Publications

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December 2003 (Revised November 2015)
Background Note

The Fiduciary Relationship: A Legal Perspective

By: Lynn Sharp Paine

Discusses the concept of a fiduciary, as developed in the Anglo-American common law tradition, and outlines the principal differences between the legal standard applied to fiduciaries compared to ordinary arms'-length contractors. View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Assets; Financial Management; Common Law; Standards

14 Dec 2010
News

Americans are spending again, but more cautiously

May 2011
Article

Can Nervous Nelly Negotiate? How Anxiety Causes Negotiators to Make Low First Offers, Exit Early, and Earn Less Profit

By: A.W. Brooks and M.E. Schweitzer

Negotiations trigger anxiety. Across four studies, we demonstrate that anxiety is harmful to negotiator performance. In our experiments, we induced either anxiety or neutral feelings and studied behavior in negotiation and continuous shrinking-pie tasks. Compared to... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Negotiation Participants; Outcome or Result; Emotions

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July 2025
Article

Reputation Burning: Analyzing the Impact of Brand Sponsorship on Social Influencers

By: Mengjie Cheng and Shunyuan Zhang

The growth of the influencer marketing industry warrants an empirical examination of the effect of posting sponsored videos on influencers' reputations. We collected a novel dataset of user-generated YouTube videos created by prominent English-speaking influencers in... View Details

Keywords: Reputation; Mathematical Methods; Marketing Reference Programs; Social Media; Brands and Branding

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Forthcoming
Article

Is Hybrid Work the Best of Both Worlds? Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Christos A. Makridis and Kyle Schirmann

This paper reports causal evidence on how the extent of hybrid work—the number of days worked from home relative to days worked from office—affects employee attitudes and performance. Workers who spent around two days in the office each week on average self-reported... View Details

Keywords: Attitudes; Performance Consistency; Employees; Work-Life Balance

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February 2001 (Revised April 2001)
Background Note

Note on Valuing Private Businesses

By: Dwight B. Crane and Indra Reinbergs

This case provides a brief overview of valuation for owners of closely held companies. The focus is on a comparable transactions approach, although rules of thumb and discounted cash flow are mentioned. Earnings multiples and their drivers are discussed. It uses... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Finance; Cash Flow; Analytics and Data Science; Private Ownership; Valuation

October 2011 (Revised October 2013)
Case

A New Financial Policy at Swedish Match

By: Bo Becker and Michael Norris

Swedish Match is a profitable smokeless tobacco company with low debt compared to other firms in its industry. The firm's CFO now wants to revise the firm's conservative financial policy. View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Corporate Finance; Sweden

03 Jul 2015
News

Nike co-founder Knight steps down from unrivalled sports empire

March 2012 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Boston Children's Hospital: Measuring Patient Costs

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Mary L. Witkowski and Jessica A. Hohman

The case describes two pilot projects on applying activity-based costing to measuring the cost of treating patients. It presents process maps and financial data relating to the processes used during (1) an office visit to a plastic surgeon for three different diagnoses... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Costing; Hospitals; Activity Based Costing and Management; Mathematical Methods; Health Industry

30 Jul 2007
Research & Ideas

Repugnant Markets and How They Get That Way

illegal, the illegal versions of the markets that spring up are pretty bad. So you can't always compare how markets operate when they're illegal with what it would be like if they could operate legally. Gay marriage. That's an interesting... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

25 Aug 2011
News

Where does Jobs stand among America's iconic CEOs?

January 2001 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Term Sheet Negotiations for Trendsetter, Inc.

Describes two aspiring entrepreneurs who have just received offering documents for venture funding (known as term sheets) from two venture capital firms. Neither of the entrepreneurs have experience in raising capital and they are wondering how to compare the two... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making

August 2005 (Revised September 2006)
Case

Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math

By: Anita Elberse, Jehoshua Eliashberg and Julian Villanueva

In 2003, Mike McCready, CEO of Barcelona-based Polyphonic HMI, was preparing to launch an artificial intelligence tool that could create significant value for music businesses. The technology, referred to as Hit Song Science (HSS), analyzed the mathematical... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Music Entertainment; Business History; Leadership; Marketing Strategy; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Mathematical Methods; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

June 2009
Case

Midland Energy Resources, Inc.: Cost of Capital

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and Joel L. Heilprin

The senior vice president of project finance for a global oil and gas company must determine the weighted average cost of capital for the company as a whole and each of its divisions as part of the annual capital budgeting process. The case uses comparable companies to... View Details

Keywords: Risk Assessment; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Cost of Capital; Cash Flow; Capital Structure; Valuation; Capital Budgeting; Energy Industry

October 2017
Case

Updating Dating

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Scott Duke Kominers and Alan Lam

To identify design ideas for their own startup, two MBAs compare the different profiling, matching, and monetization approaches employed by five incumbent dating services: Coffee Meets Bagel, OKCupid, Jiayuan, Dating Ring, and HurryDate. View Details

Keywords: Marketplace Design; Dating Services; Entrepreneurship; Market Design; United States; China

29 Jul 2015
News

Why CEO Pay Is About to Become a Much Bigger Deal

March 2023
Background Note

A Primer on OKRs

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan (Jason) Ni

The OKR framework is a popular goal-setting and strategy execution tool that uses goal setting through “Objectives” and measuring performance using “Key Results” on a periodic basis to measure and drive performance. The OKR framework has been adopted and practiced at... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Talent and Talent Management; Framework; Corporate Governance; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Systems; Measurement and Metrics; Outcome or Result; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Evaluation; Performance Expectations; Performance Productivity; Performance Efficiency

May 2018
Article

Was kostet die Zeit?

By: Stefan Thomke, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Christina Kestel

A German luxury watch manufacturer wants to offer a new collection, including a special model in a limited quantity. The competition has no comparable model. Which price should the company choose? View Details

Keywords: Pricing Strategy; Innovation Management; Watches; Marketing Of Innovations; Price; Strategy; Innovation and Management; Marketing; Luxury