Publications

February 1984 (Revised February 1986)
Case

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.: Titanium Dioxide

By: W. Carl Kester, Robert R. Glauber, David W. Mullins Jr. and Stacy S. Dick

Disequilibrium in the $350 million TiO2 market has prompted Du Pont's Pigments Department to develop two strategies for competing in this market in the future. The growth strategy has a smaller internal rate of return than the alternative strategy due to large capital... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cash Flow; Investment Return; Growth and Development Strategy; Strategic Planning; Projects; Chemical Industry

April–May 2017
Article

Career Concerns of Banking Analysts

By: Joanne Horton, George Serafeim and Shan Wu

We study how career concerns influence banking analysts' forecasts and how their forecasting behavior benefits both them and bank managers. We show that banking analysts issue early in the year relatively more optimistic and later in the year more pessimistic forecasts... View Details

Keywords: Sell-side Analysts; Analyst Forecasts; Analysts; Investment Recommendations; Career Advancement; Career Management; Labor Mobility; Labor Market; Prejudice and Bias; Personal Development and Career; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment Banking

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Article

Traveling Agents: Political Change and Bureaucratic Turnover in India

By: Lakshmi Iyer and Anandi Mani

We develop a framework to empirically examine how politicians with electoral pressures control bureaucrats with career concerns as well as the consequences for bureaucrats' career investments. Unique micro-level data on Indian bureaucrats support our key predictions.... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Government and Politics; Investment; Competency and Skills; Personal Development and Career; Rank and Position; Forecasting and Prediction; India

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January 2005 (Revised October 2005)
Background Note

Standard & Poor's Sovereign Credit Ratings: Scales and Process

By: Rawi E. Abdelal and Christopher Bruner

Describes Standard & Poor's sovereign credit ratings scales and the credit rating process. In particular, describes the role and function of the rating committee and the analytical categories considered in arriving at a final sovereign credit rating. View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Credit; Bonds; Policy; Risk and Uncertainty; Measurement and Metrics; Forecasting and Prediction; Financial Services Industry

Web

Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise - Course Catalog

to change? Or, why does this constitute a viable growth opportunity for the company? Then we ask students to think about what needs to be done. What actions can management take that will predictably lead to success? What problems might... View Details

Shirish Nimgaonkar

Shirish is an entrepreneur, advisor to and investor in multiple technology companies, with a focus on software and AI. He is currently the Founder and CEO of an AI enabled predictive automation software company. In the past, he has been a... View Details

Keywords: Software/App;#237;#Artificial Intelligence

June 2012 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Best Buy in Crisis

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In June 2012, Best Buy was in crisis. In 1996, Best Buy overtook Circuit City as the world's leader in consumer electronics retailing; however, 18 years later, Best Buy now found this position threatened. With $51 billion in revenues, it was still the biggest CE... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Competitive Strategy; Ethics; Management Teams; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; Retail Industry

2016
Working Paper

The Impact of Supplier Inventory Service Level on Retailer Demand

By: Nathan Craig, Nicole DeHoratius and Ananth Raman

To set inventory service levels, suppliers must understand how changes in inventory service level affect demand. We build on prior research, which uses analytical models and laboratory experiments to study the impact of a supplier's service level on demand from... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Forecasting and Prediction; Learning; Consumer Behavior; Service Delivery; Performance Expectations; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Service Industry

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Introduction - Option Pricing in Theory & Practice: The Nobel Prize Research of Robert C. Merton - Exhibits - Historical Collections

the trading floor. The model offers a methodology to predict the seemingly unpredictable by using the lessons of complex mathematics and probability theory to forecast stock valuations, making it possible to successfully manage risk in... View Details

June 2012
Article

Consequence-Cause Matching: Looking to the Consequences of Events to Infer Their Causes

By: Robyn A. LeBoeuf and Michael I. Norton

We show that people non-normatively infer event causes from event consequences. For example, people inferred that a product failure (computer crash) had a large cause (widespread computer virus) if it had a large consequence (job loss), but that the identical failure... View Details

Keywords: Causal Inference; Product; Forecasting and Prediction; Motivation and Incentives; Failure

01 Jun 2014
News

Research Brief: Capitol Gains

issue of the Journal of Financial Economics. "It might seem obvious that legislation that either supports or challenges an industry would have predictable financial fallout for a state's firms engaged in that industry," says Cohen. "But... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Finance; Executive, Legislative, and Other General Government Support; Government

01 Jun 2002
News

HBS Press Books in Brief

The Weather Channel: The Impossible Rise of a Media Phenomenon, by Frank Batten (MBA '52) with Jeffrey L. Cruikshank (51st PMD), is the story of a cable network that succeeded when all the experts predicted it would fail. Former chairman... View Details

Keywords: Harvard Business School Press; books; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

25 Sep 2008
News

Been There, Seen That

the energy crisis, and (2) the economic meltdown. I’ve been rereading Energy Future, HBS professor emeritus Robert Stobaugh’s 1979 best-seller that predicted America’s dependence on foreign oil could well lead the country into serious... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services; Government; Management

01 Oct 1999
News

The Class of 1974: Timed for a Change

would take a German commodity chemical business to a major position in detergents and perfumes, that Eileen Friars would trade in her jeans and long tresses and take charge of a $20-billion credit-card operation, or that Jeff Seder would, in his spare time, discover a... View Details

Keywords: Charles B. ("Chuck") Mercer

01 Jun 2008
News

Watching the Brain Think and the Surprises of Science

unimaginable at the time they are made. Who would have predicted the changes in society that have come from classification of the elements into the periodic table, or from quantum mechanics, or the World Wide Web? Who would have guessed... View Details

Keywords: science; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Management; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

01 Mar 2009
News

Faculty Research Online

HBS Working Knowledge is an online forum for innovation in business practice, offering a first look at new thinking from HBS faculty. Read the complete articles summarized below by visiting their Web links. The Value of a ‘Portable’ Career Can you View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

June 1998 (Revised June 1999)
Case

Dixon Corporation: The Collinsville Plant

By: W. Carl Kester

Dixon Corp.faces the task of valuing a plant and an associated project that it is considering buying. The revisions are designed to enable the application of adjusted present value technique for valuation. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Valuation; Projects; Forecasting and Prediction; Acquisition; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Technology Industry