Publications

January 2001 (Revised May 2001)
Case

Russia: The End of a Time of Troubles?

By: Rawi E. Abdelal

Describes Russia's troubled economic transition since 1991, highlights the problem of institutional development, and surveys the challenges President Vladimir Putin faced in 2000. The first section provides a brief synopsis of liberalization, stabilization, and... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Public Sector; Privatization; Economy; Developing Countries and Economies; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations; Russia

22 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

How Businesses Can Respond to AIDS

2002, according to UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS Recognizing The Threat What should responsible organizations do to counter the epidemic for their employees and their business? For a start, they must pool knowledge and build View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

June 2013
Teaching Plan

Bank of America-Merrill Lynch

By: Guhan Subramanian and Charlotte Krontiris

The case traces the events leading up to the acquisition of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America at the height of the recent financial crisis. It examines the interplay of public and private sector actors in this extraordinary time, focusing on the decisions that... View Details

Keywords: Bank Of America; Merrill Lynch; Acquisition; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; United States

October 2015 (Revised July 2017)
Case

OMV Petrom: Investment as Partnership—When It Takes Three to Tango

By: Dante Roscini, Emer Maloney and Daniela Beyersdorfer

Petrom was privatized by the Romanian state in 2004 and acquired by Austrian oil company OMV, with the state retaining a 20.6% stake in the company. The situation was particularly challenging for the foreign investor since the sector in which the company operated was... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Privatization; Acquisition; Foreign Direct Investment; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; Austria; Romania

February 2024
Course Overview Note

The Anatomy of Fraud

By: Jonas Heese

Corporate fraud remains a serious problem. Learning how to detect and prevent it, and make better investment decisions, has broad applicability for private and public market investors, as well as for people joining or running companies. This course note describes a... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Investment; Accounting; Business or Company Management

September 19, 2019
Article

Walmart CEO’s Decision on Guns Is the Kind of Corporate Courage We Need

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Corporate courage is in short supply. CEOs generally avoid controversial public issues lest disgruntled groups strike back. That’s why Walmart’s actions to limit ammunition sales and advocate for new gun safety legislation mark a significant milestone. CEO Doug... View Details

Keywords: Gun Policy; Gun Violence; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Leadership; Change; Policy

2022
Working Paper

The Limits of Decentralized Administrative Data Collection: Experimental Evidence from Colombia

By: Natalia Garbiras-Diaz and Tara Slough

States collect vast amounts of data for use in policymaking and public administration. To do so, central governments frequently solicit data from decentralized bureaucrats. Because central governments use these data in policymaking, decentralized bureaucrats may face... View Details

Keywords: Decentralization; Policy-making; Policy/economics; Policy Evaluation; Governance; Government Administration; Government and Politics; Government Legislation; Policy; Public Opinion; Analytics and Data Science; Latin America; South America; Colombia

Article

Managing the Narrative: Investor Relations Officers and Their Interactions with Sell-Side Analysts and Institutional Investors

By: Lawrence D. Brown, Andrew C. Call, Michael B. Clement and Nathan Y. Sharp

Investor relations officers (IROs) play a central role in corporate communications with Wall Street. We survey 610 IROs at U.S. public companies and conduct 14 follow-up interviews to deepen our understanding of the role of IROs in corporate disclosure events. Three... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Power and Influence; Business and Shareholder Relations

January 1998 (Revised February 1998)
Case

Sideco Americana S.A. (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Harold F. Hogan Jr

This case focuses on a decision the Sideco management team faces when customers of its newly acquired and privatized water and sewer company neglect to pay its bills. Describes the effort to transform an old-style Argentine construction and engineering company into a... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Transformation; Business or Company Management; Values and Beliefs; Argentina

Find at Harvard

Teaching Interest

Overview

By: Charles C.Y. Wang

Charles C.Y. Wang is an associate professor of business administration in the Accounting and Management Unit and currently teaches the Business Analysis and Valuation course in the MBA elective curriculum. This course is aimed at all MBAs who expect at some point in... View Details

Keywords: Financial Accounting; Managerial Accounting; Valuation; Investments; Econometrics

April 2011 (Revised February 2016)
Case

Jamaica's Anemic Growth: The IMF, China and the Debt(th) Trap

By: Rafael Di Tella and Natalie Kindred

This case describes the economic development problems faced by the small Caribbean-island country of Jamaica over most of the past half-century. The Jamaican economy showed relatively strong growth in the 1960s but stagnated in the 1970s. By the end of that decade,... View Details

Keywords: Government Administration; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; International Finance; Crime and Corruption; Poverty; Private Sector; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Economy; Developing Countries and Economies; Borrowing and Debt; Jamaica

24 Jun 2008
First Look

First Look: June 24, 2008

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/08-102.pdf Cases & Course Materials (None this week.) Publications Managing Up Author: Linda A. Hill Publication: Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, forthcoming Abstract Managing up is not... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2018
Book

American Fair Trade: Proprietary Capitalism, Corporatism, and the 'New Competition,' 1890–1940

By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

American Fair Trade explores the contested political and legal meanings of the term fair trade from the late nineteenth century through the New Deal era. This history of American capitalism argues that business associations partnered with regulators to... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Competition; Policy; Fairness; History; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States

March 2007
Article

Local Company Politics: A Proposal

By: Raymond Fisman and Eric D. Werker

Corrupt politicians, and poor government more generally, are commonly viewed as a primary barrier to economic progress. The roots to these problems run deep in many political systems across the developing world, and attempts at reform have rarely found much success.... View Details

Keywords: Behavior

Find at Harvard

09 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

How Business Leaders Can Strengthen American Schools

Business has long recognized the connection between an effective school system and a qualified workforce—by some estimates, the private sector invests $4 billion annually in efforts intended to improve View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education

Research Summary

Current research

Professor Pomeranz's research is situated at the intersection of development economics and public finance. Her current work focuses in particular on corporate taxation and public procurement, the two key ways in which government finance affects firms and entrepreneurs.... View Details

2024
Working Paper

The Rise of Alternatives

By: Juliane Begenau, Pauline Liang and Emil Siriwardane

Since the 2000s, U.S. public pensions have shifted their risky investments towards alternative assets like private equity and hedge funds, some more aggressively than others. We explore several explanations for these cross-sectional trends, focusing on those implied by... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Investment Return; Risk and Uncertainty

September 2022
Article

Regulatory Spillover and Workplace Racial Inequality

By: Letian Zhang

This paper suggests that affirmative action bans in the U.S. public sector may influence racial inequality in the private sector. Since the 1990s, nine states have banned affirmative action practice in public universities and state governments. Though these bans have... View Details

Keywords: Inequality; Regulation; Law; Organizational Norm; CEO; Affirmative Action; Organizations; Private Sector; Equality and Inequality; Diversity; Race; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

Find at Harvard