Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,042)
- Faculty Publications (201)
- 2018
- Working Paper
Corporate Refinancing, Covenants, and the Agency Cost of Debt
By: Daniel Green
How valuable are restrictive debt covenants in reducing the agency costs of debt? I exploit the revealed preference decision to refinance fixed-coupon bonds, which weighs observable interest rate savings against the unobservable costs of a change in restrictive... View Details
Keywords: Covenants; Refinancing; Corporate Bonds; Agency Costs; Debt Policy; Borrowing and Debt; Bonds; Interest Rates
- August 2018
- Case
Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2018)
By: John Gourville
One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance,... View Details
- 12 Aug 2018 - 14 Aug 2018
- Conference Presentation
Abstraction, Knowledge Flows, and the Rapid Dissemination of Emerging Technologies
By: Willy C. Shih
Many emerging technologies are remarkably complex and embody high levels of technological sophistication, and they often are key enablers for new products and services. Yet the speed of dispersal of the know-how required to employ these technologies and foster... View Details
- July–August 2018
- Article
From Niche to Mainstream (HBR Case Study)
By: Elie Ofek
A large Japanese snack maker faces challenges in marketing products in the US. Several options for jumpstarting sales are presented. View Details
- Editorial
Elon Musk's Unusual Compensation Plan Isn't Really About Compensation at All
By: George Serafeim
Earlier this year, Tesla shareholders approved likely the largest compensation package ever awarded to a CEO—for a CEO who clearly doesn’t need the money. Elon Musk is already incredibly rich and also doesn’t seem particularly motivated by further wealth. So why do it?... View Details
- March 2018
- Article
Global Business over Time
By: Geoffrey Jones
This article explores how business enterprises have been powerful actors in the spread of global capitalism between 1840 and the present day. It also shows how global firms, emerging out of industrialized Western economies, created and co-created markets and ecosystems... View Details
- January 2018
- Case
OldTown Berhad
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Greg Saldutte
In December 2017, Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE, a Dutch coffee company) made an offer to acquire OldTown Berhad (OTB), a Malaysian coffee company. Three large shareholders, representing more than half of the outstanding shares, have agreed to tender their shares, and... View Details
Keywords: Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Discounted Cash Flow (DCF); Malaysia; Coffee; Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG); Free Cash Flow (FCF); Multiples; Bidding Premia; Netherlands; Tender Offer; Mergers and Acquisitions; Valuation; Value Creation; Food; Investment Return; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Malaysia; Netherlands; Singapore; Asia
- January 2018
- Supplement
OldTown Berhad
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Greg Saldutte
In December 2017, Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE, a Dutch coffee company) made an offer to acquire OldTown Berhad (OTB), a Malaysian coffee company. Three large shareholders, representing more than half of the outstanding shares, have agreed to tender their shares and... View Details
Keywords: Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Discounted Cash Flow (DCF); Malaysia; Coffee; Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG); Free Cash Flow (FCF); Multiples; Bidding Premia; Netherlands; Tender Offer; Mergers and Acquisitions; Valuation; Value Creation; Food; Investment Return; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Malaysia; Netherlands; Singapore; Asia
- January–February 2018
- Article
The Leader's Guide to Corporate Culture: How to Manage the Eight Critical Elements of Organizational Life
By: Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price and J. Yo-Jud Cheng
Executives are often confounded by culture, because much of it is anchored in unspoken behaviors, mindsets, and social patterns. But when properly managed, culture can help them achieve change and build organizations that will thrive in even the most trying times. In... View Details
- December 2017 (Revised March 2018)
- Case
Kellogg Company/eighteen94 capital
By: David Bell, Damien McLoughlin and Natalie Kindred
With 33,000 employees and revenues of $13 billion in 2016, Kellogg Company was the world’s largest producer of branded packaged cereal and a leader in branded convenience foods. Founded in 1906 and based in Michigan, the company had a proud history of product and... View Details
Keywords: CPG; Consumer Packaged Goods; Cereal; Battle Creek; Michigan; Breakfast; Snack; Agribusiness; Change Management; Growth Strategy; Corporate Venture Capital; Innovation; Startup; Brand; Brand ＆ Product Management; Advertising; Demand and Consumers; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Food; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Michigan; North America
