Publications

February 1998 (Revised June 1999)
Case

DigitalThink: Startup

By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Christina L. Darwall

Describes a recent Berkeley MBA's attempts to start a business aimed at corporate training via the Internet. Describes the very early efforts at finding an attorney, accountant, and financing, and the interrelationships among these choices. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Business Startups; Service Industry

Article

Beating the Odds: Leadership Lessons from Senior African-American Women

By: Laura Morgan Roberts, Anthony Mayo, Robin Ely and David Thomas

Any list of top CEOs reveals a stunning lack of diversity. Among the leaders of Fortune 500 companies, for example, just 32 are women, three are African-American, and not one is an African-American woman. What’s going on? The authors studied the careers of the roughly... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Diversity; Race; Gender; Personal Characteristics; Relationships; Success

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01 May 2006
Research & Ideas

What Companies Lose from Forced Disclosure

sensitive and important issue in practice, as evidenced by corporate pushback to recent proposals for additional mandatory disclosures. For example, the SEC has proposed mandatory disclosure of certain compensation information; however,... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

03 Nov 2003
What Do You Think?

Can Investors Have Too Much Accounting Transparency?

who wrote, "... legislative and regulatory response treats the symptoms (means) rather than the disease (motivation). Transparency is only as successful as the least creative obscurantist." He recommends, among other things, prohibiting "by regulation... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

July 2000 (Revised October 2000)
Case

Cisco Systems: Are You Ready? (A)

By: James L. Heskett and John P. Morgridge

An Internet service provider, INS, in which Cisco Systems has a minority ownership stake, receives an offer of $3.1 billion from Cisco's rival Lucent. Cisco's management has to decide whether to act on a request from INS management that Cisco make a counteroffer. The... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Ownership Stake; Strategic Planning; Innovation and Management; Technology; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry

September 2008
Supplement

Mr. Nelson Peltz, Founding Partner, Trian Partners. Interviewed by Professor John Quelch

By: John A. Quelch

Professor John Quelch interviewed Mr. Nelson Peitz, Founding Partner of Trian Partners on events and decisions leading up to the decision to acquire the Snapple brand and the results of that corporate decision. View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Investment; Brands and Branding; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

Teaching Interest

Short Intensive Program (SIP): Effective Strategic Philanthropy

By: Brian L. Trelstad

Non-profit organizations and social enterprises play an important role in every country in the world: as laboratories for social innovation, as the delivery system for critical goods and services at scale, as the stewards of our cultural heritage, and as advocates for... View Details

August 2004 (Revised April 2007)
Case

Allianz (A1): An Insurer Acquiring a Bank?

By: Joseph L. Bower, Marc L. Bertoneche, Anders Sjoman and Sonja Ellingson Hout

The deal of the year in 2002, was the acquisition of Dresdner Bank by Allianz. Written from the perspectives of Allianz's CEO, Henning Schulte-Noelle, before and after the deal and a regional manager implementing the concept of a full-line financial service provider.... View Details

Keywords: Management; Corporate Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Acquisition; Financial Institutions; Corporate Finance; Banking Industry; Germany

27 Nov 2012
Working Paper Summaries

No Margin, No Mission? A Field Experiment on Incentives for Pro-Social Tasks

Keywords: by Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera & Kelsey Jack

April 2001 (Revised September 2001)
Case

Merloni Elettrodomestici: Building for a New Century

By: Joseph L. Bower

In 2001 a young new CEO has to develop a strategy to move his company beyond the hyper-competitive conditions of Western Europe. A major acquisition in Russia and a new Web-based service business provide interesting new directions. This case traces the development of... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Multinational Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Web; Russia

April 2005 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Furman Selz LLC (A): A Tale of Two Acquisitions

By: Nancy D. Beaulieu, Boris Groysberg and Kyle Doherty

Profiles a firm that was reacquired by two companies with different degrees of success. Highlights integration challenges present in acquisition deals when the primary assets of the target are human capital. Focuses on Furman Selz's acquisition by Xerox in 1987; its... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Transition; Valuation; Human Capital; Compensation and Benefits; Integration; Organizational Culture; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States

November 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Scott Tucker (A): Race to the Top

By: Aiyesha Dey and Amram Migdal

The case tells the story of the rise and fall of Scott Tucker, an entrepreneur, businessman, passionate race car driver, competitor, and owner of a professional racing team. From 1997 to 2012, Tucker built a nationwide network of payday lending businesses, becoming a... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Fairness; Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Financial Services Industry; United States

March 2022
Case

In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Pierre Marchesseault

To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020.... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Fintech; Emerging Market; Fundraising; Financial Inclusion; Strategy; Expansion; Management; Entrepreneurship; Personal Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Africa; Togo; Nigeria; Ghana

November 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Votorantim: Uniting Family and Business Across Generations

By: Christina R. Wing, Carla Larangeira and Pedro Levindo

Over a 105-year span, the Ermírio de Moraes family built Votorantim, one of Latin America’s largest industrial conglomerates, and among Brazil’s topmost businesses, also credited for helping “build” the country over decades. By early 2023, Votorantim included... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Family Ownership; Business and Shareholder Relations; Family and Family Relationships; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Latin America

13 Oct 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Fencing Off Silicon Valley: Cross-Border Venture Capital and Technology Spillovers

Keywords: by Ufuk Akcigit, Sina T. Ates, Josh Lerner, Richard Townsend, and Yulia Zhestkova; Financial Services

2015
Working Paper

Are CEOs Born Leaders? Lessons from Traits of a Million Individuals

By: Renée Adams, Matti Keloharju and Samuli Knüpfer

What makes a CEO? We merge data on the traits of more than one million Swedish males, measured at age 18 in a mandatory military enlistment test, with data on their service as a CEO of any Swedish company decades later. CEOs have higher cognitive and non-cognitive... View Details

Keywords: Personal Characteristics; Management Teams