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- July 2022
- Case
Vicky Tsai and Tatcha: Confronting Stereotypes
By: Geoffrey Jones and Veronica Tong
This case examines the career of Vicky Tsai, the creator of San Francisco-based TATCHA, a Japanese-themed luxury beauty brand launched in 2009. It explores how Tsai developed the concept, assembled management, and successfully launched the brand, despite experiencing...
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- May 2022
- Case
Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?
By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger
Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash...
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Keywords:
Fintech;
Inflation;
Deflation;
Rural;
Urban;
Emerging Market;
Mobile Technology;
Finance;
Money;
Inflation and Deflation;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Decision Choices and Conditions;
Demographics;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Corporate Entrepreneurship;
Behavioral Finance;
Currency;
Banks and Banking;
Commercial Banking;
Financial Strategy;
Rural Scope;
Urban Scope;
Innovation Strategy;
Emerging Markets;
Network Effects;
Consumer Behavior;
Mobile and Wireless Technology;
Technology Adoption;
Banking Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Technology Industry;
Congo, Democratic Republic of the
- May 2022
- Case
Founder Collective
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
FC launched in 2009 with a clear mission: to be the most aligned fund for founders at the seed stage. In keeping with its mission, FC maintained smaller fund sizes and was not a lifecycle investor. By November of 2021, however, the seed market had gotten more...
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- May 2022
- Case
The Freedom Fund (A): Ending Modern Slavery
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Courtney Han
The Freedom Fund founded in 2013 to end modern slavery had raised more than half its intended target (by 2025) of $200 million. In 2021, impressed by its decentralized-partnering style of operations, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott awarded the Fund a gift of $35 million...
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- April 2022
- Case
Mastercard: Creating a World Beyond Cash
By: Sunil Gupta, Linda A. Hill, Julia Kelley and Emily Tedards
In late 2021, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach and Chairman and former CEO Ajaypal “Ajay” Banga considered how Mastercard could best position itself for continued success in the years to come. Since Mastercard’s initial public offering in 2006, the company had grown and...
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Keywords:
Technological Innovation;
Leadership;
Leading Change;
Organizational Culture;
Business Strategy;
Change;
Change Management;
Money;
Cash;
Credit;
Financial Institutions;
Banks and Banking;
Central Banking;
Financial Instruments;
Credit Cards;
Financial Markets;
Globalization;
Innovation and Invention;
Innovation and Management;
Innovation Strategy;
Leadership Style;
Competitive Advantage;
Corporate Strategy;
Diversification;
Information Technology;
Banking Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
North and Central America;
United States;
New York (state, US)
- April 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Conflicts of Interest at Uptown Bank
By: Jonas Heese
In 2013, two employees debated whether to blow the whistle on their employer, Bell Bank, after completing an internal review that revealed undisclosed conflicts of interest. Bell Bank’s Asset Management business disproportionately invested clients’ money in Bell Bank’s...
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Keywords:
Whistleblower;
Whistleblowing;
Mutual Funds;
Conflicts Of Interest;
Decision Making;
Decisions;
Judgments;
Ethics;
Moral Sensibility;
Values and Beliefs;
Finance;
Financial Institutions;
Banks and Banking;
Financial Management;
Investment;
Investment Funds;
Governance;
Corporate Accountability;
Corporate Disclosure;
Corporate Governance;
Governance Compliance;
Governance Controls;
Policy;
Law;
Legal Liability;
Social Psychology;
Motivation and Incentives;
Perception;
Perspective;
Trust;
Financial Services Industry;
North and Central America;
United States
- March 2022 (Revised July 2022)
- Teaching Note
Camera IQ and the Metaverse: Building Augmented Reality Brand Experiences
By: Jill Avery
Camera IQ, a camera marketing software company that empowered brands to create and launch augmented reality experiences (AREs) across social platforms, had just raised an additional $5 million to fund further product development and expand its marketing and sales...