- December 2017
- Case
Mondelēz International
By: David Bell, Kerry Herman and Amram Migdal
Mondelēz International is a packaged foods company competing primarily in “snacks” around the globe. The case describes how and why the Kraft Inc. CEO, and later Mondelēz CEO, Irene Rosenfeld, created Mondelēz and how she positioned it as a growth company at a time... View Details
- November 2017 (Revised October 2018)
- Case
Brandless: Disrupting Consumer Packaged Goods
By: Jill Avery
Brandless, an online direct-to-consumer seller of upscale private-label consumer packaged goods, offered consumers a limited assortment of values-conscious products delivered directly to their homes with the simplicity of one fixed $3 price point that promised an... View Details
Keywords: Brand; Brand Management; Retailing; Retailing Industry; Private Label; Direct To Consumer Marketing; Ecommerce; Digital Marketing; Consumer Packaged Goods; Startup; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Disruption; Food; Product Marketing; Marketing Channels; Consumer Behavior; Brands and Branding; Venture Capital; E-commerce; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; United States; North America
- November 2017 (Revised November 2021)
- Case
Irene Rosenfeld at Mondelēz International: Crafting a Corporate Strategy
By: Raffaella Sadun, David J. Collis, Amram Migdal and Kerry Herman
The case focuses on Irene Rosenfeld’s tenure as CEO of the global snack food company Mondelēz International. Beginning in 2006, she had led the company through many acquisitions, including France’s LU Biscuit and British confectionery company Cadbury, before, in 2012,... View Details
Keywords: Snack Food; Snack; Global Snacking; Packaged Food; Consumer Packaged; Kraft Foods; Kraft; Agribusiness; Change; Change Management; Corporate Strategy; Transformation; Geography; Geographic Scope; Global Strategy; Leadership; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Management; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Style; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Demand and Consumers; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Planning; Strategic Planning; Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Illinois
- September 2017 (Revised December 2017)
- Case
Hulu: Redefining the Way People Experience TV
By: Henry W. McGee and Christine Snively
In May 2017, Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins announced the launch of Hulu Live TV, a new offering that would "change the way people experience TV." The new service would allow consumers to bypass traditional cable and satellite delivery and use the Internet to access live... View Details
- August 31, 2017
- Article
CEOs Should Get Personally Involved in Talent Development
By: Frank V. Cespedes, Jay Galeota and Michael Wong
Estimates indicate that, globally, human capital has a value about 2.3 times that of physical capital. This difference is likely to widen in increasingly service-driven economies. Yet, most companies maintain their equipment better than their people. The issue is not... View Details
- May 2017
- Case
Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2017)
By: John Gourville
One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance,... View Details
- May 2017
- Other Article
Stepwise Distributed Open Innovation Contests for Software Development: Acceleration of Genome-Wide Association Analysis
By: Andrew Hill, Po-Ru Loh, Ragu B. Bharadwaj, Pascal Pons, Jingbo Shang, Eva C. Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani, Iain Kilty and Scott Jelinsky
BACKGROUND:
The association of differing genotypes with disease-related phenotypic traits offers great potential to both help identify new therapeutic targets and support stratification of patients who would gain the greatest benefit from specific drug classes.... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Equality and Equity in Compensation
By: Jiayi Bao and Andy Wu
Equity compensation is widely used for incentivizing skilled employees, particularly in new technology businesses. Traditional theories explaining why firms offer equity suggest that workers with higher rank should receive compensation packages more heavily weighted in... View Details
- February 2017 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
Kameda Seika: Cracking the U.S. Market
By: Elie Ofek, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno
In spring 2016, Kameda’s CEO, Michiyasu Tanaka, is facing difficult questions from board members over the lackluster performance of the company’s U.S. subsidiary. Kameda was the leading player in the Japanese rice cracker market and was looking to expand overseas to... View Details
- February 2017 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
Rapid7
By: Mitchell Weiss, Paul Gompers and Silpa Kovvali
That Corey Thomas, vice president at Boston-based Rapid7, Inc., was about to enter his investor’s boardroom to negotiate a potential acquisition of Metasploit, LLC, was already an unlikely achievement of sorts. After all, Rapid7 was a venture-backed, corporate... View Details