Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,385)
- Faculty Publications (414)
- February 2001
- Article
The Portfolio Flows of International Investors
By: K. A. Froot, P. O'Connell and M. Seasholes
- February 2001
- Article
Transaction Decoupling: How Price Bundling Affects the Decision to Consume
By: Dilip Soman and J. T. Gourville
- January 2001 (Revised March 2002)
- Case
Ford Motor Company's Value Enhancement Plan
By: Andre F. Perold
In April 2000, Ford Motor Co. announced a shareholder Value Enhancement Plan (VEP) to significantly recapitalize the firm's ownership structure. Ford had accumulated $23 billion in cash reserves and under the VEP would return as much as $10 billion of this cash to... View Details
- September 2000
- Case
Intellectual Property Exchange (A), The
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Gavin Clarkson
As the marketplace for intellectual assets explodes, the mechanisms for liquidity and exchange have not kept pace. Bryan Benoit, partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), believes that he has a solution. Working initially with a shoestring development budget, he has... View Details
- August 2000 (Revised February 2001)
- Background Note
Expense Recognition
By: Paul M. Healy and Preeti Choudhary
Recording expenses is not often clear-cut and can require considerable management judgment. This case discusses expense recognition in straightforward situations and then considers expense transactions that may be more complex to record. It uses examples that include... View Details
- August 2000 (Revised February 2001)
- Background Note
Revenue Recognition
By: Paul M. Healy
This case discusses revenue recognition in straightforward situations and then considers revenue transactions that may be more complex to record. Revenue recognition criteria can be implemented for the following situations: 1) Customers pay prior to delivery; 2)... View Details
- May 2000 (Revised April 2003)
- Case
Contractual Innovation in the UK Energy Markets: Enron Europe, The Eastern Group, and the Sutton Bridge Project
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Peter Tufano
In December 1996, Enron Europe and The Eastern Group were on the verge of signing an innovative transaction in the utility industry. Eastern was going to buy a long-term option to convert natural gas into electricity from Enron, thereby giving it the economic right to... View Details
- May 2000 (Revised January 2003)
- Case
Health Development Corporation
Health Development Corp. (HDC) owns and operates health clubs in the Greater Boston area. HDC engaged a local investment banker to explore a sale of the company. The most likely buyer views HDC's prior purchase of real estate as a negative. HDC's management is... View Details
Keywords: Cash Flow; Property; Business Exit or Shutdown; Valuation; Value; Decisions; Health Industry; Boston
- April 2000
- Background Note
Market Failures
Examines the role of transaction costs in impeding the functioning of markets and shows how the concept of transaction costs sheds light on a broad range of issues in strategy. View Details
- April 2000
- Article
The Fable of Fisher Body
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Daniel F. Spulber
General Motors' (GM) acquisition of Fisher Body is the classic example of market failure in the literature on contracts and the theory of the firm. According to the standard account, GM merged vertically with Fisher Body in 1926, a maker of auto bodies, because of... View Details
- March 2000
- Case
Dell Computer Corporation: Share Repurchase Program
By: George C. Chacko and Luis M. Viceira
Dell Computer Corp. announced a share repurchase program shortly after a significant stock price drop. In this announcement, the company also states that it will use options contracts. This case looks at the options transactions and how they relate to Dell's employee... View Details
- February 2000 (Revised August 2000)
- Case
Priceline WebHouse Club
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Jon K Rust
Priceline empowered consumers to "name their own price" for airline tickets and hotel rooms; then it shopped these offers to marketers. Priceline's founder Jay Walker described the resulting transactions as a new ecosystem, that helped consumers realize lower prices... View Details
- December 1999
- Case
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (A4): Sun Peak: Helen Yang and Mark Walden on "Running Sun on Sun"
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Jane Roessner
SunPeak was the largest project Sun Microsystems, Inc. had ever undertaken: shifting Sun's entire business transaction system from a mainframe-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to a Sun-based system. Making the shift would be complicated and financially... View Details
- November 1999 (Revised June 2001)
- Case
Compaq Computer Corporation: The DEC Acquisition
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Barbara Feinberg
Compaq's board of directors is faced with responsibility for setting the price range and terms for the proposed acquisition of Digital Equipment Corp. The transaction is described in the context of the rapidly evolving markets and business models of the computer... View Details
- May 1999
- Background Note
Note on Behavioral Pricing
The note introduces the behavioral or psychological aspects of consumer price acceptance. Begins by reviewing the traditional economic approach to product pricing and consumer price acceptance--namely, that consumers should be willing to purchase anytime a product's... View Details
Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Decisions; Fairness; Price; Marketing Strategy; Behavior; Perspective; Public Opinion
- February 1999 (Revised June 2000)
- Case
Alexander Bandelli (A)
By: Thomas J. DeLong and Catherine M. Conneely
Alexander Bandelli has the opportunity to redefine the way real estate business is done in the Northeast region. He has just joined Ronsini and Fitch and has been asked by senior management to move to a client focus rather than the older, traditional transaction focus.... View Details
- February 1999 (Revised March 2001)
- Case
Egghead to Egghead.com (A)
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell
Over the course of 12 months in 1997 and 1998, Egghead senior management decided to shut down its 180 brick-and-mortar retail stores and move to an electronic store. The case describes the evolution of that process, and the role of its CEO George Orban, and poses... View Details
- Article
Businessmen and Land Ownership in the Late Nineteenth Century
By: Tom Nicholas
This article analyses the proportions of personal to real estate wealth for a group of 295 businessmen profiled in the Dictionary of business biography. It shows that businessmen who owned land on a large scale in the late nineteenth century were a comparatively small... View Details
- November 1998 (Revised February 1999)
- Case
Bolsa de Valores de Guayaquil (BVG): Reaching Worldwide Investors Through the Internet
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Ramiro Montealegre, Dusya Vera and Karen Barone
The Guayaquil Stock Exchange developed a Web site to provide information about the market in Ecuador. Though the system provided some dynamic information for potential investors and allowed for some transactions to occur via the Internet, it had not at the time of the... View Details
- November 1998 (Revised July 1999)
- Case
Merrill Lynch's Acquisition of Mercury Asset Management
By: Andre F. Perold, Imran Ahmed and Randolph B Altschuler
In the Spring of 1998, Merrill Lynch faced an array of challenges and opportunities related to its global asset management business. The firm had recently completed its $5.3 billion cash acquisition of U.K.-based Mercury Asset Management, a transaction that made it one... View Details