Publications

January 2010 (Revised March 2010)
Background Note

A Note on Direct Selling in Developing Economies

By: Michael Chu and Joel Emilio Bregman Segre

Informal and formal direct selling play a particularly important role in developing countries characterized by markets with limited retail sectors. This note explores the practice of direct selling for the company, the sales person, and the consumer, as well as the... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Developing Countries and Economies; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Emerging Markets; Sales

February 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Tad O'Malley: The Investment Conundrum

By: Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Tad O'Malley has just started as an associate with Empire Investment Group. He must evaluate three investment opportunities facing the big leveraged buyout firm. All are global, but each pertains to different offices and each deal has different strengths and... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Investment; Strength and Weakness; Negotiation Deal; Personal Development and Career

March 2007
Supplement

Bain & Company, Inc.

In late 2001, the consultancy Bain must decide whether to launch information technology as a practice area within the firm. The senior executives who are Bain's clients have been asking more and more IT-related questions of the firm's partners, who find themselves... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Market Entry and Exit; Information Technology Industry; Consulting Industry

26 Nov 2014
News

Asia’s Aging Tech Leaders Struggle to Find Successors

17 Dec 2010
News

How To Protect Your Dignity From The TSA

30 May 2018
News

The corporate sustainability Twitterati 2018

11 Jul 2017
News

Bad For Business?

2003
Article

Confirming Management Earnings Forecasts, Earnings Uncertainty, and Stock Returns

By: Michael B. Clement, Richard Frankel and Jeffrey Miller

In this study we examine the association among confirming management forecasts, stock prices, and analyst expectations. Confirming management forecasts are voluntary disclosures by management that corroborate existing market expectations about future earnings. This... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Corporate Disclosure; Price; Stocks; Investment Return

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Forthcoming
Article

Organizational Emplacement as a Response to Digital Threat: The Novel Resurgence of Independent Bookstores

By: Ryan Raffaelli and Ryann Noe

This study reveals how incumbent actors leverage physical place as source of differentiation in response to the threat of digital commoditization. Through a longitudinal, qualitative analysis of the U.S. independent bookselling industry from 1995 to 2019, we outline... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Place Making; Bookstores; Industry Evolution; Digital; Commoditization; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Digital Transformation; E-commerce; Distribution Channels; Civil Society or Community; Value Creation; Retail Industry

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Article

Trimmed Opinion Pools and the Crowd's Calibration Problem

By: Victor Richmond R. Jose, Yael Grushka-Cockayne and Kenneth C. Lichtendahl

We introduce an alternative to the popular linear opinion pool for combining individual probability forecasts. One of the well-known problems with the linear opinion pool is that it can be poorly calibrated. It tends toward underconfidence as the crowd's diversity... View Details

Keywords: Trimmed Opinion Pools; Forecasting and Prediction

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2023
Working Paper

Point Four and the Politics of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States during the Early Cold War

By: Melanie Sheehan

This article traces business influence in the formulation of the Point Four technical assistance program, the first US Cold War-era international development program. It focuses specifically on business interest associations’ efforts to secure federal incentives to... View Details

Keywords: Point Four Program; Business Interest Association; International Development; Cold War; Foreign Direct Investment; Business History; Business and Government Relations

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January 2010 (Revised May 2012)
Case

TopCoder (A): Developing Software through Crowdsourcing

By: Karim R. Lakhani, David A. Garvin and Eric Lonstein

TopCoder's crowdsourcing-based business model, in which software is developed through online tournaments, is presented. The case highlights how TopCoder has created a unique two-sided innovation platform consisting of a global community of over 225,000 developers who... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Two-Sided Platforms; Motivation and Incentives; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competition; Software; Technology Industry

Article

Competition and Cost Accounting

By: V.G. Narayanan and Michael Smith

The central theme of Competition and Cost Accounting is that strategic considerations may make it desirable for a firm to have divisions and product managers internalize something other than their true costs. In the case of transfer prices, a high transfer price... View Details

Keywords: Cost Allocation; Transfer Pricing; Decentralization; Bertrand And Cournot Competition; Cost Accounting