Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,692)
- Faculty Publications (506)
- July 2013 (Revised August 2017)
- Case
TaKaDu
By: Elie Ofek and Matthew Preble
In December 2012, Amir Peleg, founder and CEO of TaKaDu, reflected on how to position his young firm for the next fiscal year and beyond. The small Israeli startup had developed an innovative software system that used patented algorithms and statistical analysis to... View Details
Keywords: Innovation; Customer Selection; Business Marketing; High-tech Marketing; Enterprise Resource Planning; Water Resources; Water Management; Utilities; Product Positioning; Expansion; Resource Allocation; Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development Strategy; Utilities Industry; Australia; Israel
- July 2013
- Case
Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate?
By: John A. Quelch and Diane Badame
Andrea Torres, director of new product development at a high-end chocolate confectionery company, leads her team through a carefully sequenced program of market research to support the development and launch of a new product, healthy dark chocolate with fruit. This is... View Details
- June 2013
- Case
Olympic Rent-A-Car U.S.: Customer Loyalty Battles
By: John Deighton and James T. Kindley
The marketing and operations managers for Olympic Rent-A-Car meet to decide how to respond to changes in the loyalty rewards program at the market-leading competitor. The competitor's program gives awards based on dollars spent instead of days rented and eliminates... View Details
- May 2013
- Case
Altius Golf and the Fighter Brand
By: Robert J. Dolan and Sunru Yong
Altius Golf is the clear leader in the golf ball market despite a long-term decline in the number of golfers and a drop in sales following the financial crisis. The firm has maintained its position by introducing generations of advanced, super-premium golf balls that... View Details
- April 2013 (Revised March 2014)
- Case
Value Partners and the Evergrande Situation
By: Paul Healy and Keith Chi-ho Wong
In June 2012, Cheah Cheng-Hye and his colleagues at Value Partners, a Hong-Kong-based investment firm, received a copy of a short-seller report alleging that Evergrande, one of China's largest property developers, was using fraudulent accounting and paying bribes to... View Details
- April 2013
- Teaching Plan
Barclays and the LIBOR Scandal
By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia
In the summer of 2012, Barclays plc, one of the largest banks in the world, agreed to settle with authorities and acknowledged that the firm had manipulated LIBOR (London Inter-Bank Offered Rate)—a benchmark reference rate that was fundamental to the operation of... View Details
- April 2013
- Article
Business Model Innovation and Competitive Imitation: The Case of Sponsor-Based Business Models
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Feng Zhu
This paper provides the first formal model of business model innovation. Our analysis focuses on sponsor-based business model innovations where a firm monetizes its product through sponsors rather than setting prices to its customer base. We analyze strategic... View Details
- March 2013
- Case
NovaStar Financial: A Short Seller's Battle
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Kaser
The NovaStar case describes the challenges faced by short seller Marc Cohodes of hedge fund Rocker Partners as he tried to expose what he thought was widespread fraud in mortgage lender NovaStar Financial. The case is set in the time period from 2001 to 2007 and tracks... View Details
Keywords: Short Selling; Financial Accounting; Financial Analysis; Financial Analysts; Valuation; Business Analysis; Financial Statement Analysis; Financial Statements; Securitization; Securities Analysis; Fraud; Accounting Quality; Accounting Red Flags; Accounting Restatements; Hedge Fund; Hedge Funds; Accounting Scandal; Accounting Fraud; Financial Crisis; Financial Intermediaries; Financial Firms; Corporate Accountability; Subprime Lending; Mortgage Lending; Accounting; Accrual Accounting; Fair Value Accounting; Governance; Governance Compliance; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Financial Services Industry; United States; California
- February 2013
- Case
New Earth Mining, Inc.
By: William E. Fruhan and Wei Wang
New Earth Mining is one of the largest producers of precious metals in the U.S. While the firm operates mines primarily in the U.S. and Canada, it has also made substantial investments in gold exploration projects in Australia and Chile. New Earth has been very... View Details
- February 2013 (Revised June 2017)
- Case
Project Sun Devil and Project Paris
Tony Lee is preparing to present a project to the investment committee of Howard Street Capital. He will be recommending an investment in Project Sun Devil, a high-quality 225-unit student housing rental property near Tempe, Arizona. Tony Lee will compete for capital... View Details
Keywords: General Management; Financial Analysis; Return On Assets; Accounting; Performance Measurement; Financial Ratios; Return On Equity; Financial Statements; Profitability Analysis; Portfolio Investment; Portfolio Management; Real Estate; Property; Investment Portfolio; Investment Return; Real Estate Industry; United States
- February 2013
- Case
Diamond Foods, Inc.
