Publications

20 Feb 2007
First Look

First Look: February 20, 2007

Co.: Breaking New Grounds Harvard Business School Case 807-004 Examines the strategies of a Boston-based start-up to market Rwandan coffee. Describes the history of the coffee industry, the era of cartelization and the International... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

December 1998 (Revised December 1999)
Case

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Private Client Services

By: Thomas J. DeLong, David M. Darst, Ann K Rusher and Catherine M. Conneely

The 1997 merger of retail giant Dean Witter and investment bank Morgan Stanley was a year old when Bob Sculthorpe was appointed director of Private Client Services (PCS) at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter (MSDW). The firm was still operating under two separate broker-dealer... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Divisions; Investment Banking; Brands and Branding; Salesforce Management; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry

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

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Performance Expectations; Competitive Advantage; Valuation

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January 2020
Article

Jack of All Trades and Master of Knowledge: The Role of Diversification in New Distant Knowledge Integration

By: Frank Nagle and Florenta Teodoridis

We consider the role of individual-level diversification as a mechanism through which skilled researchers engage in successful exploration—recognizing and integrating new knowledge external to one’s domains of expertise. To approach an ideal experiment, we (1) employ a... View Details

Keywords: Individual-level Knowledge Diversification; Novel Knowledge; Knowledge Acquisition; Diversification; Innovation and Invention; Research

SSRN

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06 Oct 2003
What Do You Think?

Is “the Innovator’s Solution” to Sustained Corporate Growth an Unnatural Act?

profitability. There are at least two antidotes to this scenario. One involves serial acquisitions. But research has suggested that most acquisitions destroy value. This helps explain why the stock of acquiring firms is often discounted... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

23 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 23, 2008

relationship between these two variables, others find no effect or even a negative relationship. In this paper, we suggest that the differences in prior findings may be due to the failure to separate the processes of knowledge acquisition... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 1992
Teaching Note

MRC, Inc. (A) TN

By: William E. Fruhan Jr.

Teaching Note for (9-274-118). View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Acquisition; Organizations; Perspective; Negotiation Deal; Strategy

November 2005 (Revised November 2007)
Case

Meisterchef.com

By: Henry B. Reiling

Two underperforming companies are seeking to combine on terms that will preserve the net operating loss of one for use against their combined future profits or at least against the future profits of the company that generated the losses. The questions are whether the... View Details

Keywords: Code Law; Corporate Governance; Mergers and Acquisitions; Cost Accounting; Taxation; Corporate Strategy; Profit; Crisis Management; Financial Management; Legal Services Industry; Service Industry; United States

07 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Three Steps for Crisis Prevention

leaders remain oblivious to an emerging threat or problem—a lack of attention that can plague even the most skilled executives. After European Commission regulators refused to approve General Electric's $42 billion acquisition of... View Details

Keywords: by Michael D. Watkins & Max H. Bazerman

18 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas, April 18

Scale Global This case tracks Jerome Chouchan’s strategies and execution for a successful turnaround of Godiva Japan’s operations, which were experiencing a decline in sales when he became the managing director of the company in 2010.... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

01 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 1

PublicationsThe New M&A Playbook Authors:Clayton M. Christensen, Richard Alton, Curtis Rising, and Andrew Waldeck Publication:Harvard Business Review 89, no. 3 (March 2011) Abstract Companies spend more than $2 trillion on View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

18 Mar 2008
First Look

First Look: March 18, 2008

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/08-083.pdf Bridge Building in Venture Capital-Backed Acquisitions Authors:Paul A. Gompers and Yuhai Xuan Abstract We compare three potential mechanisms for alleviating the asymmetric information between the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

May 2008
Teaching Note

Michael Fernandes at Nicholas Piramal (TN)

By: Michel Anteby and Nitin Nohria

Teaching Note for [408-001]. View Details

Keywords: Conflict and Resolution; Conferences; Mergers and Acquisitions; Integration; Globalization; Pharmaceutical Industry; Canada; United Kingdom

10 Dec 2013
First Look

First Look: December 10

acquisition as an exciting means for growth, company strategy at its Hangzhou, China headquarters also included vertical integration with a goal of developing a full-on electric car. Were these two goals... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Aug 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Improving Customer Compatibility with Operational Transparency

Keywords: by Ryan W. Buell and MoonSoo Choi; Banking

June 1990 (Revised August 1995)
Case

RJR Nabisco--1990

By: Andre F. Perold

Describes the situation facing RJR Nabisco one year after the leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts. A vehicle for analyzing the financial restructuring of a highly leveraged, but operationally healthy, company. View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Financial Strategy; Problems and Challenges

August 2009
Teaching Note

Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (B): Welcoming Gillette (TN)

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Matthew Bird

Teaching Note for [309031]. View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Mergers and Acquisitions; Mission and Purpose; Value; Problems and Challenges; Integration; Success; Governance Controls; Consumer Products Industry

October 1998 (Revised September 1999)
Case

Mercedes-Benz in Alabama: Lessons from the Field

By: William J. Bruns Jr., Carin-Isabel Knoop and Anthony St. George

Details the establishment of the Mercedes Benz M-Class plant in Vance, AL. The plant was established as an independent "teaching field" for parent company Daimler Benz. The case reviews the different lessons from the plant and looks at issues going forward,... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Banks and Banking; Integration; Horizontal Integration; Business Ventures; Teaching; Organizational Structure; Auto Industry; Alabama

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October 2009 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Merger of Equals: The Integration of Mellon Financial and The Bank of New York (A)

By: Ryan D. Taliaferro, Clayton S. Rose and David Lane

Less than a month after the close of the merger between The Bank of New York and Mellon Financial, managers at the two firms realized that plans for combining their asset servicing businesses—and realizing the $180 million of annual cost savings that they had promised... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Asset Management; Financial Institutions; Risk Management; Integration; Information Technology; Financial Services Industry