Publications

25 Nov 2019
Research & Ideas

When Your Passion Works Against You

University of Toronto. Sometimes passion isn’t appropriate At the same time, the team found that passion doesn’t always work. In a second study, participants watched videos of Dragons’ Den and rated how passionate entrepreneurs sounded.... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

November 2003 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Ivar Kreuger and the Swedish Match Empire

By: Geoffrey Jones and Ingrid Vargas

Taught in Evolution of Global Business. Globalization and corporate fraud are the central themes of this case on the international growth of Swedish Match in the interwar years. Between 1913 and 1932, Ivar Kreuger, known as the "Swedish Match King," built a small,... View Details

Keywords: History; International Finance; Globalized Firms and Management; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Monopoly; Business and Government Relations; Sweden

January 1999 (Revised March 2004)
Case

AMB Consolidation, The

By: William J. Poorvu and Daniel J. Rudd

Anne Shea, assistant vice president at the Curators' Fund (The Fund), is responsible for investing roughly $80 million in real-estate assets. Less than three years ago, Anne invested $40 million into a commingled fund run by AMB Institutional Realty Advisors, Inc., a... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Conflict of Interests; Industry Structures; Property; Investment; Public Ownership; Real Estate Industry

2009
Other Unpublished Work

Steering Monetary Policy Through Unprecedented Crises

By: David Moss and Cole Bolton

In early April 2008, economic conditions in Europe appeared to be deteriorating on almost all fronts: sales figures were falling, business and consumer confidence were slumping, forecasts for European growth were being revised downward, and inflation was rising. In... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Inflation and Deflation; Central Banking; Interest Rates; International Finance; Policy; Crisis Management; Europe

December 2019
Case

WeWork Files for an IPO

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

For the board of The We Company—better known as WeWork—August 14, 2019, promised to be a pivotal day. It was then that WeWork’s IPO prospectus, known as an S-1 filing, would be made public, giving potential investors, the media, and the general public a window into the... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Going Public; Leadership; Management; Private Equity; Valuation; Venture Capital; Real Estate Industry; Technology Industry; United States

October 2008
Article

Evaluating the CEO

By: Stephen P. Kaufman

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. After Kaufman became a CEO, he was struck by how perfunctory the board was in its... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Performance Evaluation; Motivation and Incentives

July 2020
Article

Who Should Select New Employees, Headquarters or the Unit Manager? Consequences of Centralizing Hiring at a Retail Chain

By: Carolyn Deller and Tatiana Sandino

We examine how changing the allocation of hiring decision rights in a multiunit organization affects employee-firm match quality, contingent on a unit’s circumstances. Our research site, a U.S. retail chain, switched from a decentralized hiring model (hiring by... View Details

Keywords: Control; Selection; Decentralization; Company Values; Retail Chains; Employees; Selection and Staffing; Local Range; Business Headquarters; Decision Making

Article

The Economics of Structured Finance

By: Joshua D. Coval, Jakub W. Jurek and Erik Stafford

This paper investigates the spectacular rise and fall of structured finance. The essence of structured finance activities is the pooling of economic assets like loans, bonds, and mortgages, and the subsequent issuance of a prioritized capital structure of claims, known... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Asset Management; Debt Securities; Investment; Risk Management; Behavior

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2019
Working Paper

Who Should Select New Employees, Headquarters or the Unit Manager? Consequences of Centralizing Hiring at a Retail Chain

By: Carolyn Deller and Tatiana Sandino

We examine how changing the allocation of hiring decision rights in a multiunit organization affects employee-firm match quality, contingent on a unit’s circumstances. Our research site, a US retail chain, switched from a decentralized hiring model (hiring by business... View Details

Keywords: Control; Selection; Decentralization; Company Values; Retail Chains; Decision Making; Economics; Geography; Employees; Selection and Staffing; Organizational Design; Situation or Environment; Retail Industry

SSRN

Read Now

March 2020
Article

Voluntary, Self-Regulatory, and Mandatory Disclosure of Oil and Gas Company Payments to Foreign Governments

By: Paul M. Healy and George Serafeim

Concerns about high rates of government corruption in resource-rich countries have led transparency advocates to urge oil and gas firms to disclose payments to host governments for natural resources. Transparency, they argue, can increase government accountability and... View Details

Keywords: Oil ＆ Gas; Corruption; Transparency; Self-regulation; Industry Self-regulation; Regulation; Disclosure; Disclosure Regulation; Energy Sources; Crime and Corruption; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Energy Industry

SSRN

05 Dec 2024
HBS Seminar

Amanda Sharkey, Mendoza College of Business

July 1995 (Revised April 1996)
Case

Cambridge Technology Partners (A)

By: Teresa M. Amabile, George P. Baker III and Michael Beer

Cambridge Technology Partners uses a highly innovative product strategy, supported by a human resources strategy, that has been very successful. However, high growth rates jeopardize product quality while tension about relative compensation levels between sales and... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Compensation and Benefits; Organizational Culture; Quality; Human Resources; Relationships; Innovation and Invention; Consulting Industry; Massachusetts

April 2020 (Revised April 2023)
Case

TransDigm in 2017: The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

TransDigm was a highly acquisitive company that manufactured a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts for both military and commercial customers. Over the ten years ending in 2016, its stock price had increased ten times, and both EBITDA and revenues had grown... View Details

01 May 2015
News

May Day: Job Outlook Grim For Younger Generation

January 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Supplement

Fixed Income Arbitrage in a Financial Crisis (C): TED Spread and Swap Spread in November 2008

Investment manager Albert Mills confronts an apparent arbitrage opportunity during the global financial crisis of 2008 when he notices an unusually low-- and briefly negative-- thirty-year U.S. dollar fixed-floating swap spread. Mills must decide if there is an... View Details

Keywords: Bonds; Financial Management; Investment Return; Financial Crisis; Financial Services Industry; United States