Publications

Teaching Interest

How to Talk Gooder in Business and Life

By: Alison Wood Brooks

This is an Elective Curriculum course for HBS MBA students. People must converse effectively to achieve success in every aspect of business and life – from pitching ideas to giving feedback, brainstorming and making strategic decisions, from interviewing to firing.... View Details

Keywords: Conversation; Strategic Decisions; Interactions

November 2000
Background Note

Note on Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and Phantom Stock Plans

By: Dwight B. Crane and Indra Reinbergs

Provides a brief overview of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and phantom stock plans for owners of closely held companies. ESOPs can be used as a tool of corporate financing, and can provide employees with ownership interests. Phantom stock plans can reward... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Motivation and Incentives; Management Teams; Corporate Governance; Ownership Stake; Taxation

13 Sep 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Entrepreneurship in the Natural Food and Beauty Categories Before 2000: Global Visions and Local Expressions

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Beauty & Cosmetics; Food & Beverage

January–February 2011
Article

Adverse Selection in Online 'Trust' Certifications and Search Results

By: Benjamin Edelman

Widely used online "trust" authorities issue certifications without substantial verification of recipients' actual trustworthiness. This lax approach gives rise to adverse selection: the sites that seek and obtain trust certifications are actually less trustworthy than... View Details

Keywords: Online Advertising; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Safety; Trust; Internet; Search Technology; Web Sites

11 Aug 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Rethinking Measurement of Pay Disparity and Its Relation to Firm Performance

Keywords: by Ethan Rouen

June 2014
Supplement

Chung and Dasgupta: Information for Casey Clark

By: Ian Larkin and Karen Huang

The "Promotion Process at Chung and Dasgupta, LLP" set of cases explores the roles of general and firm-specific human capital in employee performance measurement, feedback, and promotion/compensation decisions. In the cases, a leading law firm must decide whether to... View Details

Keywords: Human Capital; Performance Evaluation; Management Systems; Compensation and Benefits; Retention; Legal Services Industry; United States; Massachusetts

November 2019
Article

Procedural Justice and the Risks of Consumer Voting

By: Tami Kim, Leslie John, Todd Rogers and Michael I. Norton

Firms are increasingly giving consumers the vote. Eight studies demonstrate that when firms empower consumers to vote, consumers infer a series of implicit promises—even in the absence of explicit promises. We identify three implicit promises to which consumers react... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Empowerment; Procedural Justice; Promises; Customer Relationship Management; Voting; Perception; Fairness; Risk Management

November 2006 (Revised November 2007)
Case

Strategy in the Twenty First Century Pharmaceutical Industry: Merck & Co. and Pfizer Inc.

By: David J. Collis and Troy Smith

The global pharmaceutical industry has gone through substantial changes in the last few decades and pharmaceutical firms face major challenges including headline-grabbing litigation, imminent patent expirations, new technologies, rising drug development costs, generic... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Research and Development; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

Research Summary

Experience and description-based decision making.

Prof. Barron and his co-authors study the effect of the economic environment on decision making. One example involves the effect of rare (low probability) events. People behave as if they overweight these events in some settings (e.g., when buying insurance and... View Details

June 2014
Supplement

Chung and Dasgupta: Information for Jordan Ramirez

By: Ian Larkin and Karen Huang

The "Promotion Process at Chung and Dasgupta, LLP" set of cases explores the roles of general and firm-specific human capital in employee performance measurement, feedback, and promotion/compensation decisions. In the cases, a leading law firm must decide whether to... View Details

Keywords: Performance Appraisal; Performance Measurement; Employee Feedback; Motivation; Promotions; Human Capital; Performance Evaluation; Management Systems; Compensation and Benefits; Retention; Legal Services Industry; United States; Massachusetts

19 Mar 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Beyond Gender and Negotiation to Gendered Negotiations

Keywords: by Deborah Kolb & Kathleen L. McGinn

March 1997
Article

Transactions Costs and Capital Structure Choice: Evidence from Financially Distressed Firms

By: S. C. Gilson

This study provides evidence that transactions costs discourage debt reductions by financially distressed firms when they restructure their debt out of court. As a result, these firms remain highly leveraged and one-in-three subsequently experience financial distress.... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Capital Structure; Decision Choices and Conditions; Information; Finance; Business Ventures

January 2009
Case

The Federal Reserve and the Banking Crisis of 1931

By: David A. Moss and Cole Bolton

In early October 1931, in the midst of a global economic depression, the U.S. banking system was in crisis—with bank suspensions running at near record levels. At the same time, the broader economy was sputtering, and U.S. gold reserves had come under severe pressure... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Central Banking; Business History; Crisis Management; Banking Industry; United States

28 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

Billions of Entrepreneurs in China and India

willing to give time, money, energy, and good will to their country of origin and is being pushed away. Fortunately, this situation has been changing in India in the last 4 to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

June 2018
Article

Firm Turnover and the Return of Racial Establishment Segregation

By: John-Paul Ferguson and Rembrand Koning

Racial segregation between American workplaces is greater today than it was a generation ago. This increase has happened alongside the declines in within-establishment occupational segregation on which most prior research has focused. We examine more than 40 years of... View Details

Keywords: Firm Entry; Stratification; Segregration; Entrepreneurship; Business Ventures; Employees; Diversity; Race; Segmentation; United States

2013
Chapter

Weighted Generating Functions for Type II Lattices and Codes

By: Noam D. Elkies and Scott Duke Kominers

We give a new structural development of harmonic polynomials on Hamming space, and harmonic weight enumerators of binary linear codes, that parallels one approach to harmonic polynomials on Euclidean space and weighted theta functions of Euclidean lattices. Namely, we... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods

28 Aug 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, August 28, 2018

2018 Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Trust: Creating the Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries By: Khanna, Tarun Abstract— Entrepreneurs in developing countries who assume they will have the same legal, governmental, View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

27 Jul 2020
Book

Reflection: The Pause That Brings Peace and Productivity

not even be sure how. Yet reflection is important; it gives us a chance to pause and figure out what really matters, especially when struggling with a difficult issue professionally or personally, says... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2010
Casebook

Global Capital and National Institutions: Crisis and Choice in the International Financial Architecture

By: Laura Alfaro

All managers face a business environment in which international and macroeconomic phenomena matter. International capital flows can significantly affect countries' development efforts and provide clear investment opportunities for businesses. During the 1990s and early... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital; International Finance; Globalized Economies and Regions; Policy; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations