Publications

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2014
Working Paper

The Contract Year Phenomenon in the Corner Office: An Analysis of Firm Behavior During CEO Contract Renewals

By: Ping Liu and Yuhai Xuan

This paper investigates how executive employment contracts influence corporate financial policies during the final year of the contract term, using a new, hand-collected data set of CEO employment agreements. On the one hand, the impending expiration of fixed-term... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Contracts; Behavior; Employment

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May 2012 (Revised August 2014)
Case

McKesson

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Natalie Kindred

McKesson, a large, diversified drug distribution and health care IT company, is considering development of new business offerings to help private practice physicians remain independent. The company, with $122 billion in 2010 revenues, just made its first foray into... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Industry; Health Care Policy; Organizational Transformations; Health Services; Health Care and Treatment; Business Model; Service Operations; Change Management; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology; Policy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry; United States

May 21, 2020
Editorial

Primary Care Is Hurting: Why Aren't Private Insurers Pitching In?

By: Leemore S. Dafny and J. Michael McWilliams

Primary care clinicians are the front line for patients with suspected infection. We rely on them to diagnose, triage, and manage patients with potential or confirmed COVID infections. They are also responsible for keeping non-COVID medical conditions under control... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Primary Care; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Financial Condition; Insurance

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23 Apr 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Financial Policies in Misvalued Credit Markets

Keywords: by Jarrad Harford, Marc Martos-Vila & Matthew Rhodes-Kropf; Financial Services; Banking

February 2020
Case

Rotoplas: Bringing More and Better Water

By: John D. Macomber and Carla Larangeira

Private companies were being turned to for potable water in the world’s megacities due to impacts of climate change including droughts and flooding. Mexico City had endured several water-related crises, with its population suffering from floods, droughts, water... View Details

Keywords: Water Supply; Water Management; Finance; Infrastructure; Urban Development; Business and Government Relations; Latin America; Mexico

07 Jul 2019
HBS Case

Walmart's Workforce of the Future

approach to the customer experience, with an emphasis on employee training and improved ecommerce and automation technology, both on the floor and in back office roles. One foundational move to beef up its technology was Walmart’s $3.3 billion View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

August 2007 (Revised September 2007)
Case

Gome: Bidding for China Paradise

Gome, China's largest electronics retailer, has the opportunity to acquire China Paradise, the number three player in the Chinese electronic retailer industry. This happened in the general context of a great market development and potential consolidation of the... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Trade; Market Entry and Exit; Performance; Opportunities; Competition; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Electronics Industry; Retail Industry; China

26 Apr 2024
Blog Post

How I Spent my 2+2 Deferral: Matthew Young

at McKinsey as a consultant working primarily in their Mergers & Acquisitions and Financial Services group before making a career pivot. In 2021, I joined the NFL’s Washington Commanders for the last two years of my deferral. I... View Details

03 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping

was based in Alabama and had shipping and docking rights in prime eastern port cities. Buying Pan-Atlantic for $7 million, McLean noted that the acquisition would "permit us to proceed immediately with plans for construction of... View Details

Keywords: by Anthony J. Mayo & Nitin Nohria; Manufacturing; Transportation; Aerospace

March 2016 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Michael Milken: The Junk Bond King

By: Tom Nicholas and Matthew G. Preble

Michael Milken, an investment banker who dominated the junk bond market in the 1980s, was sentenced to jail in 1990 after pleading guilty to a number of securities and tax-related felonies. In the preceding decade, Milken had helped usher in a new wave of leveraged buy... View Details

Keywords: Junk Bonds; High-yield Bonds; Financial Innovation; Shareholder Value; Bonds; Capital; Capital Structure; Cost of Capital; Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Finance; Investment Banking; Leveraged Buyouts; Mergers and Acquisitions; Ownership; Private Equity; Restructuring; United States

24 Apr 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Courage: The Defining Characteristic of Great Leaders

transforming both enterprises and creating a formidable competitor for Medtronic. I didn’t have the courage to accept short-term risk to create long-term gain. It took Medtronic two decades of expensive research and development programs and additional View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Auto; Food & Beverage

Web

Advisory Board - Entrepreneurship

the company's infrastructure caching business, which grew to make up 60 percent of Inktomi's revenues prior to their acquisition by Yahoo!. He was also part of the original business team at Akamai. In addition, Steve was a venture capital... View Details

July 2009 (Revised August 2011)
Case

What Happened at Citigroup? (A)

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

What went wrong at Citigroup? In 1998, the Travelers Group and Citicorp merged to create Citigroup Inc., considered the first true global "financial supermarket" and a business model to be envied, feared, and emulated. By year-end 2006 the firm had a market... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Globalized Firms and Management; Leadership; Risk Management; Failure; Financial Services Industry

19 Jan 2015
Research & Ideas

Is Wikipedia More Biased Than Encyclopædia Britannica?

For more than a century, the long, stately rows of Encyclopædia Britannica have been a fixture on the shelves of many an educated person's home—the smooshed-together diphthong in the first word a symbol of old-world erudition and gravitas. So it was a shock to many... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Publishing

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Strategy and the Internet

structure of their industries, hastened competitive convergence, and reduced the likelihood that they or anyone else will gain a competitive advantage. A destructive, zero-sum form of competition has been set in motion that confuses the View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter

16 Nov 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Private Equity and Employment

Keywords: by Steven J. Davis, John C. Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, Josh Lerner & Javier Miranda

March 1, 2021
Article

Transitioning to Clean Energy Transportation Services: Life-cycle Cost Analysis for Vehicle Fleets

By: Stephen Comello, Gunther Glenk and Stefan Reichelstein

Comprehensive global decarbonization requires that transportation services cease to rely on fossil fuels for power generation. This paper develops a generic, time-driven life-cycle cost model for mobility services to address two closely related questions central to the... View Details