Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,714)
- Faculty Publications (520)
- 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
- 2012
- Working Paper
An Outside-Inside Evolution in Gender and Professional Work
By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Kathleen McGinn and Deborah Kolb
We study the process by which a professional service firm reshaped its activities and beliefs over nearly two decades as it adapted to shifts in the social discourse regarding gender and work. Analyzing archival data from the firm over eighteen years and... View Details
- November 2012 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
Learning Resources: A Hands-On Toy Company Deals with New Challenges and Opportunities
By: Boris Groysberg and Anahita Hashemi
Learning Resources is a family-owned educational toy company that, by late 2011, was facing a myriad of challenges, including increased competition, entry into new markets, new distribution methods, rising costs of production in China, and changing customer behavior.... View Details
Keywords: Leading Teams; Strategy Formulation; Strategy And Execution; Innovation; Corporate Culture; Industry Analysis; Organizational Alignment; Entrepreneurs; Sales Channels; Leadership; Strategy; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Family Business; Entrepreneurship; Product Design; Sales; Retail Industry; United States
- October 2012
- Case
Winfield Refuse Management, Inc.: Raising Debt vs. Equity
By: W. Carl Kester and Sunru Yong
A small, publicly traded company specializing in non-hazardous waste management considers a major acquisition in the Midwestern U.S. The acquisition can provide entry into the region, help the firm compete in a competitive industry, and improve its cost position. The... View Details
- December 2012
- Article
Grand Innovation Prizes: A Theoretical, Normative, and Empirical Evaluation
By: Alan MacCormack, Fiona Murray, Scott Stern and Georgina Campbell
This paper provides a systematic examination of the use of a Grand Innovation Prize (GIP) in action—the Progressive Automotive Insurance X PRIZE—a $10 million prize for a highly efficient vehicle. Following a mechanism design approach we define three key dimensions for... View Details
- July 2012 (Revised November 2012)
- Case
Dragonfly Corporation
By: Howard H. Stevenson and Jim Sharpe
After 3 years of losses and under legal threats from their landlord, a husband and wife team are faced with shutting the company down, buying time with the landlord or turning to their parents for additional funds. Despite opening a new location and seeing that sales... View Details
- Article
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Financial Regulation for the Twenty-First Century
By: Leonard J. Kennedy, Patricia A. McCoy and Ethan S. Bernstein
After existing regulatory systems failed to prevent the recent financial crisis, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a sweeping reform designed to alleviate the crisis and prevent its recurrence. Out of this Act, the Consumer... View Details
Keywords: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Dodd-Frank; CFPB; Financial Crisis; Reform; New Agency; Market-based Approach; Evidence-based Analysis; Innovative Technologies And Transparency Policies; BEST Practices; Government and Politics; Government Administration; Finance; Financial History; Law; Markets; Organizations; Organizational Design; Business and Government Relations; Balance and Stability; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States
- 2012
- Working Paper
Clusters, Convergence, and Economic Performance
By: Mercedes Delgado, Michael E. Porter and Scott Stern
This paper evaluates the role of regional cluster composition in the economic performance of industries, clusters, and regions. On the one hand, diminishing returns to specialization in a location can result in a convergence effect: the growth rate of an industry... View Details
- Article
Regulation and UK Retailing Productivity: Evidence from Microdata
By: Jonathan Haskel and Raffaella Sadun
We explore the effects of planning regulation on the UK retail sector between 1997 and 2003 using micro-data from the UK census. We document a shift to smaller shops following a 1996 regulatory change that increased the costs of opening large stores. Our analysis... View Details