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Who doesn't feel some anxiety when faced with making a presentation to an audience of practitioners and executives? Presentations are often the most stressful part of a job in business or consulting. Yet anyone can learn to write and present better than they think. As with almost everything in business, there is a process. Based on interviews with practitioners and professors, this note will teach students to engage data, formulate a story, and use key tools to create powerful and compelling presentations. From descriptive statistics to regression to structural equation modeling to machine learning, quantitative analysis requires critical thinking and analytical rigor when it is being synthesized for presentation. Three main elements important to anyone preparing to build a presentation are (1) listening closely to clients, (2) understanding audiences, and (3) storyboarding. Thus an effective process includes asking clients the right questions, understanding how to tell stories, and being open to experimenting and learning to use technical tools efficiently.

This note works best when paired with two other Darden technical notes: ""The IS/LM Model"" (UVA-GEM-0126), and a note that directly supports this one, ""Determinants of Economic Growth"" (UVA-GEM-0202). This note provides a formal mathematical derivation to address recurring questions about the Solow model (see GEM-0202 for details). Using a detailed derivation that starts from the investment equation used in UVA-GEM-0126, it shows why population growth decreases capital per capita. Finally, it argues that productivity growth is the only path for a country to exhibit long-run output growth in per capita terms. Because this note uses mathematical tools to derive the Solow model, it is well beyond what is needed in an MBA program. It simply provides step-by-step derivations of the Solow model for interested readers.

The transition to a low carbon economy introduces many risks and opportunities for businesses. Risks emerge from regulatory actions, such as carbon taxes and cap and trade systems, technological innovation that develop alternatives for customers making existing products and services obsolete, changes in market preferences, such as consumers shifting purchases towards low carbon products, and liability concerns, from litigation connected to the physical impacts of climate change. Opportunities arise from new products and services that will be needed for the world to decarbonize (i.e., renewable energy, battery storage, hydrogen, plant-based protein, carbon capture and storage etc.). The business analysis of climate-related risks and opportunities will be critical for the optimal allocation of resources inside organizations and markets. This paper presents a generalizable framework for such analysis. Risks create demand for decarbonization solutions which in turn create opportunities for the supply of these solutions. Central considerations include the measurement and analysis of organizational carbon exposure, sensitivity, and adaptability.

Economic growth is a recent phenomenon in human history. This technical note explores this phenomenon in detail, examining the work of Nobel laureate Robert Solow, whose growth model is the dominant paradigm for practitioners when evaluating countries' growth prospects. For math-oriented readers, this note pairs well with a companion technical note, "Determinants of Economic Growth: Supplemental Note" (UVA-GEM-0204).

In many cases, data analysts are given the question to answer or the data set to be analyzed. It's important, however, to understand that there are numerous steps, before and after the empirical analysis is done, that define an overall rigorous scientific process. This note outlines the basic steps that are important in asking an empirical research question, answering it, and presenting findings. The process described in the note generalizes to any empirical research domain. Given the rising prominence of data analytics in sports, we illustrate the process here using a question that is often discussed by basketball observers: Does calling a timeout in basketball end a run being made by the opposing team? At Darden, this note is used in the MBA and Executive MBA class "Data Analytics and Leadership Judgment in Sports"; it would also be suitable in many data analytics courses or a module in any course introducing the basics of an empirical research process.

This background note discusses the evolution, use, and prevalence of staggered boards. By comparison with unitary boards whose members are all elected annually for one-year terms, staggered boards are divided into subsets of directors, with one subset up for election each year, typically for three year terms. While 61% of the S&P 500 had staggered boards in 2002, the practice largely fell out of favor in ensuing decades, and only 12% had one in 2022. This note discusses what staggered boards are and how they evolved; arguments for and against them from critics and proponents; developments leading to their decline; the academic research on their potential effects broadly and on certain types of firms; and the legal approaches to staggered boards in the United States as well as the diverse approaches to staggered boards internationally.

Leaders are responsible for planning and executing actions that advance organizational goals. As individuals gain career experience, they tend to develop and rely on implicit mental models that shape how they go about "getting things done." Without knowing it, most people develop a primary action orientation - analytical, contextual, or relational - that informs their mental map for action. Action orientations can be useful because they inform how you develop a plan, determine where to focus your time and attention, and when to enlist the help of others. However, an overreliance on any one orientation can lead to poor action plans that may derail your ability to execute (especially when operating in a new role or an unfamiliar situation).

