Publications
Publications
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- Faculty Publications (468)
- August 2015 (Revised September 2015)
- Case
Shareholder Activists and Corporate Strategy
By: David Collis and Ashley Hartman
By 2015, there had been an upsurge in activist shareholders arguing for radical changes in companies' corporate strategies. Personalities like Carl Icahn, Bill Ackman, and Daniel Loeb were feared and loathed in some quarters, celebrated in others. With nearly $120... View Details
Keywords: Scope; Activist Investors; Spin-offs; Synergy; Diversification; Consolidation; Hedge Fund; Corporate Strategy
- August 2015
- Article
Poultry in Motion: A Study of International Trade Finance Practices
By: Pol Antràs and C. Fritz Foley
This paper analyzes the financing terms that support international trade and sheds light on how these terms shape the impact of economic shocks on trade. Analysis of transaction-level data from a U.S.-based exporter of frozen and refrigerated food products, primarily... View Details
- 2015
- Article
Testing Strategy with Multiple Performance Measures: Evidence from a Balanced Scorecard at Store24
We analyze balanced scorecard data from a convenience store chain, Store24, during the implementation of an innovative, but ultimately unsuccessful, strategy. Quarterly strategic reviews, based in part on the firm's balanced scorecard, led executives at Store24 to... View Details
- 2015
- Article
The Corporate Headquarters in the Contemporary Corporation: Advancing a Multimarket Firm Perspective
By: Markus Menz, Sven Kunisch and David J. Collis
The corporate headquarters (CHQ) is the central organizational unit in the contemporary corporation and is critical for value creation in the overall firm. Since the early 1960s, a significant body of research on the CHQ has evolved along two separate but related... View Details
- Article
Integrated Reporting and Investor Clientele
By: George Serafeim
In this paper, I examine the relation between Integrated Reporting (IR) and the composition of a firm's investor base. I hypothesize and find that firms that practice IR have a more long-term oriented investor base with more dedicated and fewer transient investors.... View Details
- Article
Stretch the Mission? A Nonprofit That Supports Emerging-market Entrepreneurs Considers Expanding to the U.S.
By: William A. Sahlman and Ramana Nanda
A case study is presented concerning a nonprofit organization that helps entrepreneurs in emerging-markets countries in regions including Latin America and Asia, focusing on the decision over whether to expand its services into the Miami, Florida, area, a question on... View Details
- May 2015
- Article
What Are We Meeting For? The Consequences of Private Meetings with Investors
By: David H. Solomon and Eugene F. Soltes
Regulation Fair Disclosure was passed in 2000 in response to the concern that certain investors were gaining selective access to privileged firm information. In spite of the passage of this regulation, some investors continue to meet privately with executives. Using a... View Details
- Article
How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments
By: Ilyana Kuziemko, Michael I. Norton, Emmanuel Saez and Stefanie Stantcheva
We analyze randomized online survey experiments providing interactive, customized information on U.S. income inequality, the link between top income tax rates and economic growth, and the estate tax. The treatment has large effects on views about inequality but only... View Details
- March 2015 (Revised December 2016)
- Case
Philips Healthcare Latin America
By: Sunil Gupta
On a beautiful sunny afternoon in October 2013, Daniel Mazon (GMP 15), decided to take some time out of his busy schedule of the General Management Program (GMP) at the Harvard Business School to reflect on his company's situation. Mazon was the Vice President and... View Details
- March 2015
- Article
Signaling to Partially Informed Investors in the Newsvendor Model
By: William Schmidt, Vishal Gaur, Richard Lai and Ananth Raman
We investigate a puzzling phenomenon in which firms make investment decisions that purposefully do not maximize expected profits. Using an extension to the newsvendor model, we focus on a relatively common scenario in which the firm's investor has imperfect information... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Cashing Out: The Rise of M&A in Bankruptcy
By: Stuart Gilson, Edith Hotchkiss and Matthew Osborn
The use of M&A in bankruptcy has increased dramatically in recent years, leading to concerns that the Chapter 11 process has shifted toward excessive liquidation of viable firms. In this paper, we argue that the rise of M&A has blurred traditional distinctions between... View Details
Keywords: M＆A; Chapter 11; Distress; Bankruptcy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Insolvency and Bankruptcy
- 2014
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Marketing Reading: Segmentation and Targeting
By: Sunil Gupta
This Reading introduces two of the integral parts of any marketing strategy: segmentation and targeting. It covers, first, all of the methods, techniques, and variables with which a business first uncovers the full range of its potential customers and then... View Details
- 2014
- Article
Are Patents Creative or Destructive?
By: Tom Nicholas
Current debate over patent aggregation has led to renewed interest in the long-standing question concerning whether patents are a creative or a destructive influence on the process of technological development. In this paper I examine the basic patent tradeoff between... View Details
- October 2014 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
The National Football League and Brain Injuries
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Matthew G. Preble
The National Football League (NFL) was both the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. and a major economic entity, taking in roughly $10 billion a year in revenue. However through the early twenty-first century, an increased understanding of the long-term effects of... View Details
Keywords: Employee Safety; Safety; Employees; Sports; Health; Ethics; Sports Industry; United States
- September 2014 (Revised February 2015)
- Case
Pfizer and AstraZeneca: Marketing an Acquisition (A)
By: John A. Quelch and James Weber
In 2014, Pfizer proposed a friendly acquisition of AstraZeneca, but the AstraZeneca board resisted over price and strategy concerns. Was this good for pharmaceutical consumers? Pfizer, like pharmaceutical companies in general, faced difficulties in growing sales due to... View Details
- September 2014
- Case
Victors & Spoils: 'Born Open'
By: Karim R. Lakhani and Michael L. Tushman
Victors & Spoils (V&S), located in Boulder, Colorado, was the first advertising agency built on open innovation and crowdsourcing principles from the ground-up. V&S was co-founded in 2009 by John Winsor, Claudia Batten and Evan Fry, all former members of the... View Details
- September 2014 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Belk: Towards Exceptional Scheduling
By: Ethan Bernstein, Saravanan Kesavan, Bradley Staats and Luke Hassall
With 24,000 staff and over 300 stores, Belk Inc. sought to replace its entirely manual labor scheduling system with an automated software solution from Reflexis. Belk hoped the upgrade would simplify scheduling, reduce time employees spent in non-customer-facing roles,... View Details
Keywords: Retail; Scheduling; Local Autonomy; Automation; Metrics; Organizational Change; Human Resource Management; Process Improvement; Performance Measurement; Transparency; Southern United States; Retailing; Department Stores; System Outsourced Services; Employee Relationship Management; Selection and Staffing; Change Management; Governance Controls; Resource Allocation; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Evaluation; Performance Improvement; Applications and Software; Family Business; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; United States
- September 2014
- Article
Income Inequality and Social Preferences for Redistribution and Compensation Differentials
By: William R. Kerr
In cross-sectional studies, countries with greater income inequality typically exhibit less support for government-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve along this pattern,... View Details
- August 2014
- Article
What Makes Annuitization More Appealing?
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and Stephen P. Zeldes
We conduct and analyze two large surveys of hypothetical annuitization choices. We find that allowing individuals to annuitize a fraction of their wealth increases annuitization relative to a situation where annuitization is an "all or nothing" decision. Very few... View Details
- 2014
- Chapter
Can For-Profit Corporations Be Good Citizens? Perspectives from Four Business Leaders
By: Nien-he Hsieh
This chapter serves an epilogue, turning to ask practitioners how they would answer the question, "Can for-profit corporations be good citizens?" In reflecting on their answers, the chapter puts forward an account that grounds the purpose and responsibilities of... View Details