Publications

Blog

Inside the Learning: Boston By the Season

lovers. Visit an art museum. Boston has several art museums with impressive collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, and the Institute of Contemporary Art. And of course, don't forget the Harvard museums, which also have... View Details

January 2021 (Revised June 2021)
Supplement

Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and The Cost of Capital (Abridged)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Divisions; Cost of Capital; Corporate Finance; Value; Valuation; Industrial Products Industry; United States; Denmark; Republic of Ireland

13 Aug 2017
News

Business Book of the Year 2017 — the longlist

17 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 17

Management (forthcoming) Abstract Consumers who buy a product intending to use an accompanying mail-in rebate often do not redeem the rebate. To explain this behavior, we argue that consumers use an anchoring and adjustment approach to... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

03 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

Corporate Social Responsibility in a Downturn

Is the economic downturn affecting the willingness and readiness of companies to look at the economic, social, and environmental impact of their business practices? Or is this a perfect time to reassess current programs and adapt them to changing—and in many cases... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

23 May 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas and Research: May 23, 2017

framing alters perceptions of (in)completeness, making intermediate progress seem less complete. In turn, these feelings of incompleteness motivate people to persist until the pseudo-set has been fulfilled. Publisher's link:... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

11 Feb 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Leviathan as a Minority Shareholder: A Study of Equity Purchases by the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES), 1995-2003

Keywords: by Sergio G. Lazzarini & Aldo Musacchio

October 1995 (Revised January 1998)
Case

Cybersmith

Cybersmith is a new company that has created a new retailing concept. This particular store has been reported in over 250 newspapers, and by every major American television network. Some would classify it as an on-line cafe, but management has positioned the store as... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Joint Ventures; Consumer Behavior; Product Marketing; Innovation and Invention; Retail Industry; Cambridge

Find at Harvard

April 2022 (Revised April 2023)
Case

Highland Park Wood Co. (Abridged)

By: David E. Bell

A major home builder wishes to purchase lumber (Southern pine). The builder wants delivery in six months but prefers to lock-in the price near current rates. The lumber wholesaler must decide on a pricing and sourcing strategy. Examples include: 1) buy & hold, 2) wait... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Goods and Commodities; Futures and Commodity Futures; Price; Forest Products Industry; Construction Industry

20 Jun 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Fame, Faith, and Social Activism: Business Lessons from Bono

music, just like grocery shoppers buying organic milk or fair trade coffee." This lesson applies across all businesses. "We think this is only true for artists and entertainers, but it's true for making... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Entertainment & Recreation

May 2020 (Revised August 2021)
Case

Playing the Field: Competing Bids for Anadarko Petroleum Corp

By: E. Scott Mayfield, Daniel Green and Benjamin C. Esty

On April 8, 2019, Occidental’s CEO Vicki Hollub made a private offer to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corporation for $72 in cash and stock. Anadarko's CEO Al Walker said he would consider the offer, yet three days later, on April 11, he signed a merger agreement with Chevron... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Bids and Bidding; Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits

January 2021 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and the Cost of Capital (Abridged)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Divisions; Cost of Capital; Corporate Finance; Value; Valuation; Industrial Products Industry; United States; Denmark; Republic of Ireland

QuantCon NYC 2018 Quantitative Investing Confernece - Interview Video

Agency theory, a new model of governance promulgated by academic economists in the 1970s, is behind the idea that corporate managers should make shareholder value their primary concern and that boards should ensure they do. The theory regards shareholders as... View Details

Lazy Prices

Using the complete history of regular quarterly and annual filings by U.S. corporations from 1995-2014,... View Details

19 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

Doomsday Coming for Catastrophic Risk Insurers?

level of risk sharing in many instances is very incomplete, very poor." Froot examines where insurance companies purchase protection asking, "Do they buy reinsurance contracts for small losses, for in-between losses, for big... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Financial Services

May 2018
Article

The Changing Craft of Selling

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Tiffani Bova

This article draws on two surveys: one with more than 3,100 sales professionals about trends affecting the role(s) of sales in their companies, and the other with over 7,000 consumer and business buyers about their expectations when dealing with sales people. The... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Change; Trends; Performance Effectiveness

January 2023
Case

Natura: Weathering the Pandemic at Brazil's Cosmetic Giant

By: Brian Trelstad, Pedro Levindo and Carla Larangeira

Brazil's Natura, a multi-brand cosmetics group, has taken several measures to safeguard the livelihoods of its thousands of employees and millions of sales representatives during the COVID-19 health and economic crisis. The company has also made strides in its efforts... View Details

June 1994
Background Note

Scope and Challenge of Business-to-Business Marketing

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Identifies six key linkages that distinguish business-to-business marketing; three with respect to the external environment (i.e., derived demand, complex buying process, and concentrated customer base) and three with respect to the internal organization (emphasis on... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Customers; Demand and Consumers; Organizational Structure; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Technology