Every Harvard Business School first-year student enrolls in "The Entrepreneurial Manager," a course that focuses on leadership in entrepreneurial settings. This document outlines the course's goals and approach.

This note explores the emerging multi-billion dollars commerce trend of livestream commerce. Livestream commerce is the sale of goods or services directly to consumers via live shows on digital platforms (such as social media or e-commerce platforms). It is a form of social commerce in which consumers engage with real-time videos to complete transactions. Livestream commerce was especially popular in China, where gross merchandise value through this channel reached $316 billion USD. In the rest of the world, livestream commerce had mixed success, and has not gained traction in Europe and North America. The note explores the 3 top livestream commerce in China - Taobao Live, Douyin, and Kuaishou, to learn about the phenomenon and explore the success of livestream commerce in the future. In particular, the note allows for discussion of the following questions: How should a platform develop a sustainable business model in livestream commerce? What would it take for any of these platforms to come out on top of the competition? Are social media or e-commerce platforms better positioned to win in this market? Was the boom in China's livestream commerce replicable in other countries? Why hasn't livestream commerce gained traction in Europe and North America? Was it just a matter of time, or are there inherent factors that impede on the success of this shopping format?

Leaders must know how to deliver bad news to employees and outside stakeholders. Whether an organization is responding to a complaint, communicating about a crisis situation, or notifying employees about a change in company policies or downsizing, its executives and managers must focus on creating an appropriate response while maintaining goodwill for the organization. This note addresses how executives can do just that. Where exactly do companies go wrong in their responses to crises? How can executives more effectively take responsibility in a disaster while at the same time crafting a positive image for the company? How can all leaders better communicate bad news of any kind?

A SAFE ("Simple Agreement for Future Equity") is a security increasingly used in seed financings. Not equity or debt, SAFEs allow founders to "get capital now and sell equity later." This Technical Note covers: 1. What is a SAFE and why use one?, 2. The key concepts involved when calculating a SAFE's future ownership in a start-up, 3. Calculating a "fully-diluted" capitalization table with multiple SAFEs, and 4. Some not-so-safe wrinkles to the security.

This technical note offers an overview of artificial intelligence (AI) and some ways in which machine learning is leveraged to build this type of intelligence. The note also explores two schools of thought around AI's potential, discusses the possible roles for AI in business, highlights opportunities for collaboration between employees and AI, and considers one approach around responsible AI implementation. This note is taught at Darden in the second-year Digital Operations course. It would also be suitable in a module covering AI.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed many aspects of consumers’ lives and transformed the industries serving them. This note examines the impact of the pandemic on the fast-food industry and details four main ways in which the sector was affected. First, the pandemic led to an increased reliance on technology. Second, it pushed forward new restaurant designs. Third, it accelerated the rise of “ghost kitchens,” which prepared food for consumption off the premises. Finally, the pandemic contributed to the emergence of loyalty programs. All four trends were expected to continue to evolve after the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed many aspects of consumers' lives and transformed the industries serving them. This note examines the impact of the pandemic on the fast-food industry and details four main ways in which the sector was affected. First, the pandemic led to an increased reliance on technology. Second, it pushed forward new restaurant designs. Third, it accelerated the rise of "ghost kitchens," which prepared food for consumption off the premises. Finally, the pandemic contributed to the emergence of loyalty programs. All four trends were expected to continue to evolve after the pandemic.

This technical note examines two common methods for estimating customer demand using historical data observations that are constrained by availability. First, this note explains how to leverage the averaging method for unconstraining the demand of airline ticket bookings. Next, the expectation-maximization algorithm is introduced using historical product sales data. Both examples rely on fictious data, and an accompanying Excel workbook provides example calculations for both methods highlighted in this technical note.

This note explains the building blocks of common financial performance metrics and show how operations affect those metrics. Return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) are two key measures of the financial performance of a firm. ROA captures the operational aspects of the firm while ROE captures the financing decisions of the firm.

Supplements "SolarWinds Confronts Sunburst" (723-357, -368) to provide context on types of cyberattacks and their costs, as well as-at the time of the Sunburst cyberattack in December 2020-the fragmentary regulatory regimes through which U.S. states and regulatory agencies attempted to encourage disclosure of cyberattacks and pursue enforcement action against negligence in failing to adequately safeguard personally identifiable information (PII), payment card information (PCI), and protected health information (PHI).