Publications

18 Jun 2013
News

Why Girls Get Better Discounts On Car Repairs

16 Nov 2021
Cold Call Podcast

Can Mass General Brigham Diversify Its Community of Innovators?

Keywords: Re: Katherine B. Coffman; Health

Research Summary

Implications of Limits of Arbitrage (with James Choi)

In this project we investigate the relationship between limits to arbitrage facing mutual fund managers and asset pricing anomalies. We measure changes in the limits to arbitrage by computing the average of slopes on current and past returns in quarterly... View Details

February 2002 (Revised February 2002)
Case

Morgan Stanley Japan, 2002

By: Tarun Khanna and Louis P. DiLorenzo, Jr

Thierry Porte, president of Morgan Stanley Japan, had spent the brisk November day in Tokyo with Eric Best, Morgan Stanley's head of scenario planning, outlining the exercise that all of the managing directors in Japan would participate in shortly. Japan remained mired... View Details

Keywords: Planning; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Investment Banking; Multinational Firms and Management; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Japan; United States

2012
Chapter

Integrated Reporting Requires Integrated Assurance

By: Robert G. Eccles, Michael P. Krzus and Liv A. Watson

In the wake of the recent financial crisis, increasing the effectiveness of auditing has weighed heavily on the minds of those responsible for governance. When a business is profitable and paying healthy dividends to its stockholders, fraudulent activities and... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Crime and Corruption; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Governance Compliance; Organizational Culture; Management Systems; Laws and Statutes; Information Management; Accounting Audits; Financial Crisis

16 Feb 2023
HBS Case

ESG Activists Met the Moment at ExxonMobil, But Did They Succeed?

The impact-investment hedge fund Engine No. 1 made a big splash in May 2021 when it managed to get three nominees elected to the ExxonMobil board of directors. It was an open effort to prod the oil giant toward renewable energy and test whether activist investing could... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Financial Services

May 2020
Teaching Note

Kraft Heinz: The $8 Billion Brand Write-Down

By: Jill Avery

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-076. On Friday, February 22, 2019, following an unexpected and disappointing earnings report, The Kraft Heinz Company’s stock price fell 27%, wiping out $16 billion in market value. CEO Bernardo Hees had announced that the company had... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

March 2019 (Revised June 2021)
Case

HelloSelf: Foundation

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

On January 6, 2019, HelloSelf, a London-based “BrainTech” company, founded a year earlier by Charles Wells, soft launched. The proposition was simply to help its members “Be your Best Self.” The company provided its registered members with access to a clinical... View Details

August 1996
Case

ThermoLase

By: William A. Sahlman and Andrew S. Janower

John Hansen, CEO of ThermoLase, must develop a plan of action to exploit the company's new development-stage revolutionary hair removal technology with negligible revenues and a $500 million market capitalization. This nascent public Thermo Electron spin out company... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Plan; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

25 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Has Occupational Licensing Outlived Its Usefulness?

service provider has a license, their hiring decision is still more driven by price and online reviews than the quality assurance that comes with licensing. New research shows that tougher licensing... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Service

December 2011
Case

Bergerac Systems: The Challenge of Backward Integration

By: David A. Garvin and Sunru Yong

Bergerac Systems is a small, rapidly growing manufacturer of diagnostic instruments used in veterinary practices. The company introduced the OmniVue chemistry analyzer, which enables veterinarians to run a wide range of blood and blood chemistry tests on their animal... View Details

Keywords: Financial Analysis; Manufacturing Strategy; Strategy; Production; Supply Chain Management; Vertical Integration; Performance Capacity; Financial Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

March 1998 (Revised July 2000)
Case

InPart

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Michael J. Roberts and Jon Biotti

Stacey Lawson, HBS 1996, started a CAD parts representations database company to help designers and engineers with the design process. The company has completed its product and is starting to sell it. The case examines issues involving the organization of the sales... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Price; Salesforce Management

Eva Ascarza is the Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Marketing Unit. She is the co-founder of the Customer Intelligence Lab at the D^3 institute at Harvard Business School. She teaches the Marketing core in the MBA required... View Details

Keywords: telecommunications; e-commerce industry; entertainment; financial services; retailing

08 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Decision Rights: Who Gives the Green Light?

for the pricing of bids made by its foreign subsidiaries. The company believed that its U.S.-based executives would be more effective in making pricing decisions because they had a broader purview of the... View Details

Keywords: by Peter Jacobs

December 2006
Case

Vipp A/S

By: Robert D. Austin and Daniela Beyersdorfer

Rapidly growing Vipp sells highly differentiated (and expensive) "designer" versions of a product that most buyers think about in purely functional terms: Trash bins. Examines how the company successfully produces and positions a trash bin so that it is regarded as an... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Creativity; Product Design; Luxury; Brands and Branding

January 2013 (Revised April 2017)
Supplement

Maxum Petroleum, Inc.

By: W. Carl Kester

Maxum seeks an oil-price hedging strategy that yields substantial cash during oil price spikes, is affordable under ordinary circumstances, and is easily managed. It is striving to avoid a repeat of the challenging situation encountered in 2008 when spiking oil prices... View Details

Keywords: Hedging; Options; Commodities; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Risk Management; Futures and Commodity Futures; Financial Strategy; Volatility

November 2019
Case

Edita: Making Choices in Uncertain Times

By: Caroline M. Elkins, Juan Alcácer, Alpana Thapar and Youssef Abdel Aal

After 15 years of steady growth and expansion, Edita, a leading Egyptian snack producer, faced a series of challenges in the wake of the Arab Spring. In January 2011, the Egyptian Revolution sparked political and economic turmoil that reflected the waves of protest and... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Developing Countries and Economies; Economy; Business or Company Management; Price; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Distribution; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Strategy; Expansion; Currency; Food and Beverage Industry; Egypt; Africa; Middle East