個案總覽

This technical note is an introduction to the world of financing entrepreneurial ventures. It is a primer on the different stages of a business and the different types of financing available. Most of the capital that high-growth entrepreneurial businesses will secure to fund their future plans is private capital. Private capital includes all the equity financing that is not in public equities; i.e. publicly listed companies. Hence, private capital includes not only venture capital and private equity, but also business angels and equity crowdfunding. We will go deeper into these sources in section 2 of this note.

In 2020, over half of all initial public offerings (IPOs) in the United States were special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), blank-check companies that typically had two years to find a business to take public, usually through a reverse merger. Together, 248 SPACs raised over $83 billion, 46% of the total US IPO proceeds in 2020. The SPAC boom accelerated in 2021. By the end of March 2021, there were 298 SPAC IPOs year-to-date, raising $96.6 billion. At the time, SPAC sponsors were eagerly seeking out opportunities in sectors such as fintech, healthtech, renewable energy, and electric vehicles to invest the $136 billion they had at their disposal. Moreover, there was another $66.4 billion in SPAC IPOs in the pipeline. The opportunities for SPAC sponsors were attractive, as much as a ten-times return on their investment, but SPAC investors had also made some spectacular returns. For instance, Luminar Technologies, a leading producer of sensor technology for autonomous vehicles, entered into a definitive agreement with a SPAC in August 2020, for a post money valuation of $3.4 billion. At the end of March 2021, it was valued at $8.3 billion, down from a day-end high of $13.5 billion, but still up 135% on flotation. Proponents of SPACs touted a more efficient and streamlined path to public markets compared to the traditional IPO process - a type of "regulatory arbitrage." There was also the benefit of giving retail investors opportunities that would be otherwise reserved for private equity and institutional investors. Yet many industry observers were skeptical of the SPAC boom, noting the misalignment between sponsor and shareholder interests, the opacity of the process, and the poor historic returns of the entire asset class. They believed that the SPAC boom would soon end.

In this technical note, we examine the concept of diversification and the tradeoff between risk and return in portfolio theory. The note includes a general introduction to normal distribution, then applies it to portfolio theory by examining normal distribution of future return and risk. The note also examines formulas for calculating expected returns of various two-asset portfolios and applies these formulas to investment decision-making. Finally, it touches on errors of inference, including survivorship bias and statistical concerns around skewness or excess kurtosis.

This note provides an introduction to corporate governance from a managerial perspective, covering key aspects of board responsibilities and board composition, the regulatory environment and legal duties of directors, and changes in governance systems over time, with a focus on publicly traded firms in the United States.

Most MBA internships conclude with a presentation where you detail the results of your major summer project. A lot is riding on your performance-namely, whether or not you receive a job offer. The success of your presentation, however, does not rest solely upon your delivery. It is more accurate and beneficial to think of your performance as the earned result of completing the deliberate three-part process of planning, practicing, and presenting. While you will deliver your final internship presentation individually, you will often present as part of a team throughout your career. This technical note is a guide for team presenting. Each element of the three-part process-planning, practicing, and presenting-can be applied to individual and team presentations. The final section includes guidelines for virtual presentations.

Storytelling is a crucial skill that leaders use in a variety of business situations. Accomplished leaders employ storytelling to improve interpersonal relationships, communicate strategy, and build culture. From an operations perspective, storytelling is a skill that empowers leaders to create common ground among teams, unleash the drive and passion of their people, and share a vision for the future. Likewise, storytelling plays a vital role in engaging external stakeholders. To raise capital and acquire investors, you need to tell a compelling story about how your company will create value and why your strategy will be a winning one. If you want the media and other influencers to spread positive news about your products and services, you must articulate a story detailing the unique benefits you provide. The ability to tell a convincing story about your company's purpose and the social good you generate is essential to recruiting the next generation of top talent to your organization. This technical note helps MBA students improve the storytelling skills that they will employ throughout their careers.

Korean pop music (K-pop), once limited to an Asian market, broke its cultural boundaries and became global in 2012 when Psy’s song-and-dance video “Gangnam Style” went viral around the world. The subsequent global success of the Korean idol boy band BTS confirmed that K-pop had a place in an international music market. With international performances and major US awards since its debut in 2013, BTS was carefully analyzed by those who wanted to identify the reasons for its success. Factors such as the band’s active use of social media and quality transgenerational content were commonly identified, but media reports pointed mainly to the influence of the band’s fan group, or ARMY, and its social media influencers, known as hommas, as reasons for BTS’s success. Big Hit Entertainment (Big Hit), BTS’s talent agency, needed to sustain the band’s unprecedented success. What should Big Hit consider in developing a sustainable competitive advantage in a global music market increasingly taking advantage of new media?

