Publications

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19 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Activist Board Members Increase Firm’s Market Value

Public company shareholders have long complained that corporate boards don't always act in the best interest of their investors. But does the addition of a shareholder-sponsored board member increase the market value of the firm? The... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

2012
Article

The Cost and Timing of Financial Distress

By: Christopher Parsons

Assessments of the trade-off theory have typically compared the present value of tax benefits to the present value of bankruptcy costs. We verify that this comparison overwhelmingly favors tax benefits, suggesting that firms are under-leveraged. However, when we... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy

12 Feb 2001
Research & Ideas

Creating Value Across Borders

What is interesting about the Internet phenomenon is that about three or four years ago, there was a big time lag—as much as a year or more—between when a business idea was applied in the U.S. and abroad. Now, it takes probably three to... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

16 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

Has COVID-19 Broken the Global Value Chain?

The coronavirus pandemic has not only disrupted lives and businesses, it has illuminated underlying fragilities in the global value chain (GVC) that drives economies around the world. The smartphone you use many View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

15 Feb 2022
Book

When Working Harder Doesn’t Work, Time to Reinvent Your Career

quickly in his younger years, called fluid intelligence, naturally decline toward midlife. He told a friend: “I have everything to make me happy and contented, but life has become very wearisome to me.” Yet people on the back end of View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

Article

A Blueprint for Pharmacy Benefits Managers to Increase Value

By: William Shrank, Michael E. Porter, Sachin H. Jain and Niteesh K. Choudhary

Pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) have a unique opportunity to promote public health and generate value in the healthcare system. However, PBMs are largely evaluated on their ability to control costs rather than improve health. PBMs should be evaluated along three... View Details

Keywords: Opportunities; Health; System; Cost Management; Partners and Partnerships; Motivation and Incentives; Value; Innovation and Invention; Performance Effectiveness; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
Case

MTN: Unlocking Value While Driving Socioeconomic Progress

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Dilyana Karadzhova Botha

On March 10, 2021, Ralph Mupita the new CEO of MTN Group, Africa's largest telecommunications company, presented the group’s 2020 annual results and unveiled a new strategy to “drive growth and unlock value.” Despite MTN’s leadership in most of its markets, the... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Valuation; Emerging Markets; Business Strategy; Financial Management; Information Technology; Corporate Finance; Telecommunications Industry; Africa; South Africa; Ghana; Nigeria

November 2016 (Revised April 2017)
Case

Basecamp: Pricing

By: Frank Cespedes and Robb Fitzsimmons

A data analyst at Basecamp is evaluating the results of pricing research and its potential implications for the venture’s latest version of its project management software product. View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Entrepreneurial Management; Data Analysis; Marketing; Customer Acquisition; Customer Retention; Value Proposition; Sales Management; Product Management; Market Research; Life Time Value; Testing; Entrepreneurship; Analytics and Data Science; Customers; Value; Sales; Product Marketing; United States

1998
Journal Article

Ford's Model-T: Pricing over the Product Life Cycle

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

The pricing decisions monopolistic firms make over time are determined to a large extent by the complex interplay of two distinct sets of elements: demand- and supply-based considerations. Demand factors include the possibilities of (a) exercising dynamic price... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost; Price; Information; Demand and Consumers; Monopoly; Product; Sales; Complexity; Auto Industry

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Research Summary

Changing the World: Life Choices of Influential Leaders

By: Robert Simons

This project studies the life choices made by a variety of people who have left a lasting legacy. Using biographical data, we are examining the choices that high-impact individuals faced in their lives and the paths they chose to follow. The leaders we study come... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Personal Characteristics; Work-life Balance; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Success

07 Mar 2007
Research & Ideas

How Do You Value a “Free” Customer?

Businesspeople understand that not all customers are created equal—the 80-20 rule suggests that over time a small percentage of a company's customer base can generate a high percentage of its sales and profit. Models for calculating... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Web Services

June 1999
Case

NovaCare, Inc. - Helping Make Life a Little Better

NovaCare, a rehabilitation and employee-services comapny, has evolved over a 15-year period. Senior management believes that its success is largely due to its core values, which are shared on a daily basis and drive decisions. Operational and structural changes have... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth Management; Organizational Culture; Service Industry

March–April 2025
Article

Getting Value from Digital Technologies

By: Frank Cespedes and Georg Krentzel

Companies need digital technologies in an omni-channel buying world where online and in-person interactions are complements, not either/or substitutes. Multi-channel hybrid sales solutions are required, but what are the key requirements for using the available... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Technology Adoption; Competitive Advantage

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May 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Nanda Home: Preparing for Life after Clocky

By: Elie Ofek and Jill Avery

Gauri Nanda, the inventor of Clocky, the alarm clock that rolls off the bed stand and forces its owner to find it, has to make critical decisions regarding the future of her nascent company. As sales of Clocky show signs of declining, she must decide whether to... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Management; Electronics Industry

24 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

SuperCorp: Values as Guidance System

guide. Clear articulation of values and principles helps employees choose among alternatives in a consistent manner. "One Cemex, we are only one Cemex," CEO Lorenzo Zambrano declared to me. The Mexican company is one of the... View Details

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

11 May 2021
Working Paper Summaries

Time Dependency, Data Flow, and Competitive Advantage

Keywords: by Ehsan Valavi, Joel Hestness, Marco Iansiti, Newsha Ardalani, Feng Zhu, and Karim R. Lakhani

29 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

How Organizations Create Social Value

A recent study on the factors that contribute to successful high-performance social enterprises finds a connection between enterprises that link economic value with social value. This was the focus of a study presented at the colloquium,... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

January 2013 (Revised April 2015)
Case

Affinity Labs: Valuing Customer Growth

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Elizabeth Kind

In November 2006, Chris Michel left Military.com, which he founded in 1999, to start Affinity Labs, a global network of online communities. That month, Michel raised a Series A round of venture funding and established a partnership with Monster, which he had sold... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Demand and Consumers; Partners and Partnerships; Social and Collaborative Networks; Online Technology