Publications
Publications
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(2,747)
- Faculty Publications (641)
- January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
- Case
School of Rock: Tuning into Structured Empowerment (A)
By: Tatiana Sandino, Jeffrey Rayport, Samuel Grad and Stacy Straaberg
In summer 2021, School of Rock was a youth-oriented music education company with 291 franchise- and company-owned schools globally. Before CEO Rob Price’s hire in 2017, School of Rock’s nonconformist rock ‘n’ roll culture led to variability in teaching styles,... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Plan; Change Management; Transformation; Communication Strategy; Decisions; Curriculum and Courses; Teaching; Employee Relationship Management; Knowledge Sharing; Leadership Style; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Style; Marketing Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Franchise Ownership; Performance Expectations; Performance Improvement; Strategic Planning; Attitudes; Conflict Management; Corporate Strategy; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Education Industry; Music Industry; Massachusetts; United States
- January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
- Supplement
School of Rock: Tuning into Structured Empowerment (B)
By: Tatiana Sandino, Jeffrey Rayport, Samuel Grad and Stacy Straaberg
In September 2022, Price and his team evaluated the past year’s strategies to increase Method App adoption and discussed new initiatives to consider. View Details
- January 2024
- Article
Dog Eat Dog: Balancing Network Effects and Differentiation in a Digital Platform Merger
By: Chiara Farronato, Jessica Fong and Andrey Fradkin
Digital platforms are increasingly the subject of regulatory scrutiny. In comparison to multiple competitors, a single platform may increase consumer welfare if network effects are large or may decrease welfare due to higher prices or reduction in platform variety. We... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Flow-Driven ESG Returns
I show that the recent returns to ESG investing are strongly driven by price impact
from flows towards ESG funds. Using data on institutional trades, I estimate the
market’s ability to accommodate the demand of ESG funds, which is given by the
elasticity of... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Equity Market Implications of the Retail Investment Boom
By: Philippe van der Beck and Coralie Jaunin
This paper quantifies the impact of Robinhood traders on the US equity market. Within a structural model, we estimate retail and institutional demand curves and derive aggregate pricing implications via market clearing. The inelastic nature of institutional demand... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Optimal Stock Valuation Ratio
By: Sebastian Hillenbrand and Odhrain McCarthy
Trailing price ratios, such as the price-dividend and the price-earnings ratio, scale prices by trailing cash flow measures. They theoretically contain expected returns, yet, their performance in predicting stock market returns is poor. This is because of an omitted... View Details
- October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
GameStop: Social Media Finds a Cheat Code (A)
By: Joseph Pacelli and Sarah Mehta
This case covers the events leading up to the 2021 GameStop short squeeze. Using GameStop as an illustrative example, the case explores the rise in retail trading, increased financial information sharing on social media, and the gamification of investing enabled by... View Details
- October 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Ball: EVA Driving the World's Leading Can Manufacturer (A)
By: Jonas Heese and Susan Pinckney
The case describes Ball’s multi decade history of using Economic Value Added to drive decision making and workforce compensation. In 2016, the company acquired Rexam PLC and became the world’s leading metal beverage container company. Consumer demand for varied... View Details
Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Cost Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Buildings and Facilities; Green Building; Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Satisfaction; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Machinery and Machining; Asset Pricing; Corporate Finance; Capital; Cost; Financial Management; Goods and Commodities; Compensation and Benefits; Executive Compensation; Employee Relationship Management; Goals and Objectives; Resource Allocation; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Arizona; California; Texas
- October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Fortinet: Cybersecurity Pioneer Ken Xie Considers the Long Game
By: Tsedal Neeley, Jeff Huizinga and Emily Grandjean
Ken Xie, cofounder of cybersecurity giant Fortinet, faced a critical decision that would validate his leadership. Fortinet became the industry’s second-largest pureplay cybersecurity firm by developing differentiated hardware and investing in R&D. However, after a... View Details
- 2023
- Book
Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader's Guide to Solving Hard Problems
By: Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
