Publications

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January 2010
Article

Does Public Ownership of Equity Improve Earnings Quality?

We compare the quality of accounting numbers produced by two types of public firms-those with publicly traded equity and those with privately held equity that are nonetheless considered public by virtue of having publicly traded debt. We develop and test two... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Business Earnings; Public Equity

April 1994 (Revised October 2001)
Case

Mrs. Fields, Inc. (1977 - 1987)

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Keri O. Pearlson

Describes a small company selling freshly baked goods through privately owned specialty stores (each store sells only Mrs. Fields products). The company has about 8,000 employees worldwide and less than 150 information systems people for a unique leverage of MIS... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Organizations; Management Systems; Business Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry

February 1994
Case

Kathryn McNeil (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

Charles Foley, vice president of the computer retailing firm Sayer MicroWorld, must decide whether or not to fire his employee, Kathryn McNeil, a 37-year-old product manager who has been unable to work as many hours as her colleagues due to her status as a single... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Employees; Work-Life Balance; Resignation and Termination; Mergers and Acquisitions; Retail Industry

09 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Industry Self-Regulation: What’s Working (and What’s Not)?

should managers know most about self-regulation? Michael Toffel: A growing number of firms are expressing concern about the societal aspects of industrial activities. In the 1990s, most were focused on the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Working Paper

How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?

By: Paul A. Gompers, William Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan and Ilya A. Strebulaev

We survey 885 institutional venture capitalists (VCs) at 681 firms to learn how they make decisions across eight areas: deal sourcing, investment selection, valuation, deal structure, post-investment value-added, exits, internal firm organization, and relationships... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Decision Choices and Conditions

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November 2007 (Revised August 2009)
Case

WL Ross & Co. and INVESCO

Wilbur Ross has built a successful private equity firm focused on distressed investing, WL Ross & Co. In 2006, INVESCO, an asset management company, approaches him about acquiring his firm. INVESCO has had weak performance in recent years and is looking to increase its... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment; Acquisition; Financial Services Industry

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March 1990 (Revised November 2004)
Case

O.M. Scott & Sons Co. Leveraged Buyout

By: George P. Baker III and Karen Wruck

Documents the organizational changes that took place at O.M. Scott & Sons Co. in response to their leveraged buyout. Provides the opportunity for students to discuss the effects of high leverage on management decision making, and the differences between operating as a... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Capital Structure; Borrowing and Debt; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management; Business Conglomerates; Cost of Capital; Financial Services Industry

September 1998 (Revised May 1999)
Case

Strategic Services at Andersen Consulting

By: Thomas J. DeLong, Catherine M. Conneely and Abby J. Hansen PHD

Bill Copacino, Andersen Consulting's managing partner of Strategic Services Americas, needed to submit his recommendation to Peter Fuchs, Strategic Services worldwide director, for the operating plan for Strategic Services Americas for fiscal year 1999. Strategic... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Recruitment; Organizational Culture; Expansion; Business Units; Consulting Industry

11 Feb 2021
Blog Post

2+2 Where Are They Now Spotlight: Ali Evans (MBA 2019)

admissions process? While in undergraduate, I was hungry to learn more about leadership and having a positive impact on communities through business leadership. Outside of the classroom, I was very involved with entrepreneurship and small... View Details

August 1979
Case

Claire McCloud

Describes the situation faced by a young MBA with an economics background who is offered the opportunity to manage a high technology fiber optics business. Designed to facilitate exploring the skills and knowledge that the general manager of a technology-based firm... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Management Skills; Technology Industry

Rakesh Khurana is the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at the Harvard Business School. He is also Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, co-Master of Cabot House at Harvard College, and the Danoff Dean of Harvard College.

Professor... View Details

Keywords: executive search

November 2001 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Smartix (A): Dancing with Elephants

By: Donald N. Sull, James K. Sebenius and Noam Wasserman

This case describes issues facing the founder-CEO of a high-tech start-up in Boston, as he negotiates with multiple large potential partners and investors. The negotiations include a potential business partnership with FleetCenter and Madison Square Garden, and a... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Venture Capital; Negotiation; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Power and Influence; Technology Industry; Boston

October 2006 (Revised October 2007)
Case

Grosvenor Group Limited

By: Andre F. Perold, Arthur I Segel, Oliver Corlette and Soyoun Song

A global real estate investment firm is trying to decide whether to enter into a property-derivative transaction to help it effect a change in asset allocation. The market for real estate derivatives is beginning to grow quite rapidly and the firm is trying to... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Financial Instruments; Financial Markets; Business or Company Management; Property; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry

April 2011 (Revised May 2011)
Case

EMC2: Delivering Customer Centricity

By: Thomas Steenburgh and Jill Avery

This case introduces the concept of customer centricity and traces its development at EMC, the world's leading data storage hardware and information management software company. EMC's customers had historically relied on EMC salespeople to guide them through the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Interpersonal Communication; Customer Relationship Management; Knowledge Acquisition; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Salesforce Management; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet; Information Technology Industry

March 2012
Article

China's Growing IT Services and Software Industry: Challenges and Implications

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Ning Jia and Justin Wong

The Chinese management software and IT services industry has grown dramatically over the past two decades and today is about the size of the Indian industry a decade ago. The objective of this article is to help CIOs in firms outside of China better understand the... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Problems and Challenges; Information Technology Industry; China