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Keywords:
Brand Management;
Virtual Reality;
Augmented Reality;
B2B;
E-commerce;
Technology Platform;
Marketing;
Marketing Communications;
Marketing Strategy;
Brands and Branding;
Digital Marketing;
Internet and the Web;
Growth Management;
Customer Relationship Management;
Customer Value and Value Chain;
Social Media;
Applications and Software;
Digital Platforms;
Advertising Industry;
United States
- 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...
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- March 2022
- Case
DealShare: Social E-Commerce for the Indian Mass Market
By: Krishna G. Palepu and Malini Sen
Launched in September 2018, e-retail startup DealShare has created a tech-enabled model for the Indian mass market that allows customers to buy together, save money on good quality goods, and at the same time have fun. It targets customers who are still getting used to...
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- March 2022
- Case
In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent
By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Pierre Marchesseault
To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020....
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Keywords:
Finance;
Fintech;
Emerging Market;
Fundraising;
Financial Inclusion;
Strategy;
Expansion;
Management;
Entrepreneurship;
Personal Finance;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Financial Services Industry;
Banking Industry;
Africa;
Togo;
Nigeria;
Ghana
- March 2022
- Case
Pakistan Rising: Bazaar's Growth Story (A)
By: Paul A. Gompers and Gamze Yucaoglu
The case opens in September 2021 as Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda, co-founders of Bazaar technologies (Bazaar), the Pakistani high growth B2B e-commerce marketplace, are contemplating whether the year-and-a half old startup should also venture into offering financing to...
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- March 2022
- Case
Abu Issa Holding: Navigating the Qatar Blockade
By: Mark Egan and Youssef Abdel Aal
The case follows Ashraf Abu Issa, CEO and chairman of Abu Issa Holding (AIH), as he contemplated the fate of his company’s regional expansion. AIH was a Qatari diversified holding company, whose primary business was luxury retailing and distribution. Abu Issa had set...
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- March 2022
- Article
When Less Is More: Consumers Prefer Brands that Donate More in Relative versus Absolute Terms
By: Elizabeth A. Keenan, Anne V. Wilson and Leslie K. John
When trying to make a good impression on consumers through charitable giving, is it better for brands to maximize the overall dollars they donate or how much they give in relative terms; for example, the proportion of profits? Across five studies we show that consumers...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Many Markets Make Good Neighbors: Multimarket Contact and Deposit Banking
By: Jonathan Wallen and John Hatfield
We investigate the relationship between the interest rates offered to consumers in a deposit banking market and the contact that banks in that market have with each other in other markets.
We show, in a simple theoretical model, that such overlapping relationships...
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- December 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Bed Bath & Beyond: The New Strategy to Drive Shareholder Value
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher
At one time, Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the most successful specialty retailers in the United States—its growth and profit margins far exceeded both peer retailers in the home goods market as well as many other discount retailers. But in 2014, its stock price peaked,...
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- 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...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Segmented Arbitrage
We use arbitrage activity in equity, fixed income, and foreign exchange markets to characterize the frictions and constraints facing intermediaries. The average pairwise correlation between the twenty-nine arbitrage spreads that we study is 22%. These low correlations...
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- October 2021
- Case
The 2012 Spanish Labor Reform: Lifting All Boats or Levelling Down?
By: Vincent Pons, Rafael Di Tella, Santiago Botella and Elena Corsi
Since 1978, Spain had struggled to control unemployment. The country’s labor law was protective of employees hired long-term and companies used temporary contracts as buffers. In 2012, amid economic recession and a 23.6% unemployment rate, a center-right government of...
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- October 2021
- Supplement
Engine No. 1: An Activist Hedge Fund Pursues Stakeholder Capitalism (B)
By: Mark Kramer
Engine Number 1's proxy fight succeeded in part because Exxon shareholders had lost money in the preceding years and because climate change was a high-profile issue. The B case raises the question of whether Engine No. 1's next target should be Facebook, where social...
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- October 2021
- Article
And the Children Shall Lead: Gender Diversity and Performance in Venture Capital
By: Paul A. Gompers and Sophie Calder-Wang
With an overall lack of gender and ethnic diversity in the innovation sector documented in Gompers and Wang (2017), we ask the natural next question: Does increased diversity lead to better firm performances? In this paper, we attempt to answer this question using a...
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