Publications

January 2004
Case

Bob Holgrom and the Buyout of the Carlson Division

By: Thomas R. Piper

The head of the Carlson Division stands to benefit substantially in financial terms if a private equity firm wins the bid for the division. The division is in the early stages of a performance turnaround, with only three quarters of profit improvement and no audited... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Corporate Disclosure; Ethics; Financial Reporting; Laws and Statutes; Performance Improvement

December 2003
Case

Fox Bids for the NFL-1993

By: Bharat N. Anand and Catherine M. Conneely

The Fox television network, launched in 1987 by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was in a precarious position in 1993. Although it had met its business plan targets, its ratings in the recently concluded November "sweeps" were indifferent, several of its newly launched... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Competitive Strategy; Financial Reporting; Bids and Bidding; Revenue; Television Entertainment; Media and Broadcasting Industry

December 2003 (Revised February 2004)
Case

Scott Lawson's Dilemma

By: Thomas R. Piper

The head of SysCom's test equipment division is concerned about how to answer employee and customer questions concerning the possible sale or liquidation of the division. The consequences of alternative approaches (full transparency vs. strong optimism and reassurance)... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Interpersonal Communication; Business Divisions; Corporate Governance; Ethics; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry

2003
Casebook

Business Analysis and Valuation Using Financial Statements: Text and Cases

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Paul M. Healy and Victor L. Bernard

Keywords: Theory; Valuation; Finance; Reports; Cases; Information

Article

Why Hospitals Don't Learn from Failures: Organizational and Psychological Dynamics That Inhibit System Change

By: A. Tucker and A. Edmondson

The importance of hospitals learning from their failures hardly needs to be stated. Not only are matters of life and death at stake on a daily basis, but also an increasing number of U.S. hospitals are operating in the red. This article reports on in-depth qualitative... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

18 Nov 2003
Lecture

Microeconomic Foundations of Competitiveness—A New Agenda for International Aid Institutions

This presentation draws on ideas from Professor Porter’s books and articles, in particular, "Building the Microeconomic Foundations of Prosperity," in The Global Competitiveness Report 2003-04 (World Economic Forum, 2003); "Clusters and the New Competitive... View Details

Keywords: Economics

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

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Corporate Strategy; Customers; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Customer Relationship Management; Executive Compensation; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Pennsylvania

November 2003
Article

The Macroeconomics of Happiness

By: Rafael Di Tella, Robert MacCulloch and Andrew J. Oswald

We show that macroeconomic movements have strong effects on the happiness of nations. First, we find that there are clear microeconomic patterns in the psychological well-being levels of a quarter of a million randomly sampled Europeans and Americans from the 1970s to... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Happiness

October 2003
Article

Capture by Threat

By: Ernesto Dal Bo and Rafael Di Tella

We analyze a simple stochastic environment in which policy makers can be threatened by “nasty” interest groups. In the absence of these groups, the policy maker’s desire for reelection guarantees that good policies are implemented for every realization of the shock.... View Details

Keywords: Political Parties; Politicians; Nash Equilibrium; Political Elections

June 2003
Case

Peabody Simpson at the Crossroads

By: Rajiv Lal, Nitin Nohria and Leslie Freeman

Three managing directors at Peabody Simpson had just returned from a firm-wide recruiting event at Columbia University, which they had covered together, as all were alumni. They were commiserating about having to submit revised forecasts to their division heads by the... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Capital Budgeting; Recruitment; Reports; Organizational Design

13 May 2003
Other Presentation

The Competitive Advantage of Regions

This presentation draws on ideas from Professor Porter's articles and books, in particular, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (The Free Press, 1990), "The Microeconomic Foundations of Economic Development," in The Global Competitiveness Report 2001,... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Growth and Development; United States

8 May 2003
Other Presentation

The Competitive Advantage of Greece: Moving to the Next Level

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 2002, (World... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Greece

spring 2003
Article

The Effects of Diversity on Business Performance: Report of the Diversity Research Network

By: T. Kochan, K. Bezrukova, R. Ely, S. Jackson, A. Joshi, K Jehn, J. Leonard, D. Levine and D. Thomas

Keywords: Networks; Research; Performance; Diversity

March 16, 2003
Article

Footnote Reporting Distorts Impact of Stock Options

By: Zvi Bodie, Robert S. Kaplan and Robert C. Merton

Keywords: Financial Instruments; Reports; Stocks

February 2003
Other Article

The Emergence and Sustainability of Abnormal Profits

By: Michael E. Porter and Anita M. McGahan

In this paper, we examine the emergence and the sustainability of abnormal profits among businesses that were part of U.S. public corporations between 1981 and 1994 and that reported financial results for at least six years. Our results reveal strong asymmetries... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; United States

2004
Chapter

Building the Microeconomic Foundations of Prosperity: Findings from the Business Competitiveness Index

In The Global Competitiveness Report 2003-2004
Competitiveness has become a central preoccupation of both advanced and developing countries in an increasingly open and integrated world economy. Despite its acknowledged importance, the concept of competitiveness... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Growth and Development

2004
Book

The Global Competitiveness Report 2003-2004

By: Michael E. Porter, Klaus Schwab and Xavier Sala-i-Martin

4 Dec 2002
Other Presentation

Can Japan Compete? New Findings from the Global Competitiveness Report 2002