Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,724)
- Faculty Publications (676)
- 2005
- Other Unpublished Work
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
- March 2005 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Ito-Yokado: The Challenge of Apparel
By: Rajiv Lal and Arar Han
Ito-Yokado, the 16th largest retail conglomerate in the world, has struggled with the declining performance in the apparel division of its superstores for over a decade. Apparel sales are slipping, eating hard-won gains in the retailer's food division. CEO Toshifumi... View Details
- Article
Strategic Management of Product Recovery
Manufacturers of an expanding range of durable products are facing regulatory and market pressures to manage the products they manufactured upon their end of life (EOL). In part, this attention is motivated by a growing number of countries—especially across Europe and... View Details
- September 2004 (Revised May 2006)
- Case
Bohemian Crowns: Ceskoslovenska Obchodni Banka (A)
By: Rawi E. Abdelal, Vincent Dessain and Monika Stachowiak
Tells the story of the Czech transition from a centrally planned to a free market economy, describing the first economic reforms, the fixed-exchange rate regime, and the voucher privatization. Also explains why, in the middle of the 1990s, the Czech Republic... View Details
- September 2004 (Revised February 2007)
- Case
Hedging Currency Risks at AIFS
By: Mihir A. Desai, Vincent Dessain and Anders Sjoman
The American Institute for Foreign Studies (AIFS) organizes study abroad programs and cultural exchanges for American students. The firm's revenues are mainly in U.S. dollars, but most of its costs are in eurodollars and British pounds. The company's controllers review... 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
- July/August 2004
- Article
Stakeholders and Environmental Management Practices: An Institutional Framework
By: Magali Delmas and Michael W. Toffel
Despite burgeoning research on companies' environmental strategies and environmental management practices, it remains unclear why some firms adopt environmental management practices beyond regulatory compliance. This paper leverages institutional theory by proposing... View Details
- May 2004 (Revised April 2005)
- Case
Prudential Securities
By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Amanda Cowen
Prudential Insurance Co. attempted to diversify into financial services by building an investment banking franchise. Prudential's initial foray into the industry was its acquisition of The Bache Group in 1982. In 2000, the company decided to exit investment banking.... View Details
- 2004
- Working Paper
Regulation and Reaction: The Other Side of Free Banking in Antebellum New York
By: David A. Moss and Sarah Brennan
Free banking, which first appeared in the United States in the late 1830s, comprised two essential features: general incorporation for banks and rigorous security requirements for note issue. Because the general incorporation feature is what allowed free entry, it has... View Details
- March 2004 (Revised August 2004)
- Case
Strategic Review at Egon Zehnder International (A)
By: Ashish Nanda
The case describes the history of the executive search firm Egon Zehnder International (EZI) from its inception through 2000. Internal and environmental changes lead EZI leaders to question whether the firm might be at an inflection point in its history. The EZI... View Details
- January 2004 (Revised February 2005)
- Case
Timberland and Community Involvement (Abridged Version)
By: James E. Austin and James Quinn
When Jeffrey Swartz became the third generation in his family to lead the Timberland Co., he made community involvement an integral part of the company's strategy. Under Swartz's leadership, Timberland formed a close partnership with City Year, the national corps of... View Details
- November 2003 (Revised February 2011)
- Case
Sanford C. Bernstein: The Fork in the Road (A)
By: Boris Groysberg and Anahita Hashemi
Soon after the death of the firm's legendary founder, the individuals then serving as chairman and as president--Lewis A. Sanders and Roger Hertog, respectively--talked about the future of their firm. Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., a private investment firm, had grown... View Details
- November 2003 (Revised December 2003)
- Case
Enabling Business Strategy with IT at the World Bank
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Brian DeLacey
World Bank IT provides services (communications, applications, video conferencing, knowledge sharing, distance learning, information sharing, client commerce, crisis management, etc.) on a global basis to the poorest countries in the globe via satellites. This case... View Details
- November 2003 (Revised August 2005)
- Case
First Commonwealth Financial Corporation
By: Robert S. Kaplan
First Commonwealth Financial Corp., a financial institution in central and southwestern Pennsylvania, implemented the Balanced Scorecard for describing and implementing its new customer-focused strategy. Its founder and chairman decided that the Balanced Scorecard also... View Details
- August 2003 (Revised June 2005)
- Case
Royal Bank of Scotland, The: Masters of Integration
By: Nitin Nohria and James Weber
Describes the acquisition of Nat West by Royal Bank of Scotland. Describes the strategic rationale for the acquisition and the process by which the integration of the two banks was accomplished. The acquisition is remarkable for how successful it was, given the typical... View Details
- March 2003 (Revised November 2005)
- Case
Botswana: A Diamond in the Rough
By: Laura Alfaro, Debora L. Spar, Faheen Allibhoy and Vinati Dev
In the years since independence, tiny, landlocked Botswana has gone from being one of the world's poorest nations to becoming a stable, prosperous state, blessed with the highest sustained growth rate in the world. This case highlights the role that foreign direct... View Details
- Article
The Growing Strategic Importance of End-of-Life Product Management
Requiring manufacturers to manage the their products when they become waste is an innovative form of regulation, one that has been adopted by countries in Asia, Europe, and North America on a variety of products that range from vehicles to appliances to batteries.... View Details
- February 2003 (Revised March 2007)
- Case
Internet Customer Acquisition Strategy at Bankinter
By: Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem
Bankinter, a relatively small Spanish bank, has a large presence as an Internet financial services provider. Leading the way to profitability through the Internet will give Bankinter a major competitive advantage over the larger, more established Spanish banks. Ann... View Details
- January 2003
- Background Note
Institutions for Collaboration: Overview
Provides an overview of the wide variety of organizations other than firms, government ministries and regulatory agencies, and universities that may have significant effects on competitiveness. These intermediary entities, referred to as institutions for collaboration... View Details
- 4 Dec 2002
- Other Presentation
Can Japan Compete? New Findings from the Global Competitiveness Report 2002
This presentation draws on ideas from Professor Porter's articles and books, in particular, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (The Free Press, 1990), "Building the Microeconomic Foundations of Competitiveness," in The Global Competitiveness Report... View Details