Publications

March 2021
Case

P.F. Chang's

By: Ashish Nanda, Nitin Nohria and Margaret Cross

Excited yet apprehensive after being named CEO of P.F. Chang’s beginning July 1st, 2020, Damola Adamolekun was well aware of the extraordinary challenges facing the firm. The closure of businesses deemed “nonessential” owing to the COVID-19 pandemic had devastated the... View Details

Keywords: Restaurants; COVID-19 Pandemic; Scenario Planning; Scenarios; Health Pandemics; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategy

2010
Working Paper

Just Say No to Wall Street: Putting A Stop to the Earnings Game

By: Joseph Fuller and Michael C. Jensen

Putting an end to the "earnings game" requires that CEOs reclaim the initiative by avoiding earnings guidance and managing expectations in such a way that their stocks trade reasonably close to their intrinsic value. In place of earnings forecasts, management should... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Performance Expectations; Goals and Objectives; Risk and Uncertainty; Growth and Development Strategy; Decisions; Risk Management; Budgets and Budgeting; Earnings Management; Value; Projects

SSRN

February 1999 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Royal Dutch/Shell in Nigeria (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Mihnea C. Moldoveanu

Working with Shell's country manager for Nigeria, the company's Committee of Managing Directors must decide how to respond to the Nigerian government's decision to impose the death sentence on Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of a movement for the rights of the... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Multinational Firms and Management; Courts and Trials; Rights; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Nigeria

Person Page

Course Development

By: Debora L. Spar

Managing International Trade and Investment

Despite the ease with which it is often conducted, doing business across borders is not the same as doing it at home. Rather, it entails a whole new set of managerial challenges: re-assessing competitive... View Details

2025
Working Paper

CEO-Firm Matches and Productivity in 42 Countries

By: Amanda Dahlstrand, Dávid László, Helena Schweiger, Oriana Bandiera, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun

Firms are key to economic development, and CEOs are key to firm productivity. Are firms in countries at varying stages of development led by the right CEOs, and if not, why? We develop a parsimonious measure of CEO time use that allows us to differentiate CEOs into... View Details

Keywords: Training; Management Skills; Economic Growth; Leadership Development

Read Now

March 2007 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Will RacingThePlanet Ltd. Reach the Finish Line?

Mary Gadams, founder and CEO of RacingThePlanet is facing one of the many logistical crises that her young Hong Kong-based venture faces as it stages its popular 4Deserts(tm) adventure marathon series in Atacama Chile, Gobi Desert Mongolia, Sahara Desert Egypt, and... View Details

Keywords: Global Range; Business or Company Management; Logistics; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Hong Kong; Egypt; Mongolia; Chile; Antarctica

07 Feb 2007
Working Paper Summaries

The Value of Openness in Scientific Problem Solving

Keywords: by Karim R. Lakhani, Lars Bo Jeppesen, Peter A. Lohse & Jill A. Panetta

26 Jan 2015
Working Paper Summaries

The Rise and Fall of Demand for Securitizations

Keywords: by Sergey Chernenko, Samuel G. Hanson & Adi Sunderam

October 2020 (Revised December 2020)
Case

AfricInvest: A Pan-African Investment Platform

By: Victoria Ivashina and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case is set in December 2018, when Ziad Oueslati, co-managing director and co-founder of AfricInvest, a leading pan-African private equity firm headquartered in Tunisia, was reflecting on the future direction of his firm. AfricInvest started as a traditional small... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Strategy; Governance; Financial Services Industry; Tunisia; Africa; Middle East

08 Jan 2007
What Do You Think?

Neuro Economics: Science or Science Fiction?

At the same time, he adds, there will be "a new set of management and pop psychology books with dubious claims ." Among the potential benefits making it highly relevant, according to David Skinner, is that "its output might... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

March 2013 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Bay Partners (A)

By: Josh Lerner and Lauren Barley

In April 2010, Salil Deshpande has recently resigned from Palo Alto, California-based Bay Partners (Bay) where he had been a general partner. Although Deshpande had built a successful track record at the venture firm, he resigned with two other Bay general partners as... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Venture Capital; Conflict Management; Partners and Partnerships; Resignation and Termination; Policy; Management Teams; Financial Services Industry; California

14 Apr 2008
News

The Gap in the U.S. Treasury Recommendations

08 Jan 2018
News

What Do Investors and Companies Talk About?

August 2019 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Paradigm Capital Value Fund

By: Luis M. Viceira and Elena Corsi

Karl Jan Erick Hummel had founded Paradigm Capital Value Fund in 2007 together with Columbia Business School Professor Bruce Greenwald, an expert in value investing and now chairman of the fund. The fund followed the principles of value investing to their target... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Investment Portfolio; Financial Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Investment Funds; Financial Services Industry

September 2003 (Revised February 2004)
Case

Electronic Arts: The Blockbuster Strategy

Describes the process that the firm employs to allocate resources to new product development projects. Examines whether the firm can sustain its competitive advantage given its existing game design process. View Details

Keywords: Resource Allocation; Competitive Advantage; Decision Making; Product Development; Video Game Industry

September 2009 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Root Capital

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee

Founded in 1999, Root Capital had loaned $150 million to nearly 250 small and growing businesses, mainly in Latin America. In 2009, as the organization launched a five-year, $55 million capital campaign, it had to determine a strategic path going forward in keeping... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Capital; Financing and Loans; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Latin America

August 2000 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Cox Communications, Inc., 1999

This case focuses on how much external financing a firm needs and what securities the firm should issue to raise this financing. Cox Communications is a major player in the cable industry, which is consolidating due to technological changes/capabilities brought about... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financing and Loans; Telecommunications Industry

July 2004 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Opium and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century

By: Geoffrey Jones, Elisabeth Koll and Alexis Gendron

This case examines the role of Jardine Matheson, a trading company founded by two Scottish merchants, in the opium trade between India and China during the nineteenth century. The two Opium Wars fought between Western powers and China, which sought to stop opium... View Details

Keywords: History; Globalized Economies and Regions; Ethnicity; Multinational Firms and Management; Groups and Teams; Trade; Social and Collaborative Networks; China; United Kingdom