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    First Look: April 7

    First Look

    07 Apr 2015

    The Right Way To Motivate Salespeople

    Much of what we believe about motivating salespeople comes from theory and lab testing. But recent research based on field studies is yielding new insights. For example, "studies clearly show that caps on commissions hurt sales," writes Douglas Chung, whose article titled "How to Really Motivate Salespeople" appears in the April issue of Harvard Business Review.

    Dogs Of The Dow Investing

    A new case helps students understand the Dogs of the Dow investment strategy, which encourages adherents to chase top dividend yields in the DJIA 30. "The case provides share price data, dividend data, and financial statement data on the 30 DJIA companies to enable students to perform their own calculations" to gauge value, according to the authors.

    Rethinking Crop Strategy In Argentina

    The case "Cresud and Argentina" explores Cresud's strategy of acquiring underutilized properties and turning them into productive farmland."In 2014, Cresud's CEO wondered if the strategy was still correct in the face of falling commodity prices, more powerful input companies, and potentially positive changes in Argentina's political environment," write case authors David E. Bell and Mary Shelman.

    —Sean Silverthorne
    LinkedIn
    Email
     

    Publications

    • April 2015
    • Harvard Business Review

    How to Really Motivate Salespeople

    By: Chung, Doug J.

    Abstract—Much of what we believe about the best ways to compensate and motivate the sales force is based on theory and lab experiments. But in the past decade, researchers have been moving out of the lab and into the field, analyzing companies' sales and pay data, and conducting experiments involving actual salespeople. The findings from this new wave of research support some current compensation practices but call others into question. For example, studies clearly show that caps on commissions hurt sales. If managers must retain a cap, they should set it as high as possible to avoid reducing reps' incentives. Although overly complicated compensation systems have their downsides, research has found that a system needs to include enough elements (such as quarterly performance and overachievement bonuses) to keep high performers, low performers, and average performers engaged throughout the year. Managers should be careful in setting and adjusting quotas. For instance, studies show that ratcheting (raising a salesperson's annual quota if he or she exceeded it the previous year) dampens motivation. The research also suggests that it's important to pay attention to the timing of bonuses: a reward given at the end of a period is more motivating than one given at the beginning.

    Publisher's link: https://hbr.org/2015/04/how-to-really-motivate-salespeople

    • April 2015
    • Journal of Legal Education

    What Courses Should Law Students Take? Lessons from Harvard's Big Law Survey

    By: Coates, John C., Jesse M. Fried, and Kathryn E. Spier

    Abstract—No abstract available.

    Publisher's link: http://www.swlaw.edu/pdfs/jle/jle643coates

    • April 2015
    • Harvard Business Review

    How to Launch Your Digital Platform: A Playbook for Strategists

    By: Edelman, Benjamin G.

    Abstract—The ubiquity of Internet access has caused a sharp rise in the number of businesses offering platforms that connect users for communication or commerce. Entrepreneurs are particularly drawn to these platforms because they create significant value and have modest operating costs, and network effects protect their position once established-users rarely leave a vibrant platform. But these businesses also raise significant start-up challenges. Every platform starts out empty. Platforms need to immediately attract not only many users but also multiple types of users. For example, it's not enough that many customers want to book taxis by smartphone. Drivers must also be willing to accept smartphone bookings. Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman has been studying the dynamics of platform businesses and the strategies for launching them for 10 years. In this article he draws on research on dozens of platform sites and products to offer a framework for building a successful platform business. It involves asking five basic questions: (1) Can I attract a large group of users at once? (2) Can I offer stand-alone value to users? (3) How can I build credibility with customers? (4) How should I charge users? (5) Should my platform be compatible with legacy systems?

