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Why Family Businesses Come Roaring out of Recessions

Harvard Business Review

We found that family businesses handily outperformed non-family companies during both the 2001 and 2008 recessions in terms of a key metric, Tobin’s q. We also found three differences in marketing strategies, which may account for the performances of the two types of companies. and their social concerns shot up from 4.2

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Profiting from the Golden Rule

Harvard Business Review

Even accounting rules specifically dealing with reputation — goodwill and intangible assets — are subject to frequent rule changes and endless debate. And the mathematics of long-term financial success — revenues, profits, cash flow — square perfectly with this scorecard. Bettinger is not alone.

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How to Navigate a Digital Transformation

Harvard Business Review

Taking a clear look at your starting point will enable you to understand your strengths and weakness, and identify the long-term habits that you will need to shift and eventually transform your business. Second, make a complete inventory of all your organization’s assets.

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CVS’s Lesson: Carpe Diem

Harvard Business Review

What he did not say, however, is how that laser-like focus on the company’s strategy also turned reputational risk into an opportunity. And finally, highly reputed companies are more stable, which means they have higher market valuation and stock price over the long term and greater loyalty of their investors, which leads to less volatility.

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Filing for a Patent Versus Keeping Your Invention a Trade Secret

Harvard Business Review

A series of patents were issued on the drug in the 1940s, but long after they had expired, there were still no generic competitors on the market. How could Wyeth sustain this exclusivity for such an extended period of time, decades beyond the 20 years of the patent’s term?