Publications

Web

Entrepreneurship & Innovation - MBA

dynamic panel discussions, and networking opportunities. 7 Tips for a Successful Technology Venture Immersion Andy Harris 06 FEB 2019 | MBA Voices During the two-week intensive course, co-taught by SEAS and HBS faculty, students practice... View Details

13 Mar 2007
First Look

First Look: March 13, 2007

greater benefit than verification effects to the performance of diverse groups. Implementing New Practices: An Empirical Study of Organizational Learning in Hospital Intensive Care Units Authors:A. Tucker, I. Nembhard, and A. Edmondson... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Derek C. M. van Bever

Derek van Bever is a Senior Lecturer in the General Management Unit of Harvard Business School. He teaches courses in both years of the MBA program (“Leadership and Corporate Accountability” in the first-year required curriculum and “Building and Sustaining a... View Details

April 2022
Teaching Note

Tempur Sealy International (A, B & C)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 718-422, 718-423, and 718-424. The cases explore the long-term relationship between Tempur Sealy (TPX, a mattress manufacturer) and Mattress Firm (MFRM, a bedding retailer and TPX's largest customer). For almost 20 years, the firms... View Details

Article

Tax Aversion in Labor Supply

By: Judd B. Kessler and Michael I. Norton

In a real-effort laboratory experiment, labor supply decreases more with the introduction of a tax than with a financially equivalent drop in wages. This “tax aversion” is large in magnitude: when we decompose the productivity decrease that arises from taxation, we... View Details

Keywords: Taxes; Labor Supply; Productivity; Experiments; Wages; Human Capital; Performance Productivity; Taxation

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May 2014
Article

Information and Two-Sided Platform Profits

By: Andrei Hagiu and Hanna Halaburda

We study the effect of different levels of information on two-sided platform profits under monopoly and competition. One side (developers) is always informed about all prices and therefore forms responsive expectations. In contrast, we allow the other side (users) to... View Details

Keywords: Responsive Expectations; Passive Expectations; Wary Expectations; Information; Performance Expectations; Two-Sided Platforms; Monopoly

SSRN

November 1990 (Revised June 1991)
Case

Final Voyage of the Challenger

Provides a summary of technical and organizational details that led to the decision to launch the Challenger Space Shuttle, and to the ensuing accident. Details of design and testing milestones of the Space Shuttle, with a focus on the Solid Rocket Booster, offer... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Risk Management; Ethics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business Processes; Aerospace Industry; United States

February 2016 (Revised July 2017)
Case

Race, Justice, and the Jury System in Postbellum Virginia

By: David Moss and Dean Grodzins

In December 1877, an all-white grand jury in Patrick County, Virginia, indicted two black teenagers, Lee and Burwell Reynolds, for killing a white man. After a series of trials, an all-white trial jury convicted Lee of second-degree murder and sentenced him to prison.... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Courts and Trials; Fairness; Race; Government and Politics; History; Virginia

April 2023
Article

Control and Fairness: What Determines Elected Local Leaders’ Support for Hosting Refugees in Their Community?

By: Kristin Fabbe, Eleni Kyrkopoulou, Konstantinos Matakos and Aslı Unan

When it comes to successful refugee reception, the local level matters. Research overwhelmingly examines host communities’ attitudes, but endorsement from local politicians is equally important to resolving conflicts and facilitating harmonious interaction. Yet the... View Details

Keywords: Values; Control; Refugee Resettlement; Local Elites; Contact; Fair-share; Conjoint Experiment; Refugees; Attitudes

November 30, 2020
Editorial

Don't Focus on the Most Expressive Face in the Audience

By: Amit Goldenberg and Erika Weisz

Research has shown that when speaking in front of a group, people’s attention tends to gets stuck on the most emotional faces, causing them to overestimate the group’s average emotional state. In this piece, the authors share two additional findings: First, the larger... View Details

Keywords: Bias; Emotions; Perception

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Article

Search-Based Peer Firms: Aggregating Investor Perceptions Through Internet Co-Searches

By: Charles M.C. Lee, Paul Ma and Charles C.Y. Wang

Applying a "co-search" algorithm to Internet traffic at the SEC's EDGAR website, we develop a novel method for identifying economically-related peer firms and for measuring their relative importance. Our results show that firms appearing in chronologically adjacent... View Details

Keywords: Peer Firm; EDGAR Search Traffic; Revealed Preference; Co-search; Industry Classification; Perception; Internet and the Web; Investment

2023
Other Unpublished Work

If 3 Was 9

By: Randolph B. Cohen

One determinant of where economies and markets are headed is how well we handle the climate crisis. Headlines on the climate tend to emphasize two points. First, average global temps are rising, with it being the hottest summer in 1,000 centuries per some estimates.... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Measurement and Metrics

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January–February 2021
Article

How to Help (Without Micromanaging)

By: Colin M. Fisher, Teresa M. Amabile and Julianna Pillemer

Extensive research shows that when employees get hands-on managerial support, they perform better than when they’re left to their own devices, but unnecessary or unwanted help can be demoralizing and counterproductive. So how do you intervene constructively? The... View Details

Keywords: Helping; Employees; Groups and Teams; Management

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November 2012 (Revised August 2014)
Case

Cisco in 2012: Reorganizing for Efficiency and Flexibility

By: Ranjay Gulati, Alison Berkley Wagonfeld and Luciana Silvestri

In 2012, Cisco was under intense pressure to show results: growth in its core business was decelerating and a number of exploratory ventures and acquisitions had not proven as profitable as expected. CEO John Chambers vowed to restore the company's health in a way that... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Restructuring; Adaptation; Performance Efficiency; Emerging Markets; Information Technology Industry

31 Mar 2020
News

Win Over the Zoom: How to Effectively Public Speak from the Privacy of Your Home

World Reimagined: The Power of Connection with Dr. Vivek Murthy and Tsedal Neeley

In this episode, host Gautam Mukunda is joined by President Biden's nominee for Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, and Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and award-winning author, Tsedal Neeley to discuss how humans will thrive in... View Details

August 2020 (Revised May 2021)
Case

PayPal: The Next Chapter

By: Michael Porter, Mark Kramer and Annelena Lobb

Can a social purpose and stakeholder capitalism confer a powerful competitive advantage in the age of COVID-19? For PayPal, the answer is yes. After spinning off from eBay in a 2015 IPO, the company declared its purpose as "democratizing financial services" by ensuring... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Finance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Social Entrepreneurship; Competitive Advantage; Financial Services Industry