Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,347)
- Faculty Publications (552)
- March 2008 (Revised March 2014)
- Case
By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Aaron Smith, David Chen and Brian Feinstein
As Facebook topped one billion monthly users in October 2012, the online social network continued to face questions about how best to monetize its surging traffic. The company could invest further in new advertising products, which represented the majority of the... View Details
- March 2008 (Revised June 2009)
- Case
Actis: January 2008
By: Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
Paul Feltcher, the CEO of Actis, a leading private equity investor in emerging markets, is preparing for an executive retreat at which the management team will consider how best to position the firm for the future. Actis could move in a number of different directions... View Details
- March 2008
- Case
Novartis AG: Science-Based Business
By: H. Kent Bowen and Courtney Purrington
Novartis is a science-based drug company, which has important implications for its business strategy. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world with over $38B in sales in 2007. Pharmaceuticals account for slightly over $24B of that total. In 2007,... View Details
- February 2008 (Revised December 2011)
- Case
Sealed Air China
By: Regina Abrami, William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan and Tracy Yuen Manty
With a 10-year history of doing business in China, Sealed Air was now betting on the country to help propel its growth as a global company. The company identified China as one of the initial investments in the company's Global Manufacturing Strategy that aimed to... View Details
- February 2008 (Revised September 2008)
- Case
Indesit Company: Does Global Matter?
By: Joseph L. Bower
In 2007, the leadership of the Indesit Company is focused on long-term corporate strategy. After 3 decades, the company has emerged as the number 2 home appliance producer in Europe. Should they invest further to be number 1, or should they focus on the global market,... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Allocating Marketing Resources
By: Sunil Gupta and Thomas J. Steenburgh
Marketing is essential for the organic growth of a company. Not surprisingly, firms spend billions of dollars on marketing. Given these large investments, marketing managers have the responsibility to optimally allocate these resources and demonstrate that these... View Details
- January 2008 (Revised October 2015)
- Case
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited: A Global Company's China Strategy
By: William C. Kirby, Michael Shih-Ta Chen and Keith Wong
After fifty-five years in the semiconductor industry, Morris Chang, founder and Chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), was seeing a change. After four decades of regular double-digit growth the industry was still growing-but now at a much slower... View Details
- January 2008
- Article
Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things
By: Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman and Willy C. Shih
Most companies aren't half as innovative as their senior executives want them to be (or as their marketing claims suggest they are). What's stifling innovation? There are plenty of usual suspects, but the authors finger three financial tools as key accomplices.... View Details
- September 2007 (Revised November 2008)
- Case
Sinopec: Refining its Strategy
By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Julia Galef
China's oil industry, with majority ownership vested in the government, had engaged in an "equity oil" strategy for the past few years-acquiring equity interests in oil producing nations including Sudan, Angola, and Iran. Outside critics, however, suggested that the... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Taxes and Portfolio Choice: Evidence from JGTRRA's Treatment of International Dividends
By: Mihir A. Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala
This paper investigates how taxes influence portfolio choices by exploring the response to the distinctive treatment of foreign dividends in the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (JGTRRA). JGTRRA lowered the dividend tax rate to 15% for American equities... View Details
- June 2007 (Revised January 2008)
- Case
The Vanguard Group, Inc. in 2006 and Target Retirement Funds
By: Luis M. Viceira
The Vanguard Group is one of the largest asset managers in the U.S., with over $1 trillion in assets, ninety percent of which are mutual fund assets, and more than 12,000 employees at year-end 2006. Vanguard has built a strong reputation as the manager of reference for... View Details
- June 2007 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
Zoots - Financing Growth (A)
By: Michael J. Roberts, William A. Sahlman and Todd Krasnow
Traces the genesis and founding of Zoots, the largest chain of dry cleaning establishments in the U.S. Founded by some of the founders of the very successful Staples chain, the company raises a very large amount of capital without fully proving its business model, and... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market
By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler
Real investors and markets are too complicated to be neatly summarized by a few selected biases and trading frictions. The "top down" approach to behavioral finance focuses on the measurement of reduced form, aggregate sentiment and traces its effects to stock returns.... View Details
- May 2007
- Article
Corporate Financing Decisions When Investors Take the Path of Least Resistance
By: Malcolm Baker, Joshua Coval and Jeremy Stein
We explore the consequences for corporate financial policy that arise when investors exhibit inertial behavior. One implication of investor inertia is that, all else equal, a firm pursuing a strategy of equity-financed growth will prefer a stock-for-stock merger to... View Details
- January 2007
- Article
Introducing the First Management Control Systems: Evidence from the Retail Sector
By: Tatiana Sandino
Focusing on a sample of US retailers, I study the management control systems (MCS) that firms introduce when they first invest in controls, and identify four categories of initial MCS, which are defined in terms of the purposes these MCS fulfill. The first category,... View Details
- December 2006 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
The European Union in the 21st Century
Focuses on the challenges facing the European Union in 2006. Following the French and Dutch referendums in 2005, the fate of the European Constitution is in jeopardy. Ten new accession countries have just joined the EU, with Turkey in the beginning stages of the... View Details
- November 2006 (Revised May 2014)
- Case
Li Ka-Shing and the Growth of Cheung Kong
By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony J. Mayo and Mark Benson
Events in the history of Cheung Kong's growth reveal how Li Ka-Shing applied his skills as a "first-class noticer" to complex political and socioeconomic environments. While Li's determination to succeed is legendary, so are his skills in reading and responding to the... View Details
- September 2006 (Revised February 2011)
- Case
Empemex
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Regina Garcia-Cuellar
Studies an entrepreneurial venture in Mexico City. The protagonists, two MBAs from HBS, started a pawn shop chain funded from their private equity office after finishing business school. This is timed at a point where the protagonists have to decide how to grow the... View Details
- August 2006 (Revised February 2021)
- Case
Anthem, Inc.
Describes the U.S. Health Care industry and WellPoint's background, market growth strategies, and potential as an investment option. View Details