Hedge funds provide an opportunity for investing with few government regulations and high potential returns. Since 1980 this has lead to the dramatic, 25% annual increase in the number of hedge funds, and with nearly $700 billion managed by hedge funds in 2003. However, high risks associated...

In August 2005, Patagonia announced its Common Threads Garment Recycling Program. The company is reclaiming used Capilene long underwear from consumers and using them as an input for new Capilene garments. According to company assessments, making clothes from post-consumer fabrics is more energy...

Biopharmaceutical companies are under constant pressure to deliver double-digit growth. In traditional markets such as the U.S., Japan, and the European Union growth is stagnant, and profit margins are falling due to increased price pressure from governments. As a result companies are looking to...

Donor grants and soft loans have been utilized by many microfinance institutions (MFIs) to support their operations. However, such grants and loans, already of limited size and availability, are becoming harder to access as the pool of global MFIs grows. Another option for MFIs is tapping...

The competitive landscape of the health care sector is changing. Private for-profit, private not-for-profit, and public medical care entities along the value chain are increasingly expanding the scope of their business endeavors. This thesis will discuss the evolution of medical services and the...

Since its establishment in 1992, NTT DoCoMo had accomplished rapid growth by developing innovative strategies and meeting consumer demands. However, the population-based penetration rate of Japanese wireless phones now exceeds 70%, and the market is approaching saturation. Tariff reduction...

As consumer products companies like P&G strive to achieve a consumer driven supply network, the value of forecast accuracy comes into question. Many companies push for faster cycle times and shorter supply chains, driving towards make-to-order production. These trends may appear to reduce the...

This paper explores how accruals capture managerial operating decisions that evolve over a firm's life cycle. I argue that growing firms face different operating environments and have fundamentally different accruals properties than those of mature and declining firms. I provide evidence that...

Essay 1: Shopping Goals, Goal Concreteness, and Conditional Promotions. We propose a two-stage model to describe the increasing concreteness of consumers' goals during the shopping process, testing the model through a series of field experiments at a convenience store. Using a number of...

As the Internet continues to penetrate consumer households, online marketing is getting increasingly important for firms. By adapting to online strategies, firms are blessed (or doomed) with a plethora of new business models. The information flows created in the process poses both opportunities...