Publications

10 Oct 2008
News

HBS Professor Clayton Christensen Brings Disruptive Innovation to Education

Research Summary

Overview

By: Rembrand M. Koning

Rembrand Koning is the Mary V. and Mark A. Stevens Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. His research examines matching and selection frictions in firm growth and strategy, with an aim to help entrepreneurs and... View Details

June 1999 (Revised November 2006)
Case

Basil "Buzz" Hargrove and de Havilland, Inc. (A)

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Angela Keros

Buzz Hargrove, national president of the Canadian Auto Workers, needs to find a way to secure an agreement from a negotiated contract with de Havilland, Inc. Local union leaders feel the deal is not good enough, but Hargrove is convinced management will close the plant... View Details

Keywords: Media; Power and Influence; Negotiation Deal; Leadership; Agreements and Arrangements; Business Exit or Shutdown; Labor Unions; Negotiation Types; Management Teams; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Canada

2020
Working Paper

To Infinity and Beyond: Scaling Economic Theories via Logical Compactness

By: Yannai A. Gonczarowski, Scott Duke Kominers and Ran I. Shorrer

Many economic-theoretic models incorporate finiteness assumptions that, while introduced for simplicity, play a real role in the analysis. Such assumptions introduce a conceptual problem, as results that rely on finiteness are often implicitly nonrobust; for example,... View Details

Keywords: Markets; Analysis; Game Theory

SSRN

May 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Case

IKEA's Global Sourcing Challenge: Indian Rugs and Child Labor (A)

By: Christopher A. Bartlett, Vincent Marie Dessain and Anders Sjoman

Traces the history of IKEA's response to a TV report that its Indian carpet suppliers were using child labor. Describes IKEA's growth, including the importance of a sourcing strategy based on its close relationships with suppliers in developing countries. Details the... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Moral Sensibility; Policy; Employment; Contracts; Supply Chain Management; Organizational Culture; Natural Environment; Non-Governmental Organizations; Social Issues

2022
Working Paper

Politics at Work

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Valdemar Pinho Neto and Edoardo Teso

We study how individual political views shape firm behavior and labor market outcomes. Using new micro-data on the political affiliation of business owners and private-sector workers in Brazil over the 2002–2019 period, we first document the presence of political... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Employees; Prejudice and Bias; Brazil

September 2019
Article

The Dollar, Bank Leverage and Deviations from Covered Interest Parity

By: Stefan Advjiev, Wenxin Du, Catherine Koch and Hyun Song Shin

We document a triangular relationship in that a stronger dollar goes hand in hand with larger deviations from covered interest parity (CIP) and contractions of cross-border bank lending in dollars. We argue that underpinning the triangle is the role of the dollar as a... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Currency; Financial Markets; Banks and Banking

27 Jul 2020
News

This Tech Could Let Bosses Spy on You While You’re Working from Home

2023
Working Paper

Virtual Water Coolers: A Field Experiment on the Role of Virtual Interactions on Organizational Newcomer Performance

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Jacqueline N. Lane and Iavor Bojinov

Designing management practices to better onboard organizational newcomers working remotely is a key priority for firms. We report results from a randomized field experiment conducted at a large global firm that estimates the performance effects of different types of... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Virtual Water Coolers; Social Interactions; Careers; Field Experiment; Employees; Interpersonal Communication; Internet and the Web; Performance; Personal Development and Career

SSRN

27 Mar 2017
News

How Companies Can Benefit More From Their Corporate Giving

March 2002 (Revised May 2003)
Case

Supply Chain Close-Up: The Video Vault

By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

The owners of the Video Vault struggle to determine the optimal stocking levels of home videos in an industry fraught with new technology, new pricing paradigms, and stiff competitive pressure from large national chains. Teaching Purpose: To demonstrate the role of... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Competition; Motivation and Incentives; Price; Technological Innovation; Service Delivery; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

April 1942 (Revised December 1982)
Case

Dashman Co.

The vice president in charge of purchasing sends a letter to each of the company's 20 purchasing executives requesting that contracts made in excess of $10,000 be cleared with him prior to signing. The branches promise to cooperate, but no notices of negotiations are... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Accounting; Business Processes

Article

Non-verifiability, Costly Renegotiation, and Efficiency

By: Jerry R. Green and J. J. Laffont

We study the implications of the non verifiability of information for the allocation of resources and the bearing of risk in a two party relationship. We consider a two step approach. In step one the two parties define a non contingent contract which will be executed... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation

17 Apr 2019
Blog Post

Coming Home to HBS

husband and I were starting a family at the same time I was starting my MBA, I applied only to schools that met the following two criteria: Located where my husband would have been able to relocate with his job; Was a top school. Since we... View Details

April 1995 (Revised December 2006)
Case

Identify the Nonprofit

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Ramona Hilgenkamp

This case presents financial statements and selected ratios for seven unidentified nonprofit organizations and asks that each set of financial information be matched with one of the following nonprofit entities: a public television station, a suburban hospital, a... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Financial Statements

September 2004
Article

Trust in Agency

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Existing models of the principal-agent relationship assume the agent works only under extrinsic incentives. However, many observed agency contracts take the form of a fixed payment. For such contracts to succeed, the principal must trust the agent to work in the... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Agency Theory; Relationships; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Contracts; Business Model; Emotions; Forecasting and Prediction; Ethics; Standards; Risk and Uncertainty

Article

The Price of a CEO's Rolodex

By: Christopher Parsons, J. Engelberg and P. Gao

CEOs with large networks earn more than those with small networks. An additional connection to an executive or director outside the firm increases compensation by about $17,000 on average, more so for "important" members, such as CEOs of big firms. Pay-for-connectivity... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Executive Compensation