Publications

November 2015 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Dollar General Bids for Family Dollar

By: Jonas Heese, Paula A. Price, Suraj Srinivasan and David Lane

In spring 2015, Dollar General's CEO Rick Dreiling was looking ahead to retiring at year's end but worried about ensuring continued growth for the company he had built since 2008 into a market leader in the U.S. discount retail world. Dollar General operated over... View Details

Keywords: Dollar General; Family Dollar; Dollar Tree; Antitrust; Board Of Directors; Activist Investors; Federal Trade Commission; Acquisition; Valuation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; United States

October 26, 2015
Article

Measuring and Communicating Health Care Value with Charts

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Robin P. Blackstone, Derek A. Haas and Nikhil G. Thaker

The goal of a health care system should be to deliver the most value to patients: the outcomes achieved for treating a medical condition relative to the costs incurred over a complete care cycle. We have found that a radar (spider web) chart is an effective means to... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Value; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

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October 22, 2015
Article

The Mayo Clinic Model for Running a Value-Improvement Program

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Derek A. Haas, Richard A. Helmers, March Rucci and Meredith Brady

Applying time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) in health care cannot be delegated to the finance function. The most successful implementations have had strong executive support, exceptional clinical leaders, and dedicated, multi-disciplinary project teams. The... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

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October 19, 2015
Article

Getting Bundled Payments Right in Health Care

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Derek A. Haas, Dereesa Reid, Jonathan Warsh and Michael E. West

Bundled payments—single payments that cover all the care for a patient’s medical condition or treatment over a specified timeframe—are increasingly being deployed to motivate the delivery of better patient outcomes at lower costs. Hoag Orthopedic Institute (HOI), a... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Product Marketing; Health Industry

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2019
Working Paper

Self-Interest: The Economist's Straitjacket

By: Robert Simons

This paper examines contemporary economic theories that focus on the design and management of business organizations. In the first part of the paper, a taxonomy is presented that describes the different types of economists interested in this subject—market economists,... View Details

2015
Working Paper

Politically Connected Firms and SEC Comment Letters

By: Jonas Heese, Mozaffar Khan and Karthik Ramanna

September 2015 (Revised July 2016)
Case

Handelsbanken: May 2002

By: Amar Bhide, Dennis Campbell and Kristin Stack

Keywords: Banking Industry

September 2015
Article

Speaking of the Short-Term: Disclosure Horizon and Managerial Myopia

By: Francois Brochet, Maria Loumioti and George Serafeim

We study conference calls as a voluntary disclosure channel and create a proxy for the time horizon that senior executives emphasize in their communications. We find that our measure of disclosure time horizon is associated with capital market pressures and executives'... View Details

Keywords: Short-termism; Management Styles; Disclosure; Conference Calls; Investing; Earnings Management; Motivation and Incentives; Management Style; Forms of Communication

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Editorial

The Value of Accounting: The Case of Greece

By: George Serafeim

Editorial

Tsipras' Second Chance: Greece to Hold Elections

By: George Serafeim

August 2015 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Turnaround at Norsk Gjenvinning (A)

By: George Serafeim

Erik Osmundsen, CEO of Norsk Gjenvinning (NG), had initiated a program to strenghten corporate governance, eliminate corruption and improve compliance, and as a result the company had experienced a turnover of almost half of its top 70 line managers and strained... View Details

August 2015 (Revised August 2015)
Case

Hoag Orthopedic Institute

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Jonathan Warsh

Two groups of orthopedic surgeons form a joint venture with a community hospital to establish Hoag Orthopedic Institute, a for-profit hospital and two ambulatory service centers. By controlling and integrating all aspects of the patients' medical treatment, the... View Details

Keywords: Outcomes Measurement; Bundled Payment; Health Care; Activity-based Costing And Management; Measurement and Metrics; Activity Based Costing and Management; Competitive Strategy; Medical Specialties; Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Health Industry

2016
Working Paper

Through the Grapevine: Network Effects on the Design of Executive Compensation Contracts

By: Susanna Gallani

Effective design of executive compensation contracts involves choosing and weighting performance measures, as well as defining the mix between fixed and incentive-based pay components, with a view to fostering talent retention and goal congruence. The variability in... View Details

Keywords: Compensation Design; Board Interlocks; Compensation Consultants; Network Centrality; Homophily; Quadratic Assignment Procedure; Blockholders; Executive Compensation

August 2015
Case

Kjell & Company: Electronics Accessories Retail in the Nordics

By: Krishna Palepu, Das Narayandas and Kerry Herman

Swedish electronics accessories retailer Kjell is considering several issues as it plots its next stage of growth. How should it balance opportunities to expand retail stores into a new market (Oslo, Norway) with additional growth in its home market—Sweden—with... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Electronics Accessories; Online Channel; Omni-channel; Private Equity; Retail; Salesforce Management; Performance Management; Marketing; Sales; Strategy; Scandinavia; Sweden; Norway

2015
Chapter

Corporate and Integrated Reporting: A Functional Perspective

By: Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim

In this chapter, we present the two primary functions of corporate reporting (information and transformation) and why currently isolated financial and sustainability reporting are not likely to effectively perform these functions. We describe the concept of integrated... View Details

Keywords: Information; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Transformation

2015
Chapter

Reliable Sustainability Ratings: The Influence of Business Models on Information Intermediaries

By: Robert G. Eccles, Jock Herron and George Serafeim

A new generation of corporate reporting—integrated reporting—is emerging that will help investors and other key stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers, and NGOs develop a deeper and more comprehensive appreciation of corporate performance than what is... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Business Models; Business Model