Publications

January 1984 (Revised April 1987)
Case

Turning Around Alcan Europe (A): Patrick Rich's First Four Months as CEO-Europe

Faced with large losses in Alcan Aluminum (Europe), Patrick Rich takes the position of area general manager and slashes capital budgets, introduces new financial controls, and sets up mechanisms for increasing cooperation among the national subsidiaries. The focus is... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Manufacturing Industry; Europe

October 2018 (Revised February 2018)
Case

Masayoshi Son and the Vision Fund

By: Tom Nicholas, Ramana Nanda and Benjamin N. Roth

In October 2016, SoftBank Group Corp., the Japanese conglomerate giant caused a significant shock to the worldwide market for venture capital and private equity by announcing the Vision Fund, the largest tech investment fund in the world at close to $100 billion. The... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Entrepreneurship; Competitive Strategy

Rawi Abdelal is the Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management at Harvard Business School, the Emma Bloomberg Co-Chair of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, and the European Faculty Chair of Harvard Business School’s Global... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Does the Case for Private Equity Still Hold?

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Philipp Chvanov

Private Equity (“PE”) received a 10-fold increase in capital flows since the Great Financial Crisis (“GFC”) Investors sought higher nominal returns relative to those they could obtain in the public capital markets. This paper questions the fundamental assumptions... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Financial Markets

SSRN

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November 2002 (Revised October 2003)
Case

Circles: Series D Financing

By: Paul W. Marshall and Kristin Lieb

Circles, a corporate concierge company on the verge of profitability, must make a decision whether to take a D-round venture capital despite ever-changing and ever-worsening terms. A four-year-old company with several major clients, it has met its business plan... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Financing and Loans; Management Teams; Growth and Development Strategy; Negotiation Process; Venture Capital; Governing and Advisory Boards; Entrepreneurship; Service Industry; Consulting Industry; Massachusetts

January 2014 (Revised October 2014)
Case

Andreessen Horowitz

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Liz Kind

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm launched in 2009, has quickly broken into the VC industry's top ranks, in terms of its ability to invest in Silicon Valley's most promising startups. The case recounts the firm's history; describes its co-founders'... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Venture Capital; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Industry Structures; Financial Services Industry; California

November 2010
Case

Spudnik, Inc.

By: William A. Sahlman and Elizabeth A. Kind

This case describes the plan to finance a revolutionary new television set manufacturing business in late 2009. Yatin Mundkur, a venture capitalist at Artiman Ventures, has recruited a team of veteran eecutives from the optical disk drive business, to design large... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Venture Capital; Disruptive Innovation; Corporate Finance; Electronics Industry

October 2012
Case

Harrah's Entertainment

By: Paul A. Gompers, Kristin Mugford and J. Daniel Kim

This case examines the issues of establishing and managing a capital structure for the leveraged buyout of Harrah's Entertainment. View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Debt Markets; Loan Contracts; Covenants; Casinos; Gaming; Private Equity; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States

17 Mar 2021
News

Shoshana Zuboff on why Big Tech is the biggest threat to democracy

July 1993 (Revised March 1994)
Case

Bright Horizons Children's Centers, Inc.-1987

By: Hugo Uyterhoeven and Myra M. Hart

The founders of Bright Horizons have developed a distinctive strategy and raised venture capital money. Now they are ready to make their dream come true. How should they proceed in implementing their strategy? View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Management Style; Management Systems; Strategy

Video

Rebecca Henderson presents "Throw it Out or Rebuild? Exploring the Possibility of a Just & Regenerative Capitalism"

Program

General Management Program

organization, the program delivers the tools you need to capitalize on technological disruption and digital transformation and play a more strategic role in corporate success. This includes: Read More Considering global and industry... View Details

08 Sep 2014
News

What You Don’t Know About Sales Can Hurt Your Strategy

16 Sep 2009
News

Wall Street's New Gilded Age

Mar 2012
Article

The Incentive Bubble

The past three decades have seen American capitalism quietly transformed by a single, powerful idea--that financial markets are a suitable tool for measuring performance and structuring compensation. Stock instruments for managers,... View Details

27 May 2010
News

Sir Ronald Cohen Offers Class Day Advice to MBA Class of 2010

September 2010 (Revised November 2011)
Case

Salud Digna: Successfully Competing with For-Profit Organizations

By: Allen S. Grossman and Regina Garcia-Cuellar

Hugo Moreno, CEO of Salud Digna, was considering his growth options for the next three years. Would becoming a for-profit with access to greater capital be the best strategy or would this cause the organization to lose its social mission? Salud Digna provided... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Health Testing and Trials; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Industry; Mexico

January 1994
Background Note

Note on Financial Programming Over Long Horizons

By: Timothy A. Luehrman

Introduces students to financial programming as a way to incorporate concepts and tools from modern corporate finance theory into a framework for managing over long horizons. Particular attention is paid to corporate capital budgeting and investment processes. View Details

Keywords: Framework; Theory; Investment; Business Processes; Capital Budgeting; Corporate Finance