    Publisher's link: https://archive.harvardbusiness.org/cla/web/pl/product.seam?c=38296&i=38298&cs=5885d4ae0446438705bf6d61b91dbbf9

    • April 2015
    • Journal of Financial Economics

    The Ownership and Trading of Debt Claims in Chapter 11 Restructurings

    By: Ivashina, Victoria, Benjamin Iverson, and David C. Smith

    Abstract—What is the ownership structure of bankrupt debt claims? How does the ownership evolve though bankruptcy? And how does debt ownership influence Chapter 11 outcomes? To answer these questions, we construct a data set that identifies the entire capital structure for 136 companies filing for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection between 1998 and 2009 and that covers over 71,000 different investors. We categorize the investors in the capital structure of bankrupt firms according to their institutional type and track them from the initial filing until the vote on the plan of reorganization. We document several novel facts about the role of different institutional investors, the impact of debt ownership concentration, and the role of trading in bankruptcy. We find that trading during the case leads to higher concentration of ownership, particularly among debt claims that are eligible to vote on the bankruptcy plan of reorganization. Active investors, including hedge funds, are the largest net buyers of claims in bankruptcy. While initial ownership concentration is important for coordination of a prearranged bankruptcy filing, it is consolidation of ownership during bankruptcy-and specifically consolidation of ownership of voting classes-that has an impact on the speed of restructuring, the probability of liquidation, and class-level as well as overall recovery rates.

    Publisher's link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1573311

    • April 2015
    • Harvard Business Review

    Second Thoughts About a Strategy Shift

    By: Ofek, Elie, and Jill Avery

    Abstract—A retail guru attempts to reposition an established brand and introduce an entirely new pricing scheme. Early financial results from the strategic shift are not favorable. Based on the experience of U.S. retailer J.C. Penney, the piece raises fundamental questions about repositioning retail brands and the ability to shift consumers to entirely new pricing formats. It further raises the question of when to declare that a new approach to the business has failed.

    Publisher's link: http://ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=99621003&site=ehost-live&scope=site

    • April 2015
    • Harvard Business Review

    If Greece Embraces Uncertainty, Innovation Will Follow

    By: Serafeim, George

    Abstract—No abstract available.

    Publisher's link: https://hbr.org/2015/03/if-greece-embraces-uncertainty-innovation-will-follow?utm_source=Socialflow&utm_medium=Tweet&utm_campaign=Socialflow

     

    Working Papers

    Growth Through Heterogeneous Innovations

    By: Akcigit, Ufuk, and William R. Kerr

    Abstract—We study how external versus internal innovations promote economic growth through a tractable endogenous growth framework with multiple innovation sizes, multi-product firms, and entry/exit. Firms invest in external R&D to acquire new product lines and in internal R&D to improve their existing product lines. A baseline model derives the theoretical implications of weaker scaling for external R&D versus internal R&D, and the resulting predictions align with observed empirical regularities for innovative firms. Quantifying a generalized model for the recent U.S. economy using matched Census Bureau and patent data, we observe a modest departure for external R&D from perfect scaling frameworks.

    Download working paper: http://www.people.hbs.edu/wkerr/AK_March2015.pdf

    Path-Breakers? Women's Electoral Success and Future Political Participation

    By: Bhalotra, Sonia, Irma Clots-Figueras, and Lakshmi Iyer

    Abstract—This paper investigates whether the event of a woman winning office in a competitive election encourages women's future participation in politics, using constituency level data for elections to India's state assemblies and a regression discontinuity design. On average, we find that female incumbents are more likely than male incumbents to re-contest but that there is a decline in the entry of new women candidates. We find evidence of demand-side explanations for this decline: there are striking differences across states by indicators of entrenched gender prejudice, with more prejudiced states showing a significant decline in the share of new women candidates after a woman wins, predominantly from parties led by men, and a significant decline in women's winning chances. In contrast, in the less prejudiced states, there is no decline in new women candidates and a significant increase in the vote share and winning chances of women. The evidence is consistent with backlash driven by voter and party preferences in the more gender prejudiced states. We find similar evidence of backlash following (mostly male) Muslim candidates winning and argue that this bolsters the evidence of institutionalized demand-side barriers to entry and undermines supply-side gender-specific preferences and constraints. In addition, we find no significant differences in the candidacy response after a major quota-led expansion in the share of women in lower tiers of government, which makes it unlikely that the results are explained by a shortage of suitable women.

    Download working paper: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2350805

     

    Cases & Course Materials

    • Harvard Business School Case 315-055

    Al Islami Foods: Beyond Dubai

    In 2014, Al Islami Foods CEO Marwan Al Garem considers his company's history of growth in Dubai and its growth opportunities within and outside the city.

