Publications

Marlous van Waijenburg is an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School. She teaches in the MBA required curriculum.

Professor van Waijenburg’s main... View Details

March 1996 (Revised April 1996)
Case

State Street Bank and Trust Company: New Product Development

By: Gary P. Pisano and Maryam Golnaraghi

Portrays the dilemma faced by Marsh Carter, CEO and chairman of the board of State Street Bank, in May 1995. For the past decade, the bank earned continually expanding earnings through its rapidly growing custody business. Now, as that business matures and custodial... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Finance; Problems and Challenges; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Strategy; Banking Industry

Eva Ascarza is the Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Marketing Unit. She is the co-founder of the Customer Intelligence Lab at the D^3 institute at Harvard Business School. She teaches the Marketing core in the MBA required... View Details

Keywords: telecommunications; e-commerce industry; entertainment; financial services; retailing

Research Summary

The Role of Financial and Information Intermediaries in the Capital Markets

Hutton's research investigates the role of financial analysts and short sellers in the pricing of equity securities. Recently, Hutton examines (with Patricia Dechow and Richard Sloan) the role of sell-side analysts' earnings forecasts in the pricing of common equity... View Details

2019
Chapter

Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

Return on invested capital (ROIC) is a financial measure of the profitability of a firm or business unit. If it is greater than the business's cost of capital, then reinvestment of earnings increases shareholder VALUE. The ROIC also determines a maximum self-sustaining... View Details

Keywords: Capital Efficiency; Dupont Analysis; Financial Metrics; Schumpeterian Competition; Sustainable Growth; Competitive Advantage; Financial Strategy; Resource Allocation; Valuation; Value Creation

Find at Harvard

22 Mar 2016
First Look

March 22, 2016

Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50237 Economic Uncertainty and Earnings Management By: Stein, Luke C.D., and Charles C.Y. Wang Abstract—We document that firms report... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2023
Case

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: A Curriculum Provider Puts Itself on the Hook for Student Outcomes

By: John J-H Kim, Derek C. M. van Bever, Michael Norris and Max Hancock

Jack Lynch, CEO of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) since 2017, was leading the company’s transformation from a legacy textbook publisher to a digital-first student outcomes provider, which earned subscription revenue from digital products and curriculum. In 2023, HMH... View Details

Keywords: Edtech; Textbook; Publishing; Leading Change; Change Management; Transformation; Digital Transformation; Expansion; Business Strategy; Publishing Industry; Education Industry; United States

05 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 5, 2006

Eisenmann Periodical:Strategic Management Journal (forthcoming) Abstract To exploit first-mover advantages, pioneers may be motivated to amass customers before rivals enter the market. Likewise, when they enjoy increasing returns due to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Nov 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Making the Numbers? ‘Short Termism’ & the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster

Keywords: by Hazhir Rahmandad, Nelson P. Repenning & Rebecca Henderson

Rawi E. Abdelal

Rawi Abdelal is the Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management at Harvard Business School, the Emma Bloomberg Co-Chair of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, and the European Faculty Chair of Harvard Business School’s Global... View Details

11 Oct 2016
First Look

October 11, 2016

Christopher T. Stanton Abstract—Small business owners and others in self-employment have the option to transition to paid work. If there is initial uncertainty about earnings in entrepreneurship, this option increases the expected... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2018 (Revised August 2019)
Case

The Progressive Corporation, 2018

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In early 2019, The Progressive Corporation (Progressive), the USA’s third-largest auto insurance writer, reported earned premiums were up 20% in 2018 compared to the previous year, and net income was up 64%. Direct sales of personal auto policies rose 21%, while agent... View Details

June 2014 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Molycorp: Financing the Production of Rare Earth Minerals (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield

Molycorp, the western hemisphere's only producer of rare earth minerals, was in the middle of a $1 billion capital expenditure project in its effort to become a vertically integrated supplier of rare earth minerals, oxides, and metals. Yet it had just reported lower... View Details

27 Nov 2019
News

Beware Footnote Mischief

March 1996 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Service Corporation International

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Craig F Schreiber

The CFO of a high-growth company in the low-growth and fragmented funeral services industry must decide how to optimize capital structure and earnings growth while maximizing the company's market value. View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Value Creation; Business Growth and Maturation; Consolidation; Industry Growth; Capital Structure; Expansion; Service Industry; United States; North and Central America

14 Nov 2019
HBS Seminar

Volodymyr Babich, Georgetown University

David A. Moss

David Moss is the Paul Whiton Cherington Professor at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the Business, Government, and the International Economy (BGIE) unit. He earned his B.A. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from Yale. In 1992-1993, he served as a... View Details

Keywords: banking; credit card; federal government; financial services; health care; insurance industry; state government

03 Nov 2003
What Do You Think?

Can Investors Have Too Much Accounting Transparency?

insiders of the insider's equity..." Several respondents suggested the need for a careful approach to the issue of greater transparency. E. Smith asked, "Do investors care about immaterial smoothing [of earnings]? I do not believe so. It is when ... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2016
Article

Cloaked Trading

By: Lauren Cohen, Dong Lou and Christopher J. Malloy

Using a novel, proprietary database of micro-level trading activities by asset managers, we show strong evidence of asset managers engaging in strategic trading in order to “cloak” their most valuable trades. This takes the form, for instance, of a manager who sells... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Trading; Information; Asset Management; Investment