Speed has gotten a bad name in business, much of it deserved. When Facebook made "Move fast and break things" an informal company motto, it fueled a widely held belief that we can either make progress or take care of people, one or the other. That a certain amount of... View Details
- October 2023
- Article
Stock Market Stimulus
By: Robin Greenwood, Toomas Laarits and Jeffrey Wurgler
We study the stock market effects of the arrival of the three rounds of “stimulus checks” to U.S. taxpayers and the single round of direct payments to Hong Kong citizens. The first two rounds of U.S. checks appear to have increased retail buying and share prices of... View Details
- September 29, 2023
- Article
Eliminating Algorithmic Bias Is Just the Beginning of Equitable AI
By: Simon Friis and James Riley
When it comes to artificial intelligence and inequality, algorithmic bias rightly receives a lot of attention. But it’s just one way that AI can lead to inequitable outcomes. To truly create equitable AI, we need to consider three forces through which it might make... View Details
- September 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Icahn Enterprises: Ponzi Scheme or Sound Investment
By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and James Weber
Icahn Enterprises, a publicly traded limited partnership founded and operated by famed activist investor Carl Icahn, had earned above market returns for over a decade. Between 2018 and early 2023, it had a compound annual return of 31%. Icahn invested in undervalued... View Details
- September 2023 (Revised September 2024)
- Case
IBJ, Inc. (A): Seeking Matrimony in Japan
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Akiko Saito
In March 2020, Shigeru Ishizaka, founder and CEO of IBJ, Inc., Japan's largest marriage matching service provider, faced a critical decision regarding the company’s planned ¥3.5 billion (US$32.8 million) acquisition of competitor ZWEI Co., Ltd. IBJ, founded in 2006,... View Details
- September 13, 2023
- Article
How the Best Chief Data Officers Create Value
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Robin Seibert
Despite the rapidly increasing prominence of data and analytics functions, the majority of chief data officers (CDOs) fail to value and price the business outcomes created by their data and analytics capabilities. It comes as no surprise then that many CDOs fall behind... View Details
- September 2023
- Article
Stock Price Reactions to ESG News: The Role of ESG Ratings and Disagreement
By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon
We investigate whether ESG ratings predict future ESG news and the associated market reactions. We find that the consensus rating predicts future news, but its predictive ability diminishes for firms with large disagreement between raters. Relation between news and... View Details
Keywords: ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Disclosure; ESG Ratings; ESG Reporting; ESG Disclosure Metrics; Sustainability; Investments; Disagreement; Rating Disagreement; Ratings; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; News; Investment; Financial Markets; Stocks; Price
- September 2023
- Case
The Meteoric Rise of Skims
Since its founding in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede, Skims, a solutions-oriented brand creating the next generation of underwear, loungewear, and shapewear with an eye toward body-type and skin-tone inclusivity, has experienced a meteoric rise. Kardashian, who... View Details
Keywords: Brand; Branding; Direct-to-consumer; DTC; Influencers; Influencer Marketing; Fashion; Growth; Direct Marketing; Influence; Reputation; Social Inference; Consumer Goods; Consumer Products; Female Entrepreneur; Female Protagonist; Entrepreneurship And Strategy; Brand ＆ Product Management; Competitive Advantage; Online Followers; Retail; Retail Formats; Retailing; Online Retail; Celebrities; Celebrity; Celebrity Endorsement; Go To Market Strategy; Apparel; Startup Marketing; Startups; Social Influencers; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Distribution Channels; Digital Marketing; Advertising; Power and Influence; Social Media; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Stock Market and Bank Risk-Taking
By: David S. Scharfstein and Antonio Falato
Using confidential supervisory risk ratings, we document that banks increase risk after they go public compared to a control group of banks that filed to go public but withdrew their filings for plausibly exogenous reasons. The increase in risk increases short-term... View Details
- August 2023
- Case
Floward
By: Krishna Palepu and Namrata Arora
In 2022, Abdulaziz B. Al Loughani, CEO and co-founder of Floward, an online flower and gifting company established in Kuwait in 2017, contemplated the firm's growth trajectory. Floward, an e-commerce enterprise that offered fresh-cut flowers sourced directly from... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Beyond the Hype: Unveiling the Marginal Benefits of 3D Virtual Tours in Real Estate
By: Mengxia Zhang and Isamar Troncoso
3D virtual tours (VTs) have become a popular digital tool in real estate platforms, enabling potential buyers to virtually walk through the houses they search for online. In this paper, we study home sellers’ adoption of VTs and the VTs’ relative benefits compared to... View Details