Korean pop music (K-pop), once limited to an Asian market, broke its cultural boundaries and became global in 2012 when Psy's song-and-dance video "Gangnam Style" went viral around the world. The subsequent global success of the Korean idol boy band BTS confirmed that K-pop had a place in an international music market. With international performances and major US awards since its debut in 2013, BTS was carefully analyzed by those who wanted to identify the reasons for its success. Factors such as the band's active use of social media and quality transgenerational content were commonly identified, but media reports pointed mainly to the influence of the band's fan group, or ARMY, and its social media influencers, known as hommas, as reasons for BTS's success. Big Hit Entertainment (Big Hit), BTS's talent agency, needed to sustain the band's unprecedented success. What should Big Hit consider in developing a sustainable competitive advantage in a global music market increasingly taking advantage of new media?

This note discusses identifying the potential future fragile and high-growth economies.

This note offers a set of strategic questions to help you formulate an effective personal plan that can be especially useful for your first years after business school. It draws on theories and principles of management strategy as well as wisdom from top business thinkers, leaders, and Darden MBA alumni.

Twenty five years after it was initially proposed, Clay Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation continues to be a major reference for entrepreneurs, corporate innovators, and investors. However, the term "disruptive innovation" is often used in ways and contexts that are not consistent with Christensen's original theory, which argues for initially accessing the market from the low end. For example, there has been controversy as to whether a firm like Tesla, which clearly accessed the market by targeting high-end consumers, should be thought of as having "disruptive" potential. Should all disruptions start at the low-end of the market or from unserved segments who can't afford the incumbents' current solutions (a "new market" foothold in Christensen's terminology)? Is it possible for an innovation that will ultimately disrupt and displace incumbents to start off by serving high-end segments that are currently participating in the market and are willing to pay top dollar? In this note, using several examples, including the emerging market of cultivated meat, a distinction between High-End Access Disruptions (HEAD) and Christensen's original Low-End Access Disruptions (LEAD) is proposed. Both strategies support innovations that have the potential, at scale, to dominate incumbents, but that are not able to do so initially due to a "handicap," i.e., a product shortcoming that mainstream consumers aren't willing to accept. The exposition analyzes similarities and differences in the disruptive processes implied by these two strategies, and provides practical guidelines to help entrepreneurs, innovators and investors choose the approach that best fits their situation.

This short technical note offers a multi-step process for how to analyze a strategy case. The technical note makes reference to frameworks and tools found in the following strategy textbook: Mary M. Crossan, Cara C. Maurer, W. Glenn Rowe, and Michael J. Rouse, Strategic Analysis and Action, 10th ed. (Toronto, ON: Pearson Publishing, 2021) [forthcoming]. This note explains that cases have no single correct answer and that if the analysis has no tensions, chances are that something is missing! Linkages between different elements may need to be reassessed; also, teams are a great asset for generating different perspectives and opinions. Finally, analysts must ask themselves if they are able to actually deliver the value they are promising to their customers and if their strategic goals are realistic given external conditions.

This short technical note offers a multi-step process for how to analyze a strategy case. The technical note makes reference to frameworks and tools found in the following strategy textbook: Mary M. Crossan, Cara C. Maurer, W. Glenn Rowe, and Michael J. Rouse, Strategic Analysis and Action, 10th ed. (Toronto, ON: Pearson Publishing, 2021) [forthcoming]. This note explains that cases have no single correct answer and that if the analysis has no tensions, chances are that something is missing! Linkages between different elements may need to be reassessed; also, teams are a great asset for generating different perspectives and opinions. Finally, analysts must ask themselves if they are able to actually deliver the value they are promising to their customers and if their strategic goals are realistic given external conditions.

If you can understand football scoring or read a recipe, you can understand an income statement, with the help of this note. It is important to understand an income statement because it tells investors or any stakeholder of a company whether or not the company is making money. An income statement also gives information to company managers to make better forecasts and decisions.