Publications

March 2013
Case

An Entrepreneur's New Product Development Journey

By: Elie Ofek

This case tracks the new product development process undertaken by Gauri Nanda, the founder and CEO of Nanda Home, as she ventures to innovate beyond her initial product launches. Having achieved commercial success with her first product Clocky, a roll away alarm clock... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Product Development; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry

03 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 3

developed between analysts and managers by investigating analyst coverage decisions in the context of CEO and CFO moves between publicly listed firms. We find that top executive moves from an origin firm to a destination firm trigger... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2005 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Kohler Co. (A)

Kohler Co., best known for its plumbing fixtures, is a large, private family firm. As part of a recapitalization aimed at preserving family ownership of Kohler Co., nonfamily shareholders, who held 4% of common stock, were required to sell their shares to the company.... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Stocks; Price; Family Ownership; Business and Shareholder Relations; Valuation

June 2018 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Valuing Snap After the IPO Quiet Period (A)

By: Marco Di Maggio, Benjamin C. Esty and Gregory Saldutte

Snap, the disappearing message app, went public at $17 per share on March 2, 2017, making its two 20-something founders the youngest self-made billionaires in the country. Over the next three weeks, 14 analysts made investment recommendations on Snap: two with buy... View Details

06 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Behavioral Finance—Benefiting from Irrational Investors

of individual investors and 30 percent of institutional investors appear to be more inertial than logical. They take the default option, passively accepting the shares offered as consideration in stock mergers and acquisitions. In "Corporate Financing View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

26 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 26

PublicationsManagement Accounting: Information for Decision Making and Strategy Execution Authors:Anthony A. Atkinson, Robert S. Kaplan, Ella Mae Matsumura, and S. Mark Young Publication:. Pearson Education, Inc., 2011 Abstract An... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2001 (Revised July 2003)
Case

Pharmacyclics: Financing Research & Development

By: Malcolm P. Baker, Richard S. Ruback and Aldo Sesia

Pharmacyclics (NASDAQ: PCYC), a pharmaceutical company that manufactures products that will improve existing therapeutic treatments for cancer, arteriosclerosis, and retinal disease, was considering a $60 million private placement in February 2000. The company had more... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Cash Flow; Financing and Loans; Business Startups; Financial Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry

March 1998 (Revised July 2000)
Case

InPart

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Michael J. Roberts and Jon Biotti

Stacey Lawson, HBS 1996, started a CAD parts representations database company to help designers and engineers with the design process. The company has completed its product and is starting to sell it. The case examines issues involving the organization of the sales... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Price; Salesforce Management

2008
Working Paper

Economic Factors Underlying the Unbundling of Advertising Agency Services

By: Mohammad Arzaghi, Ernst R. Berndt, James C. Davis and Alvin J. Silk

This paper addresses a longstanding puzzle involving the unbundling of services that has occurredover more than two decades in the U.S. advertising agency industry: How can the shift from the bundling to the unbundling of services be explained and what accounts for the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Framework; Service Operations; Decisions; Relationships; Price; Diversification; Geography; Cost; Advertising Industry; United States

Read Now

23 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

It’s Called ‘Price Coherence,’ and It’s Surprisingly Bad for Consumers

higher price that results from their individual decisions to join the intermediary, and collectively they would prefer not to join the intermediary," the authors write in "Price Coherence and Excessive... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Air Transportation; Food & Beverage; Entertainment & Recreation

July 2001 (Revised August 2005)
Case

Medicines Company, The

By: John T. Gourville

It is early 2001 and the Medicines Co. just received FDA approval to market Angiomax, a blood thinner to be used during angioplasties and heart procedures. It is intended to be a better alternative to Heparin, an 80-year-old drug that costs less then $10 per dose. The... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cost Management; Price; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Development; Risk and Uncertainty; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 1992 (Revised January 1993)
Case

Courtyard by Marriott

By: James L. Heskett and Roger H. Hallowell

Courtyard by Marriott, a chain of modestly priced hotels, weighs its future options regarding human resources, its service delivery system, and management structure. Fairfield Inn, another Marriott product, is discussed for contrast. View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Service Operations; Brands and Branding; Management Systems; Decision Making; Service Industry; Accommodations Industry

2011
Teaching Note

UFIDA (D) (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Ping He, Xiohua Wu and Lijuan Liu

This case describes the financing decisions of a software company at difference stages of its development. Started from 1988 as an individual business, along with the "Reform and Open" policy of China, the firm has experienced tremendous growth, and has become a... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Computer Software; Emerging Markets; Financial Strategy; IPO; Investments; China; Applications and Software; China

November 2000
Case

Clust.com: Dream More and Pay Less

Clust is a French group-buying Web site. Instead of marketing products to consumers, Clust is marketing aggregated consumer demands to manufacturers. Consequently, beyond the usual act of choosing among predefined alternatives, consumers are expected to bring up their... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Marketing

28 Jul 2015
First Look

First Look: July 28, 2015

of the business model as decisions enforced by the authority of the firm; this definition enables the analysis of business models through the analysis of individual firm choices. We situate negotiation outcomes within the strategy... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Research Summary

Optimal Portfolios with Housing Derivatives

Households that contemplate moving to different cities or trading up or down in the fu-ture are exposed to substantial housing risk. In order to mitigate this risk, I derive the op-timal portfolios using housing futures. In addition to the optimum growth portfolio,... View Details

June 2004
Case

Aventis SA (A): Planning for a Merger

By: Joshua D. Margolis and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Eight executives at Hoechst and Rhone-Poulenc must make four crucial decisions on the eve of merging their companies to become Aventis--what would become the world's third largest pharmaceutical firm. In addition to formulating a vision and strategy, the two firms must... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Mergers and Acquisitions; Horizontal Integration; Organizational Design; Organizational Culture; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

10 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 10, 2018

companies, where decision rights and incentives can be murky, and the effects of any given choice can be tough to pin down. So the authors chose a “lab rat” with fewer barriers to understanding—the venture capital industry. VC firms are... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

October 1993 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Conflict on a Trading Floor (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Jerry Useem

A junior salesperson on FirstAmerica Bank's trading floor is assisting a top salesperson, Linda, on a deal to finance the construction of a new cruise ship for Poseidon Cruise Lines. While the terms of the deal are being worked out, he realizes Linda has taken... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage