reasons for these failures in the context of NASA's "Faster, Better, Cheaper" program, which was initiated in 1992. They are... View Details

Keywords: Failure; Change Management; Innovation Strategy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Projects; Management; Risk Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Aerospace Industry; Technology Industry

January 1973 (Revised September 1990)
Case

Carrefour S.A.

By: William E. Fruhan Jr.

Involves a very rapidly growing retail chain that is financing itself in an unusual (and at first glance) risky fashion. View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Financing and Loans; Risk and Uncertainty; Retail Industry

1998
Chapter

Risk-Taking Incentives and the Cost of Insurance Company Failures

By: Brian J. Hall

Keywords: Insurance; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Motivation and Incentives; Insurance Industry

05 Jun 2013
What Do You Think?

Do We Need to Extend ‘No Surprises Management?’

or are reluctant to risk carrying bad news up the chain of command, making a bad situation worse. What if the NSM concept was extended downward, to entreat managers not to surprise those reporting to them?... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

24 Mar 2009
First Look

First Look: March 24, 2009

Information" (CWCI). The instructions that follow use datasets from three of the cases in the course: "Slots, Tables, and All That Jazz: Managing Customer Profitability at the MGM Grand Hotel," HBS No. 106-029;... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2005 (Revised January 2006)
Case

Investment Policy at the Hewlett Foundation (2005)

By: Luis M. Viceira

In early January 2005, Laurance Hoagland Jr., VP and CIO of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (HF), and his investment team met to finish their recommendations to the HF Investment Committee for a new asset allocation policy for the foundation's investment... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Risk and Uncertainty; Public Equity; Globalization; Investment; Property; Risk Management; Asset Management; Financial Services Industry

1983
Chapter

On the Role of Social Security as a Means for Efficient Risk-Bearing in an Economy Where Human Capital is Not Tradeable

By: Robert C. Merton

Keywords: Risk Management; Human Capital; Compensation and Benefits