Publications

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

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

December 2022
Case

Taylor Farms: Adding Value to Fresh Produce

By: José B. Alvarez, Forest L. Reinhardt, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Pedro Levindo

In October 2022, Bruce Taylor (HBS MBA, 1981), Chairman and CEO of Taylor Farms, the leading producer of salads and healthy fresh foods in the United States, wondered whether this was the right time for Taylor Farms to venture into the Controlled Environment... View Details

Keywords: Technology Adoption; Cost vs Benefits; Logistics; Environmental Sustainability; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

January 2008
Article

Seek Strategy the Right Way at the Right Time

By: G. Gavetti and Jan W. Rivkin

Deliberate, emergent, and analogical approaches to finding the best strategy all have their advan-tages, depending on where an industry is in its life cycle. Be open to the best option at each juncture and wise enough to make the right call. View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Supply and Industry

December 1996
Background Note

Financial Engineering and Tax Risk: The Case of Times Mirror PEPS

By: Peter Tufano

Provides general background on the taxation of corporate securities, and shows how the inconsistent taxation of functionally-similar securities can permit financial engineers to bear tax risk to earn positive returns. Designed to be used with Times Mirror Co. PEPS... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Taxation; Corporate Finance

January 2024
Case

The Financial Times (FT) and Generative AI

By: Andrew Rashbass, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell

In September 2023, John Ridding, CEO of the Financial Times, was considering the possible impact of Generative AI on the industry and his business. Having navigated successfully the seismic shift from print to digital, and reporting record results, the company... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Change Management; Journalism and News Industry

July 2023
Article

Before or After? The Effects of Payment Decision Timing in Pay-What-You-Want Contexts

By: Raghabendra P. KC, Vincent Mak and Elie Ofek

We study how payment decision timing—before versus after product delivery—influences consumer payment under pay-what-you-want pricing. We focus on situations where there is minimal change in consumer uncertainty regarding the product before versus after receiving it.... View Details

Keywords: Price; Behavior; Valuation; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

04 Feb 2002
Research & Ideas

How a Juicy Brand Came Back to Life

lose $1.4 billion in value under Quaker's stewardship in just four years? How did Triarc restore most of that value in less than three years? What did Triarc do with such apparently effortless grace that... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton; Food & Beverage

February 2008 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Banco Compartamos: Life after the IPO

By: Michael Chu and Regina Garcia Cuellar

After an international IPO yielding extraordinary returns to original investors, Banco Compartamos, Mexico's leading microfinance institution, contemplates its future strategic and competing priorities: maintaining growth, defending industry, leadership, preserving... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Microfinance; Initial Public Offering; Non-Governmental Organizations; Competition; Value Creation; Banking Industry; Mexico

13 Oct 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Building a Business in the Context of a Life

Kraus comes in. Kraus teaches the second-year MBA course Building a Business in the Context of a Life (BBCL) and is currently helping to develop a similar Executive Education program called Crossroads. The two courses attract different... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Education

20 Aug 2008
Op-Ed

The Time is Right for Creative Capitalism

entrepreneurs saw the outlines of competition in their respective industries before other players and could thus act quickly to create and control what became the standards of rivalry in each young market.) The economic spoils of this system have been View Details

Keywords: by Nancy Koehn

12 May 2020
Research & Ideas

It’s Time To Relaunch Your Remote Team

key industry has shut down and the team needs to reevaluate how to continue delivering value under these new conditions The relaunch is also an opportunity to discuss how team members’ own perspectives on the team’s purpose may have... View Details

Keywords: by Tsedal Neeley

03 Jun 2015
What Do You Think?

Is the Time Right for Self-Management?

The more thoughtful of them provide a primer on applying the concept. Deborah Nixon's comment echoed several others when she said the idea has been around a long time in other forms, by other names. "The larger an organization... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

1978
Article

Sequential Structure of Futures Markets and the Value of Improving Information: An Example

By: Jerry R. Green

In an example, the value of improving information is computed under alternative structures for the timing of futures markets. It is always beneficial if futures markets are active both before and after the information is revealed. View Details

Read Now

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Value Judgments: Business Ethics Across Borders

"As different cultural traditions meet in the marketplace and inside organizations, managers face tough choices about the values that they and their organizations will live by," HBS professor Lynn Sharp Paine told participants... View Details

Keywords: by Judith A. Ross

September 2006 (Revised February 2007)
Case

Timing of Option Grants at UnitedHealth Group (A)

Faced with press allegations that executives' stock options might have been backdated, the Board of UnitedHealth Group needs to determine whether its accounting for the options was proper, and if not, what the restatement amount should be and what... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Ethics; Stock Options; Accounting; Crisis Management; Corporate Governance; Insurance Industry; Health Industry; United States

2020
Working Paper

Aggregate and Firm-Level Stock Returns During Pandemics, in Real Time

By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari, Andrew Greenland and Peter K. Schott

We show that unexpected changes in the trajectory of COVID-19 infections predict U.S. stock returns, in real time. Parameter estimates indicate that an unanticipated doubling (halving) of projected infections forecasts next-day decreases (increases) in aggregate U.S.... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Stock Returns; Health Pandemics; Stocks; Investment Return; Forecasting and Prediction