Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(4,103)
- Faculty Publications (538)
- June 2000 (Revised December 2001)
- Case
Performance Pay at Safelite Auto Glass (A)
By: Brian J. Hall, Edward Lazear and Carleen Madigan
Describes a company's changing of its compensation and incentive plan. In particular, it shows how a change from hourly pay to piece rate pay (for windshield installers) affected productivity, pay, and turnover. View Details
- February 2000 (Revised August 2001)
- Case
Astor Park Hotel
By: William J. Poorvu, Arthur I Segel and Matthew C. Lieb
Starwood Hotels, the world's largest REIT, is interested in acquiring an underperforming hotel in the Pacific Northwest. Steve Goldman, Starwood's VP of acquisitions and development, is wondering how much to pay for the property and how to reposition it. View Details
- 1999
- Other Unpublished Work
Executive Ownership and Control in Newly Public Firms: The Role of Venture Capitalists
By: Malcolm Baker and Paul Gompers
We study the implications of CEO equity ownership for incentives and control in a sample of 1,011 newly public firms. Before an initial public offering, equity investments by venture capitalists reduce CEO ownership by about half, from an average of 35 percent to 19... View Details
- September 1999
- Background Note
Revolution in the Communications Switching Industry
By: Jay O. Light, Lynda M. Applegate and Daniel J. Green
As data packet switches threatened the voice circuit switch industry in 1999, major switch and router vendors began paying high premiums to acquire venture-backed switch companies. This note explains what a switch is and suggests why large vendors might be so anxious... View Details
- April 1999 (Revised October 2001)
- Case
Motive Communications
The founders of Motive Communications, Inc., a recent start-up dedicated to reinventing the support chain involved in the delivery of information technology support services, put in place a development process hinged on extensive customer feedback. As part of this, a... View Details
- December 1998
- Case
Casto Travel
By: Thomas J. DeLong and Susan Harmeling
Maryles Casto had the vision to build the largest travel agency in Silicon Valley, mirroring the growth pattern of the entire area. In 1997 the travel business changed dramatically as airlines chose not to pay travel agencies the fees they once did. Simultaneously, the... View Details
- 1998
- Working Paper
CEO Incentives and Firm Size
By: Brian Hall and George P. Baker
What determines CEO incentives? A confusion exists among both academics and practitioners about how to measure the strength of CEO incentives, and how to reconcile the enormous differences in pay sensitivities between executives in large and small firms. We show that... View Details
- April 1998
- Case
Cephalon, Inc.
By: Peter Tufano
In early 1997, Cephalon, awaited an FDA panel's decision on whether its drug, Myotrophin, would be approved. If the drug was approved, the firm might need substantial additional funds to commercialize as well as to buy back rights to it (which had been sold earlier to... View Details
- February 1998 (Revised December 1998)
- Case
Atlantic Energy/Delmarva Power & Light (A)
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Mathew M Millett and Tracy Aronson
Delmarva Power & Light and Atlantic Energy are neighboring electric utilities based in Delaware and New Jersey, respectively. In early 1996, they entered into merger negotiations, but were unable to reach an agreement on price because they could not agree on what... View Details
- February 1998
- Case
Lyondell Petrochemical Company
By: Jay W. Lorsch and Daniel P. Erikson
In August 1994, Lyondell Petrochemical Co.'s corporate parent and largest single shareholder effectively shed its stock, resulting in the resignation of 5 of its 11 directors. The remaining outside directors immediately acted to overhaul the executive compensation plan... View Details
- January 1998 (Revised February 2002)
- Case
Funai Consulting Company, Ltd. (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Tomoya Nakamura
In the summer of 1997, a consultant at Japan's Funai Consulting Co. Ltd., must decide how to respond to a client's proposal to offer "open pricing" (based on willingness to pay) to customers unable to pay the standard price for the client's product. The client, Akita... View Details
- January 1998 (Revised February 1998)
- Case
Sideco Americana S.A. (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Harold F. Hogan Jr
This case focuses on a decision the Sideco management team faces when customers of its newly acquired and privatized water and sewer company neglect to pay its bills. Describes the effort to transform an old-style Argentine construction and engineering company into a... View Details
- March 1997 (Revised January 1999)
- Case
SureCut Shears, Inc.
By: W. Carl Kester
A bank loan officer must determine whether to waive convenants and extend terms on a line of credit granted to SureCut Shears. At issue is whether the inability of SureCut to pay down its line of credit is due to a temporary cyclical downturn or other long-term... View Details
- August 1996
- Article
Willingness to Pay and the Distribution of Risk and Wealth
By: John W. Pratt and Richard Zeckhauser
- April 1996 (Revised January 2006)
- Case
Times Mirror Company PEPS Proposal Review
By: Peter Tufano
Times Mirror Co. (TMC) owns a substantial block of Netscape common stock purchased prior to Netscape's IPO, on which it has substantial unrealized gains. TMC is restricted from selling the stock in a public offering and is therefore considering a proposal by Morgan... View Details
- April 1996
- Case
Sunshine Villas
By: William J. Poorvu and John H. Vogel Jr.
Ms. Courtney Lowe is president and sole owner of CL Development. She is looking to sell Sunshine Villas to pay off her bank and make a profit. This case is part of a negotiation game simulation that includes Jason Bosworth, Silver Lane Apartments, and Major Insurance... View Details
- October 1995
- Article
Start-ups, Spin-offs, and Internal Projects
By: James J. Anton and Dennis Yao
We examine the incentive problem confronting a firm and employee when the employee privately discovers a significant invention and faces a choice between keeping the invention private and leaving the firm to form a new company (start-up), or transferring knowledge and... View Details
- March 1995
- Case
Donald Salter Communications, Inc.
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Jeremy Cott
A new CEO is hired to manage the turnaround of a family-owned newspaper publisher. In a departure from previous management, he implements a new compensation scheme that explicitly ties executive pay to market-value-based measures of firm performance. Because the... View Details
- August 1994
- Case
Intuit, Inc.
The merger of two computer software firms with very rapidly growing non-overlapping products makes great strategic sense, but presents difficult valuation and accounting problems. How can a firm pay $225 million to acquire another firm with negligible current earnings,... View Details