Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,865)
- Faculty Publications (414)
- April 2008 (Revised October 2008)
- Case
TD Canada Trust (A): The Green and the Red
By: Dennis Campbell and Brent Kazan
The case series illustrates the role of performance measurement and analytics in translating TD-Canada Trust's service model of "comfortable banking" into operational terms. In 2000, in a banking market where consumers and regulators were typically hostile to mergers... View Details
- April 2008
- Case
Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in Good Times and Bad
By: Michael Beer and Elizabeth Collins
In May 2007, the Engstrom Auto Mirrors plant, a relatively small supplier based in Indiana, faces a crisis. The business was in the second year of a downturn. Sales had started to decline in 2005; a year later, plant manager Ron Bent had been forced to lay off more... View Details
- May 2008
- Article
Excess Comovement of Stock Returns: Evidence from Cross-sectional Variation in Nikkei 225 Weights
By: Robin Greenwood
In the presence of limits to arbitrage, cross-sectional variation in periodic investor demand should be related to the degree of comovement of returns. I exploit the unusual weighting system of the Nikkei 225 index in Japan to identify cross-sectional variation in... View Details
Keywords: Stocks; Investment; Investment Return; Market Transactions; Weight; Performance Expectations; Behavior; Japan
- 2008
- Working Paper
Using Financial Innovation to Support Savers: From Coercion to Excitement
By: Peter Tufano
We review a wide variety of programs that support savings by families, in particular by low- and moderate-income families. These programs range from ones that literally compel families to save, to those that make it hard not to save, make it easier to save, provide... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
The Small World of Investing: Board Connections and Mutual Fund Returns
By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher J. Malloy
This paper uses social networks to identify information transfer in security markets. We focus on connections between mutual fund managers and corporate board members via shared education networks. We find that portfolio managers place larger bets on firms they are... View Details
- November 2007
- Case
The 1995 Release of the Institutional Investor Research Report: The Impact of New Information
By: Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria and Derek Haas
In 1995, Institutional Investor magazine began selling a complete ranking of the best equity research analysts. This report allowed research firms to assess the relative quality of each analyst across the industry, and this enabled firms to know nearly as much about... View Details
- fall 2007
- Article
Store Manager Incentive Design and Retail Performance: An Exploratory Investigation
By: Nicole DeHoratius and Ananth Raman
- June 2007
- Article
What Is the Impact of Software Patent Shifts? Evidence from Lotus v. Borland
By: Josh Lerner and Feng Zhu
Economists have debated the extent to which strengthening patent protection spurs or detracts from technological innovation. This paper examines the reduction of software copyright protection in the Lotus v. Borland decision. If patent and copyright protections are... View Details
- May 2007
- Article
Inner Work Life: Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance
By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer
Anyone in management knows that employees have their good days and their bad days and that, for the most part, the reasons for their ups and downs are unknown. Most managers simply shrug their shoulders at this fact of work life. But does it matter, in terms of... View Details
- April 2007
- Article
Wintel: Cooperation and Conflict
We study competitive interactions between Intel and Microsoft, two producers of complementary products. In a system of complements, like the PC, the value of the final product depends on how well the different components work together. This, in turn, depends on the... View Details
- January 2007
- Exercise
Multifactor Models
By: Malcolm P. Baker
Students evaluate the performance of four mutual funds and compute the cost of capital for two companies using fixed benchmarks, the CAPM, and a multifactor model of returns. View Details
- September 2006 (Revised April 2007)
- Supplement
Tim Keller at Katzenbach Partners LLC (C)
By: Boris Groysberg, Christopher Marquis and Ayesha Kanji
Supplements the (A) case. The (C) case includes Keller's actual 2006 mid-year and self evaluations. View Details
- August 2006
- Article
Investor Sentiment and the Cross Section of Stock Returns
By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler
We examine how investor sentiment affects the cross-section of stock returns. Theory predicts that a broad wave of sentiment will disproportionately affect stocks whose valuations are highly subjective and are difficult to arbitrage. We test this prediction by... View Details
- April 2006 (Revised May 2007)
- Case
Apple Computer, 2006
By: David B. Yoffie and Michael Slind
Apple has reaped the benefits of its innovative music player, the iPod. However, its PC and server business continue to hold small market share relative to the worldwide computer over the past few years. Will the iPod lure new users to the Mac? Will Apple be able to... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
Too Motivated?
I show that an agent's motivation to do well (objectively) may be unambiguously bad in a world with differing priors, i.e., when people openly disagree on the optimal course of action. The reason is that an agent who is strongly motivated is more likely to follow... View Details
- Article
Policy Implications of Weak Patent Rights
By: James J. Anton, Hillary Greene and Dennis Yao
Patents vary substantially in the degree of protection provided against unauthorized imitation. In this chapter we explore a range of work addressing the economic and policy implications of "weak" patents—patents that have a significant probability of being overturned... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
The Limits of Authority: Motivation versus Coordination
This paper studies the effects of open disagreement on motivation and coordination. It shows how, in the presence of differing priors, motivation and coordination impose conflicting demands on the allocation of authority, leading to a trade-off between the... View Details
- November 2005 (Revised July 2006)
- Background Note
Understanding Economic Value Added
By: Mihir A. Desai, Fabrizio Ferri and Steve Treadwell
Explores the concept of economic value added (EVA) and its practical applications as a management control system for performance measurement and incentive compensation. Explains how EVA is measured and explores some of the adjustments to financial statements that are... View Details
Keywords: Value
- November 2005 (Revised May 2007)
- Case
Leading Change at Simmons (A)
By: Tiziana E. Casciaro, Amy C. Edmondson, Stacy McManus and Kate Roloff
Explores the challenge of managing large-scale organizational change at Simmons, an old and established company that manufactures and distributes mattresses. The new CEO, Charlie Eitel, hired to turn the organization's performance around, considers whether to implement... View Details
- Article
Trust and Incentives in Agency
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Daniel F Spulber
Contracts between a principal and an agent are not formed in a vacuum. Although formal contracts between a principal and an agent contain explicit incentives for performance, the relationship between a principal and an agent also involves implicit incentives. Three... View Details