Publications

21 Apr 2009
First Look

First Look: April 21, 2009

Working PapersHow Firms Respond to Being Rated (revised) Authors:Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel Abstract While many rating systems seek to help buyers overcome information asymmetries when making purchasing decisions, we... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

25 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 25

While the senior bank debt comprised only 6% of the capital used in the acquisition and was fully secured, it exercised its right to stop payments to Lind's subordinated lender that funded about 40% of the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2002 (Revised August 2020)
Technical Note

Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on 'Bonnie Road'

By: Arthur I Segel

Supplement to (813-186). View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Investment Evaluation; Property; Acquisition; Finance; Analysis; Real Estate Industry; New Jersey

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Germany’s Pioneering Corporate Managers

the time. He established and managed a centralized but decentralized organization along the managerial principles more famously seen at DuPont or General Motors. Thyssen saw the great virtues of ever-larger mergers, yet kept his own firm... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

May 2025
Teaching Note

Clay Ridge Capital

By: William R. Kerr and Martin A. Sinozich

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 823-089. Kel Jackson, with the support of his young family, has been searching for a manufacturing business to purchase. After a long process, Kel had submitted a written offer to buy Sheetfab that matched his original conversation with... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Offer; Manufacturing Industry

29 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 29

Working PapersLocal Dividend Clienteles Authors:Bo Becker, Zoran Ivkovich, and Scott WeisbennerNBER Working Paper Series, No. 15175, July 2009 Abstract We exploit demographic variation to identify the effect of dividend demand on firm... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

24 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 24

half the offer that Microsoft had made in its acquisition offer in 2008. The depth of the challenge is underscored by the frequent CEO changes the company has had, culminating in the recent firing of the latest CEO, Carol Bartz. The case... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Feb 2007
First Look

First Look: February 6, 2007

Working PapersThe Rise of Business Forecasting Agencies in the United States Author:Walter A. Friedman Abstract This paper analyzes the rise of business and economic forecasting agencies in the United States. The field was developed by... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2010
Article

The Role of Experience in the Gambler's Fallacy

By: Greg Barron and Stephen Leider

Recent papers have demonstrated that the way people acquire information about a decision problem, by experience or by abstract description, can affect their behavior. We examined the role of experience over time in the emergence of the Gambler's Fallacy in binary... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Decision Making; Forecasting and Prediction; Knowledge Acquisition; Outcome or Result; Game Theory; Prejudice and Bias

13 Dec 2016
First Look

December 13, 2016

incentives influence students' acquisition of S&E human capital during college. The 2008–2009 financial crisis, which substantially reduced the availability of jobs in finance and led to a worsening... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

November 1984 (Revised December 1988)
Case

Gulf Oil Corp.--Takeover

Gulf Oil was pressured into liquidation while under attack by Boone Pickens of Mesa Petroleum Co. Gulf management was unsure whether to sell out or take the firm private. A suitor, Standard Oil of California, tries to decide how much, if anything, to bid for the... View Details

Keywords: Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Bids and Bidding; Acquisition; Energy Sources; Energy Industry; United States

June 2007 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Dressen (Abridged) (A)

By: Thomas R. Piper

John Lynch, CEO of the Dressen Division of Westinghouse, was elated by the proposed leveraged buyout by the private equity firm, Warburg Pincus Ventures. The buyout would rid the division of a 'bad' parent and place the division's destiny in its own hands. A recently... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Forecasting and Prediction; Private Equity; Bids and Bidding; Valuation

April 2023
Article

Inattentive Inference

By: Thomas Graeber

This paper studies how people infer a state of the world from information structures that include additional, payoff-irrelevant states. For example, learning from a customer review about a product’s quality requires accounting for the reviewer’s otherwise irrelevant... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Information Types; Behavior; Knowledge Acquisition

07 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 7

http://hbr.org/product/Via-Verde/an/214105-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 714-517 Airgas, Inc. In 2013, Airgas was the market leader in packaged industrial gas distribution. Recent acquisitions had made it into a larger player in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Building Bridges: New Dimensions in Negotiation

From resolving a labor dispute to orchestrating a merger to getting a new company off the ground, negotiation plays a vital role in nearly every facet of business. In response, Professor James Sebenius, founder of the HBS Negotiation Unit... View Details

Keywords: by Anita M. Harris

07 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: February 7

of the most-downloaded and most-revenue-generated app charts; it has recorded multi-million daily revenues and around a hundred million daily users; it has nearly 200 employees in its Helsinki headquarters... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

How South Africa Challenges Our Thinking on FDI

except at the innovation frontier where we do see foreign companies setting up. So even as many in South Africa would see the acquisition of a successful company as potentially not the right kind of direct investment, the fact that it... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

May 2010 (Revised July 2010)
Supplement

Bank of America Acquires Merrill Lynch (B)

By: Robert C. Pozen and Charles E. Beresford

Supplements to HBS no. 310-092. View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Acquisition; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry