Here’s a look at some of the latest business knowledge from IESE Insight, the school’s research portal, which aims to keep you at the forefront of today’s ever-changing business environment.

Finance

The Uncertain Science of Company Valuation
Pablo Fernández

It has been said that company valuation is a mixture of art and science, since there are no hard rules about how to assess a company´s intrinsic worth. Yet, there are ways to estimate a fair price, says finance professor Pablo Fernández. Financial analysts, investment banks and financial consultants make company valuations daily – for the purchase or sale of companies, for raising capital, for estate and tax purposes, and for divorce settlements. Yet, even the professionals sometimes make mistakes. Prof. Fernández rounds them up in the paper, "80 Common and Uncommon Errors in Company Valuation."

e-Business

Does Managed Care Slow the Spread of Technology?  
Núria Mas, Janice Seinfeld

The U.S. health care market widely adopted managed care in the 1970s to control skyrocketing health costs. Some 30 years later, a key question is how managed care has affected hospitals' willingness and ability to adopt new technologies. This groundbreaking paper studies over 5,000 U.S. hospitals and whether or not they have acquired specific technologies in the fields of radiology, radiation and cardiology. The authors discover that managed care has, indeed, made hospitals more reluctant to purchase new technologies, especially expensive ones. This will save money in the long term, but what will it do to the quality of patient care?

General Management

A Model for Corporate Strategy
Joan Enric Ricart, Adrián Caldart

The complexity theory emphasizes the ability of businesses to self-organize. Expanding on this theory, IESE general management professor Joan Enric Ricart and Prof. Adrián Caldart of Warwick Business School (with a Ph.D. from IESE), develop an innovative model called the "Corporate Strategy Triangle." A company's strategy, they say, can be envisioned as the product of three building blocks that drive, pace and frame corporate strategy.

Corporate Governance

Characteristics of Successful Family Businesses
Miguel Ángel Gallo, Kristin Cappuyns

In 1992, about a quarter of the top 1,000 Spanish companies were family businesses.  Sixty-four of them had gained prestige in the national economy not only because they had made it to the top, but also because they had succeeded in staying there for more than 25 years. Professor Miguel A. Gallo and Research Associate Kristin Cappuyns of IESE try to pinpoint the factors that made these firms successful.  Among the triggers of success, the authors identify a set of values, known by the acronym ELISA, which are important guides in the delicate balance of family interests and company interests.  They are the bedrock of these firms’ culture, inspiring top performance and reducing cost of capital.

Managing People in Organizations

The Impact of Work-Family Policies
Steven Poelmans, Khatera Sahibzada

Many companies are still reluctant to adopt work-family policies, due to fear of labor unions, employee resistance, concern for the bottom line or confusion about family law. Steven Poelmans, Assistant Professor of Managing People in Organizations, and Ph.D. student Khatera Sahibzada reveal what it takes to implement work-family policies and how they ultimately affect individuals in the paper, "How to Measure the Impact of Work-Family Policies."