    Purchase this case:
    https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/315055-PDF-ENG

    • Harvard Business School Case 215-020

    Dogs of the Dow

    This case describes the Dogs of the Dow investment strategy, value investing, and using dividend yields as a means to determine intrinsic value. It also describes exchange traded notes and a particular exchange traded note, known as the Dogs of the Dow, which tracks the performance of the 10 highest yielding stocks of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). The case provides share price data, dividend data, and financial statement data on the 30 DJIA companies to enable students to perform their own calculations.

    Purchase this case:
    https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/215020-PDF-ENG

    • Harvard Business School Case 415-055

    Power and Influence in Society

    No abstract available.

    Purchase this case:
    https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/415055-PDF-ENG

    • Harvard Business School Case 515-065

    Louis Dreyfus Commodities

    Louis Dreyfus Commodities (LDC or Dreyfus) is the D of the ABCD grain-trading giants. The case describes how their business works and details the strategy by which management turned the company around in recent years. The case presents a number of issues facing the company: a sense of volatility in grain markets is getting lower, recent attempts by China to forward-integrate into grain procurement, and changes in ownership. A related question is the degree to which they should emphasize pure trading or participate in value-added activities.

    Purchase this case:
    https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/515065-PDF-ENG

    • Harvard Business School Case 515-043

    Cresud and Argentina

    Argentina-based Cresud managed 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of land in South America. For 20 years, the publicly traded company's strategy had been to acquire underutilized properties and turn them into productive farmland for cattle and crops. In 2014, Cresud's CEO wondered if the strategy was still correct in the face of falling commodity prices, more powerful input companies, and potentially positive changes in Argentina's political environment.

    Purchase this case:
    https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/515043-PDF-ENG

    • Harvard Business School Case 215-001

    Project Titan at Northrop Grumman

    In March of 2011, Northrop Grumman divested shipbuilding assets through the spin-off of Huntington Ingalls Industries. This case reviews many of the key questions faced by Northrop's CEO, CFO, and top management team during this process, including questions concerning whether to sell or spin-off the assets; how to handle customers, employees, and investors during the restructuring; and how to reorganize a diversified business to increase the performance of its parts.

    Purchase this case:
    https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/215001-PDF-ENG

    • Harvard Business School Case 115-046

    Walgreen and Alliance Boots

    No abstract available.

    Purchase this case:
    https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/115046-PDF-ENG

    • Harvard Business School Case 315-047

    DaVita HealthCare Partners and the Denver Public Schools: Creating Connections

    In 2011, DaVita HealthCare Partners (DaVita), a Fortune 500 healthcare services company specializing in kidney dialysis services, and the Denver Public Schools (DPS), the largest school district in Colorado, forged a plan to incorporate greater intentional focus on culture and leadership within the district. A few months into the 2013-2014 school year, DaVita "Mayor" Kent Thiry, DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg, and members of their teams gather to review and assess the overall progress, impact, and challenges of their unique corporate-community partnership focused on leadership development and culture over the past two years. With the partnership showing great promise, Thiry and his team wonder how they might create new partnerships and grow their social impact as a company without detracting from DaVita's own growth and expansion and the needs of its own "teammates." The case gives students the opportunity to explore how a mission-driven Fortune 500 company can leverage its own resources and HR expertise to partner with non-corporate entities to create social value and support success in American public education.

    Purchase this case:
    https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/315047-PDF-ENG

    • Harvard Business School Case 615-072

    Innovating with the Crowd

    No abstract available.

    Purchase this case:
    https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/615072-PDF-ENG

    • Harvard Business School Case 514-007

    The Slingshot: Improving Water Access

    In 2012, over 750 million people around the globe lacked access to safe drinking water. Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, sought to bring fresh water to poor and rural areas with the Slingshot, a water purification device. Kamen's challenge was to identify ways to distribute the Slingshot to areas where it was most needed. A partnership with the Coca-Cola Company helped Kamen to pilot distribution of the Slingshot in low-access regions.

    Purchase this case:
    https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/514007-PDF-ENG

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