Publications
Publications
Show Results For
-
All HBS Web
(993)
- Faculty Publications (43)
Page 1 of
43
Results
→
- April 2022
- Article
The Past Is Prologue? Venture-Capital Syndicates' Collaborative Experience and Start-Up Exits
By: Dan Wang, Emily Cox Pahnke and Rory McDonald
Past research has produced contradictory insights into how prior collaboration between organizations—their relational embeddedness—impacts collective collaborative performance. We theorize that the effect of relational embeddedness on collaborative success is...
View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Do Startups Benefit from Their Investors' Reputation? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
By: Shai Benjamin Bernstein, Kunal Mehta, Richard Townsend and Ting Xu
We analyze a field experiment conducted on AngelList Talent, a large online search platform for startup jobs. In the experiment, AngelList randomly informed job seekers of whether a startup was funded by a top-tier investor and/or was funded recently. We find that the...
View Details
- March 2022
- Case
Aldrich Capital Partners
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
By July 2016, the Aldrich Capital Partners team had spent over two years trying to raise their inaugural growth-equity fund. They had pitched to over 140 investors, but none had committed. Managing Partners Mirza Baig and Raz Zia each had extensive experience in the...
View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
What Drives Variation in Investor Portfolios? Evidence from Retirement Plans
We study empirical patterns in investment behavior using a comprehensive data set of defined contribution plans. Using plan-level portfolio allocation data for the near universe of 401(k) plans over the period 2009–2019, we document substantial differences in...
View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Learning from Corporate Fraud and Corporate Governance Spillovers
By: Trung Nguyen
This paper finds that investors learn from their experience with corporate fraud and financial misconduct and modify their investment behavior to avoid suspicious firms and increase corporate governance efforts. More specially, mutual funds that experienced corporate...
View Details
- Article
Is ‘Not Guilty’ the Same as ‘Innocent’? Evidence from SEC Financial Fraud Investigations
By: Eugene F. Soltes and David H. Solomon
When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigates firms for financial fraud, investors learn about the investigation only if managers disclose it, or regulators sanction the firm. We investigate the effects of such disclosures using confidential records on...
View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Judging Foreign Startups
Can accelerators and investors pick the most promising startup ideas no matter their provenance? We investigate this question using unique data from a global accelerator in which judges across international regions are randomly assigned to evaluate startups...
View Details
- February 2021 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Barbarians at the Gate or Turnaround Gurus? Private Equity and the Rise of the LBO
By: Tom Nicholas and John Masko
During the 1980s, leveraged buyouts (LBOs) and the private equity (PE) firms responsible for carrying them out revolutionized both investment and management in the U.S. Between 1980 and 1989, buyout activity in the U.S. surged from $1 billion per year to $60 billion....
View Details
Keywords:
Leveraged Buyouts;
Mergers and Acquisitions;
Business Conglomerates;
Restructuring;
Borrowing and Debt;
Private Equity;
Bonds;
Investment Return;
Institutional Investing;
Profit Sharing;
Business History;
Management Style;
Private Ownership;
Performance Effectiveness;
Value Creation;
Financial Services Industry;
United States
- May 2020
- Article
To Be or Not to Be Your Authentic Self? Catering to Others' Expectations and Interests Hinders Performance
By: Francesca Gino, Ovul Sezer and Laura Huang
When approaching interpersonal first meetings (e.g., job interviews), people often cater to the target’s interests and expectations to make a good impression and secure a positive outcome such as being offered the job (pilot study). This strategy is distinct from other...
View Details
- October 2019
- Case
A Conversation with Ellen J. Kullman, Chairman & CEO of DuPont, 2009-2015
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Ellen J. Kullman, the retired Chairman and CEO of DuPont, describes how she guided the storied science and technology company through a contentious proxy battle with activist investor Trian Partners, which acquired DuPont shares in 2013 and sought to break up the...
View Details
- 2019
- White Paper
Impact-Weighted Financial Accounts: The Missing Piece for an Impact Economy
By: George Serafeim, T. Robert Zochowski and Jennifer Downing
Reimagining capitalism is an imperative. We need to create a more inclusive and sustainable form of capitalism that works for every person and the planet. Massive environmental damage, growing income and wealth disparity, stress, and depression within developed...
View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Networking Frictions in Venture Capital, and the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship
By: Sabrina T. Howell and Ramana Nanda
We find that male participants in Harvard Business School’s New Venture Competition who were randomly exposed to more VC investors on their panel were substantially more likely to start a VC-backed startup post-graduation, indicating that access to investors impacts...
View Details
- December 2018 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
Barteca: The Challenge and Opportunity of Private Equity
By: Lena G. Goldberg and Michael S. Kaufman
Andy Pforzheimer and Sasa Mahr-Batuz, co-founders of a highly successful seven-location restaurant brand, had just opened the first location of a new brand. They had mapped out future expansion for both brands but wondered if, rather than lining up an assortment of...
View Details
- Article
The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Ramana Nanda
In recent years, much has been written about how the Blockchain is poised to transform traditional industries such as banking, real estate, and healthcare. More recently, it has gained attention as a way to finance new ventures, through what is known as an Initial Coin...
View Details
- June 2018
- Article
Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital
By: Michael Ewens, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
We study how technological shocks to the cost of starting new businesses have led the venture capital model to adapt in fundamental ways over the prior decade. We both document and provide a framework to understand the changes in the investment strategy of VCs in...
View Details
- November 2016 (Revised December 2016)
- Case
Anthology: Pivoting the Business Model
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton
In July 2014, after 18 months and eight unsuccessful product launches, the CEO of Yabbly has agreed to sell his company to a larger, well-funded startup, providing a return of capital for his investors and a home for his team. Two weeks prior to the scheduled closing,...
View Details
Keywords:
Mergers ＆ Acquisitions;
Business Model;
Business Plan;
Business Startups;
Entrepreneurship;
Innovation Strategy;
Mobile and Wireless Technology;
Internet and the Web;
Mergers and Acquisitions;
Business Exit or Shutdown;
Fairness;
Valuation;
Technology Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
North America;
United States;
Seattle
- November 2016
- Article
Who Neglects Risk? Investor Experience and the Credit Boom
By: Sergey Chernenko, Samuel Gregory Hanson and Adi Sunderam
Many have argued that overoptimistic thinking on the part of lenders helps fuel credit booms. We use new microdata on mutual funds' holdings of securitizations to examine which investors are susceptible to such boom-time thinking. We show that firsthand experience...
View Details
- August 2016
- Case
Collective Academy
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton
This case is about making the decision to become an entrepreneur and early challenges in setting up a business model and team. In 2015, Pato Bichara co-founded Collective Academy to create an affordable, three-year undergraduate experience to infuse innovation into...
View Details
- Article
Making Private Data Accessible in an Opaque Industry: The Experience of the Private Capital Research Institute
By: Josh Lerner and Leslie Jeng
Private markets are becoming an increasingly important way of financing rapidly growing and mature firms, and private investors are reputed to have far-reaching economic impacts. These important markets, however, are uniquely difficult to study. This paper explores...
View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital
By: Michael Ewens, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
We study how technological shocks to the cost of starting new businesses have led the venture capital model to adapt in fundamental ways over the prior decade. We both document and provide a framework to understand the changes in the investment strategy of VCs in...
View Details