Publications

November 2012 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Restructuring at Nova Chemical Corporation (Abridged)

By: Scott P. Mason

Management of a diversified chemicals company faces two financial decisions: whether to finance a major investment in new production facilities for its rapidly expanding Environmental Products Division, and whether to sell a more slowly growing non-specialty chemicals... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Decision Choices and Conditions; Chemicals; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Finance; Chemical Industry

07 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

reported that digital transformation takes significant financial investment and time. Of those who reported making significant progress on their journey, 60 percent had been at it for at least five years. In calculating the resources,... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

07 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Fail—and How Their Founders Can Bounce Back

Failure Can Be An Asset, But Personal Failure Is Ruinous Still, stubborn entrepreneurs continue to found companies, in spite of the failure rates, which raises the question of why. It's not as if any of them harbored childhood dreams of launching a search View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

May 2021 (Revised May 2022)
Supplement

Odebrecht's 'Transformation Journey' (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Ruth Costas and Pedro Levindo

The case describes the changes in Odebrecht’s board of directors while the company had to file for court-supervised reorganization and cope with an ongoing feud within its founding family, and the new challenges that the Group’s leadership has to face. The changes in... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Reputation; Mission and Purpose; Business and Government Relations; Engineering; Family Business; Emerging Markets; Construction Industry; Brazil; Latin America

15 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

GM: What Went Wrong and What’s Next

reluctance to take environmental issues seriously. But these were not overnight developments. Beyond that, did GM's financial controls become too powerful a force for the product engineers to overcome? Did... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto

03 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

When Showing Know-How Backfires for Women Managers

negatively associated with their departments’ performance. Implications beyond retail and gender While Feldberg’s research focused on a bricks-and-mortar grocery chain, its findings apply to other fields. Women engineering managers,... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Retail; Consumer Products

18 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

How Eliminating Non-Competes Could Reshape Tech

does not worry about one engineer replicating Google Search. Furthermore, it would be illegal and easy to prove in court if someone transferred software and data to themselves. Financial firms like Citadel... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Technology

January 2020 (Revised July 2020)
Case

Chemours (A)

By: David G. Fubini and David Lane

The July 2015 spin-off of DuPont’s performance chemicals division as the independent company Chemours burdened new CEO Mark Vergnano and his team with perilous challenges. Despite market-leading offerings in several areas, the company faced a glutted market for its... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Chemicals; Leading Change; Crisis Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Chemical Industry; United States

17 Sep 2018
Research & Ideas

Welcome to Retirement. Who Am I Now?

ways. A retired engineer threw himself into doing hands-on engineering work as a volunteer for the new community center being built in town. Finding a new source for valued affirmation: Retirees often miss... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Entertainment & Recreation

August 2001 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Doral Costa

By: William J. Poorvu, John H. Vogel Jr., Arthur I. Segel and Amy Silverstein

Doral Costa is a proposed 277,803 square foot Class A office park development in Miami, FL. Trammell Crow Co. would like to develop this office park in joint venture with a partner. Samantha Spar, the acquisitions partner at Titan Associates, a large real estate... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Joint Ventures; Acquisition; Investment; Partners and Partnerships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Fair Value Accounting; Construction; Property; Real Estate Industry; Consulting Industry; Miami

October 1997 (Revised May 1998)
Case

Busang (A): River of Gold

By: Debora L. Spar

In 1995, Bre-X Minerals, a tiny Canadian mining firm, struck gold. Deep in the heart of the Borneo jungle, it discovered what appeared to be one of the world's largest and most cost-effective gold deposits. Almost immediately, the firm's stock price shot upwards and... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Partners and Partnerships; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Mining; Mining Industry; Canada; Indonesia

19 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

15 Podcast Episodes That Grabbed Listeners in 2023

president of engineering and research at Google and the founding managing director of the Google Center in Israel, explains how Google uses AI and machine learning to tackle some of the biggest challenges for climate mitigation and... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

03 Jul 2012
First Look

First Look: July 3

own right. This article explores what the teams research community has to gain by researching, theorizing, and understanding the many new forms of contemporary collaboration. Working PapersHow Do Risk Managers Become Influential? A Field Study of Toolmaking and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Dec 2015
First Look

December 15, 2015

(Frank) Li, and Dylan B. Minor Abstract—We link the corporate governance literature in financial economics to the agency cost perspective of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to derive theoretical predictions about the relationship... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

09 Apr 2008
Research & Ideas

The Matchmaker of the Modern Economy

financial regulatory structures in order to make it viable. Before ARD could offer its stock, for instance, it had to obtain a number of exemptions under the Investment Company Act of 1940 from the Securities and Exchange Commission. ARD... View Details

Keywords: by Spencer E. Ante

26 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 26, 2008

similar behavior following periods of poor financial performance. In addition to offering promotions more frequently, we find that firms offer deeper price discounts to manage earnings during these periods. Furthermore, our results... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

16 Mar 2009
Research & Ideas

When the Internet Runs Out of IP Addresses

engineering time to handle all the details. But when a Web site supports both IPv6 and IPv4, some users will mistakenly try to reach the site by IPv6 because their computers and network cards are misconfigured. (For example, certain... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Telecommunications

October 2015
Teaching Note

Molycorp: Financing the Production of Rare Earth Minerals (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield

Molycorp, the western hemisphere's only producer of rare earth minerals, was in the middle of a $1 billion capital expenditure project in its effort to become a vertically integrated supplier of rare earth minerals, oxides, and metals. Yet it had just reported lower... View Details