Publications

Research Summary

The Power of Paradox: Some Recent Developments in Interactive Epistemology

This survey describes a central paradox of game theory, viz. the Paradox of Backward Induction (BI). The paradox is that the BI outcome is often said to follow from basic game-theoretic principles--specifically, from the assumption that the players are rational. Yet,... View Details

16 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The Inner Workings of Corporate Headquarters

compare to the networks of line workers within those divisions. If theory is correct, corporate staff networks should be larger and more centralized than those of line workers.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

29 May 2013
Research & Ideas

Faculty Symposium Showcases Breadth of Research

An internal event held each May, the annual Faculty Research Symposium affords the opportunity for a few Harvard Business School faculty to share their latest research with an audience of doctoral students, HBS staff, and other... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

2011
Working Paper

The Contingent Effect of Absorptive Capacity: An Open Innovation Analysis

By: Andrew A. King and Karim R. Lakhani

Technological advancement and innovation requires the integration of both external knowledge and internal inventiveness. In this paper, we unpack the concept of absorptive capacity and separately explore the effect of different types of prior experience on the capacity... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Performance Capacity; Technology Adoption

SSRN

Article

The Decreasing Value of Our Research to Management Education

By: Jone L. Pearce and Laura Huang

For centuries we have expected the best teachers also to be scholars. The practice of scholarship should do more than make scholars more humble teachers; scholarship is expected to be more than an activity done for its own sake. Here we present evidence that our... View Details

25 Sep 2008
Working Paper Summaries

The Cost of Property Rights: Establishing Institutions on the Philippine Frontier Under American Rule, 1898-1918

Keywords: by Lakshmi Iyer & Noel Maurer

2019
Working Paper

The Impact of the General Data Protection Regulation on Internet Interconnection

By: Ran Zhuo, Bradley Huffaker, KC Claffy and Shane Greenstein

The Internet comprises thousands of independently operated networks, where bilaterally negotiated interconnection agreements determine the flow of data between networks. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes strict restrictions on... View Details

Keywords: Personal Data; Privacy Regulation; GDPR; Interconnection Agreements; Internet and the Web; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; European Union

Article

Towards the Unification and Robustness of Perturbation and Gradient Based Explanations

By: Sushant Agarwal, Shahin Jabbari, Chirag Agarwal, Sohini Upadhyay, Steven Wu and Himabindu Lakkaraju

As machine learning black boxes are increasingly being deployed in critical domains such as healthcare and criminal justice, there has been a growing emphasis on developing techniques for explaining these black boxes in a post hoc manner. In this work, we analyze two... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Black Box Explanations; Decision Making; Forecasting and Prediction; Information Technology

27 Feb 2013
Working Paper Summaries

In Strange Company: The Puzzle of Private Investment in State-Controlled Firms

Keywords: by Mariana Pargendler, Aldo Musacchio & Sergio G. Lazzarini; Banking; Financial Services

08 May 2006
Research & Ideas

The Cost of Cutting in Line

No one likes to waste time standing in line. So why don't more people try to bribe their way to the front? Should companies allow some customers to move to the front of the line for a hefty fee? Is there a market for time? Felix... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2024
Working Paper

Health, Human Capital Development and the Longevity of Japanese Elites Since 710

By: Tom Nicholas and Hiroshi Shimizu

We examine the lifespan of over 40,000 elites in Japan born between 710 and 1912, including samurai warriors, feudal lords, business, political, cultural, and religious leaders at the apex of the social hierarchy. Japanese elites experienced increases in lifespan about... View Details

Keywords: Life Expectancy; Status and Position; Health; History; Human Capital; Japan

November – December 2011
Article

Explaining Influence Rents: The Case for an Institutions-Based View of Strategy

By: Gautam Ahuja and Sai Yayavaram

Research in strategy has identified and tried to explain four types of rents: monopolistic rents, efficiency rents, quasi rents, and Schumpeterian rents. Building on previous work on political and institutional strategies, we add a fifth type of rent: influence rents.... View Details

Keywords: Institutions; Influence Rents; Generic Strategies; Strategy; Organizations; Renting or Rental; Economics

Purchase

February 2008
Article

Where Do Transactions Come From? Modularity, Transactions, and the Boundaries of Firms

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

This article constructs a theory of the location of transactions and the boundaries of firms in a productive system. It proposes that systems of production can be viewed as networks, in which tasks-cum-agents are the nodes and transfers—of material, energy and... View Details

Keywords: Boundaries; Production; Market Transactions; Supply Chain; Management; Cost; Theory; Performance Productivity; Information Management; Complexity

Article

Knowledge, Integration and the Locus of Learning: An Empirical Analysis of Process Development

By: Gary P. Pisano

Keywords: Knowledge; Integration; Learning; Theory; Growth and Development

24 Oct 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Individual Experience of Positive and Negative Growth Is Asymmetric: Global Evidence from Subjective Well-being Data

Keywords: by Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, George W. Ward, Femke De Keulenaer, Bert Van Landeghem, Georgios Kavetsos & Michael I. Norton

13 Oct 2019
News

About the debate: We have some questions about the future of work we’d like to see asked

2011
Other Unpublished Work

Do Public and Private Firms Behave Differently? An Examination of Investment in the Chemical Industry

By: Albert W. Sheen

I compare the capacity expansion decisions of U.S. public and private producers of seven commodity chemicals from 1989-2006. I find that private firms invest differently, and more efficiently, than public firms. Specifically, private firms are more likely than public... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Chemicals; Investment; Public Ownership; Chemical Industry; United States

2009
Working Paper

Operational Failures and Problem Solving: An Empirical Study of Incident Reporting

By: Julia Rose Adler-Milstein, Sara J. Singer and Michael W. Toffel

Operational failures occur in all industries with consequences that range from minor inconveniences to major catastrophes. Many organizations have implemented incident reporting systems to highlight actual and potential operational failures in order to encourage... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Legal Liability; Management Practices and Processes; Service Operations; Failure; Health Industry

October 1, 2021
Article

An Evaluation of Cross-efficiency Methods: With an Application to Warehouse Performance.

By: B.M. Balk, M.R. De Koster, Christian Kaps and J.L. Zofio

Cross-efficiency measurement is an extension of Data Envelopment Analysis that allows for tie-breaking ranking of the Decision Making Units (DMUs) using all the peer evaluations. In this article we examine the theory of cross-efficiency measurement by comparing a... View Details

Keywords: Efficiency Analysis; Performance Benchmarking; Warehousing; Analytics and Data Science; Performance Evaluation; Measurement and Metrics; Mathematical Methods