Publications

September 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Case

The Dubai Ports World Debacle and its Aftermath

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

Describes the political ramifications in the United States of Dubai-based DP World's acquisition of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O). Because P&O operated some port terminals in the United States, DP World obtained clearance from the... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Multinational Firms and Management; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Legislation; National Security; Business and Government Relations; Ship Transportation; Dubai; United States

15 Aug 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 15, 2017

Implications for Non-communicable Disease Control Strategies By: Balsari, S., P. Vemulapalli, M. Gofine, K. Oswal, R. Merchant, S. Saunik, G. Greenough, and T. Khanna Abstract—Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Governing Sustainability in a Shifting Context (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

In early 2025, boards of directors had to rethink corporate responsibility and sustainability efforts amid rapidly-shifting social, legal, regulatory, and economic forces. While just a few years earlier, calls to address racial justice and climate change reached into... View Details

August 2009 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Choosing a GAAP for Canada

By: Karthik Ramanna and Beiting Cheng

Explores Canadian regulators' decision to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The Canadian decision in 2005 to adopt IFRS is particularly interesting because Canada had well-developed domestic accounting standards and because a significant... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Cost vs Benefits; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Standards; Accounting Industry; Canada

2011
Working Paper

Quantity vs. Quality: Exclusion by Platforms with Network Effects

By: Andrei Hagiu

This paper provides a simple model of platforms with direct network effects, in which users value not just the quantity (i.e., number) of other users who join, but also their average quality in some dimension. A monopoly platform is more likely to exclude low-quality... View Details

Keywords: Multi-sided Platforms; Exclusion; Quality And Quantity; Cost; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Network Effects; Market Participation; Digital Platforms; Monopoly; Quality; Motivation and Incentives; Strategy

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10 Dec 2012
Research & Ideas

Why We Blab Our Intimate Secrets on Facebook

with the control group answers generally falling in the middle. From a logical Internet privacy viewpoint, the results don't make sense. After all, an amateur website of unknown origins is likely far less... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

March 2009 (Revised September 2010)
Case

HOYA Corporation (A)

By: W. Carl Kester and Masako Egawa

In 2007, HOYA of Japan must decide whether to change its friendly exchange offer for Pentax into a hostile cash tender offer. A surprising sequence of events had caused a friendly merger agreement to fall apart, resulting in a boardroom coup at Pentax and the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Investment Activism; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Governing and Advisory Boards; Negotiation Tactics; Business and Shareholder Relations; Valuation; Japan

25 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 25

Brigham and Women's Physician's Organization (BWPO) and its corporate parent disagree over who has jurisdiction over significant legacy funds. Are they controlled by the BWPO or do they belong to BWPO's corporate parent? The BWPO and its... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 18

Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) to prevent such failures from happening again. The new rules looked promising. The majority of a board's directors now had to be independent. And senior executives were required to conduct annual assessments View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 26, 2008

controlling for financial performance. The likelihood of demotion in this organization is also sensitive to nonfinancial performance on the dimension of service quality, while... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

02 Jul 2010
What Do You Think?

Is Profit as a “Direct Goal” Overrated?

long-term effect because they are so complex, a manager's information so incomplete, the competitive environment so complicated, analytic techniques so inadequate, and the number of things over which a manager has View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

14 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Water, Electricity, and Transportation: Preparing for the Population Boom

utilities." For starters, panelists talked about how the majority of the world's controlled water resources are dedicated to agriculture, leaving precious little for drinking, cooking, and bathing.... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

05 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 5, 2008

penetrated the field of negotiation and then presents a framework for bridging the gap between these two literatures. The paper notes that one of the reasons for its limited impact on negotiation research is... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2025
Case

Assessing the Offers for Seven & i Holdings

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

In the fall of 2024, the board of Seven and i Holdings Company (7&i, the parent company of 7-Eleven convenience stores in the US, Japan, and other countries) received multiple offers to buy the company. Two successive (and unsolicited) offers came from Alimentation... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Valuation; Value Creation; Bids and Bidding; Financial Strategy; Negotiation Offer; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Finance; Business Conglomerates; Leveraged Buyouts; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Japan; Canada

January 2009
Article

Bank Debt and Corporate Governance

By: Victoria Ivashina, Vinay Nair, Anthony Saunders, Nadia Massoud and Roger Stover

In this paper, we investigate the disciplining role of banks and bank debt in the market for corporate control. We find that relationship bank lending intensity and bank client network have positive effects on the probability of a borrowing firm becoming a target. This... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Borrowing and Debt; Banks and Banking; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Governance Controls; Managerial Roles

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2011
Article

Regulatory Uncertainty and Corporate Responses to Environmental Protection in China

By: Christopher Marquis, Jianjun Zhang and Yanhua Zhou

We develop a framework to analyze the closing gap between regulation and enforcement of environmental protection in China and present a number of resulting implications for doing business there. We identify three major dimensions that characterize change in regulatory... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Law Enforcement; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Business Ventures; Alignment; Risk and Uncertainty; Natural Environment; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Competitive Strategy; China

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April 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Malaysia: People First?

By: Diego A. Comin and John Abraham

On March 30, 2010, Prime Minister Najib Razak presented his new economic model (NEM) for Malaysia. With the goal of raising per capita income to over $15,000 by 2020 from the current level of $6,634, the plan included measures to improve human capital, reduce migration... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Economies and Regions; Problems and Challenges; Crime and Corruption; Developing Countries and Economies; Development Economics; Emerging Markets; Transformation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Wealth and Poverty; Equality and Inequality; Malaysia