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Tim Gray
The Diamonds Foods, Inc. case describes the major accounting blow up at the company in late 2011 that was triggered by a report by Off Wall Street, a prominent short selling research firm. Diamond Foods, a high flying growth company in 2011, grew from a walnut farmers'... View Details
Keywords: Accounting Restatements; Accounting Scandal; Accounting; Financial Analysis; Financial Statement Analysis; Short Selling; Revenue Recognition; Board Of Directors; Audit Committees; Auditing; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Agribusiness; Accrual Accounting; Earnings Management; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Valuation; Revenue; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; California; Cambridge
- January 2013
- Case
Brannigan Foods: Strategic Marketing Planning
By: John A. Quelch and James T. Kindley
The soup division at Brannigan Foods contributes over 40% of the firm's revenue. The general manager is concerned that the soup industry is declining and that the soup division shows declining profits and market share, especially among the important baby boomer... View Details
Keywords: United States; Consumer Marketing; Acquisitions; Forecasting; Quantitative Analysis; Risk Management; Decision Making; Budgeting; Supermarkets; Strategic Planning; Demand and Consumers; Marketing Strategy; Food; Resource Allocation; Acquisition; Product Development; Retail Industry; Retail Industry
- January 2013 (Revised August 2013)
- Case
First Solar: CFRA's Accounting Quality Concerns
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Ian McKown Cornell
The case relates to accounting quality analysis conducted by the leading research firm Center for Financial Research and Analysis (CFRA) on companies in the solar industry with a focus on First Solar Inc. In 2009, CFRA was concerned that First Solar, like much of the... View Details
Keywords: Accounting; Accounting Quality; Financial Accounting; Financial Statement Analysis; Accounting Fraud; Accounting Red Flags; Accounting Scandal; Risk and Uncertainty; Quality; Earnings Management; Valuation; Crime and Corruption; Financial Statements; Energy Sources; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry
- January 2013
- Case
Luotang Power: Variances Explained
By: Robert Simons and Craig Chapman
The general manager of Luotang Power, a coal-fired power plant located in central China, reviews annual results before a meeting with the board of directors. He thought the company performed well during the year and both plant availability and fuel economy had improved... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Managing Firms in an Emerging Economy: Evidence from the Time Use of Indian CEOs
By: Raffaella Sadun
The success or failure of a company is often ascribed to the behavior of its CEO. Yet little is known about what top managers actually do, whether this matters for firm performance, and why it differs across firms. We provide some answers by developing a new survey... View Details
- December 2012
- Case
Trouble Brewing for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Michael Norris
In October 2011, noted hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital delivered a presentation at an investors' conference analyzing the business and accounting quality weaknesses of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Until then Green Mountain had exhibited rapid... View Details
Keywords: Accounting Fraud; Accounting Quality; Accounting Red Flags; Accounting Restatements; Accounting Scandal; Accounting Information; Financial Accounting; Financial Analysts; Financial Analysis; Financial Intermediaries; Hedge Funds; Financial Ratios; Financial Statement Analysis; Valuation Methodologies; Earnings Quality; Accounting; Quality; Earnings Management; Valuation; Crime and Corruption; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Reporting; Investment Funds; Financial Statements; Food and Beverage Industry
- December 2012 (Revised May 2014)
- Case
Hotel Ivory
By: Arthur I Segel, Nicolas P. Retsinas and Jonathan Lo
Cheick Sanankoua is an MBA student who believes that he has found the perfect investment property, a small, independently owned hotel, on the Ivory Coast. However, he has had trouble raising money for the investment beyond friends and family. Through contacts in the... View Details
Keywords: Real Estate; Emergent Countries; Investing; Entrepreneurial Finance; Debts; Cash Flow; Quantitative Analysis; Financing; Development Stage Enterprises; Small ＆ Medium-sized Enterprises; Africa; Ivory Coast; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Property; Investment; Accommodations Industry; Accommodations Industry; Africa
- December 2012
- Background Note
Are Daily Deals Good for Merchants?
By: Sunil Gupta, Timothy Keiningham, Ray Weaver and Luke Williams
In the relatively short time since Groupon was founded, the response to "daily deals"—services that promote businesses by marketing deeply discounted, pre-paid vouchers to an online subscriber base—has by all accounts been spectacular. Our evaluation of daily deals is... View Details
- December 2012
- Case
Delwarca Software Remote Support Unit
By: Roy D. Shapiro and Paul E. Morrison
Delwarca Software provides business software to large corporate clients around the world. The firm serves customers who prefer to assemble corporate solutions using a combination of software programs from various suppliers rather than implementing a single enterprise... View Details
- 2012
- Article
The Architecture of Transaction Networks: A Comparative Analysis of Hierarchy in Two Sectors
By: Jianxi Luo, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Daniel E. Whitney and Christopher L. Magee
Many products are manufactured in networks of firms linked by transactions, but comparatively little is known about how or why such transaction networks differ. This article investigates the transaction networks of two large sectors in Japan at a single point in time.... View Details