Publications

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April 2019
Technical Note

A Note on Boards in VC-Backed Ventures

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda, Suraj Srinivasan and Terrence Shu

What is the value of a Board, and why does a company need one? The note documents the formal role of a Board of Directors as going beyond simply acting as legal representation of corporate ownership. Moreover, this role changes as the company moves through different... View Details

Keywords: Founders; Business Startup; Board; Board Of Directors; Business Startups; Governing and Advisory Boards; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship

August 2018
Case

Christine Lagarde (A): A French Prime Minister Calls

By: Julie Battilana and Carin-Isabel Knoop

This case covers formative events and influences in Christine Lagarde’s childhood and her trajectory from studying political science and law to heading the world’s largest law firm. As she prepares to transition back to practice in 2005, the new Prime Minister of... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence; Decision Making

June 2009 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Goldman Sachs: The 10,000 Women Initiative

By: Christopher Marquis, V. Kasturi Rangan and Cathy Ross

Describes the conception, development, and implementation of Goldman Sachs' five-year, $100 million philanthropic initiative to provide practical business and management education to 10,000 women around the globe. The initiative recently celebrated its first... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Education; Gender; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Financial Services Industry; Education Industry

Aug 2020
Conference Presentation

Impacting Grand Challenges: A 'Both/And' Approach

By: Natalie Slawinski, Wendy K. Smith, Robin J. Ely, Tobias Hahn, Andrew J. Hoffman and Anita M. McGahan

In this panel symposium, we seek to build on growing efforts by management scholars to engage with grand challenges and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Reflective of the All- Academy Theme description, we note that research and scholarship... View Details

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June 2010 (Revised July 2011)
Case

China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good

By: Christopher Marquis and Nancy Dai

In early 2010, cleantech investment pioneer Tsing Capital was planning for the China Environment Fund IV and considering how to maintain its commitment to social and environmental practices. Tsing Capital embraced its philosophy of "Doing Well by Doing Good" and... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Strategy; Balance and Stability; Environmental Sustainability; Climate Change; Energy Conservation; Business Organization; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry; China

2023
Working Paper

Polarizing Corporations: Does Talent Flow to "Good" Firms?

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Tim McQuade, Gabriel Ramos, Thomas Rauter and Olivia Xiong

We conduct a field experiment in partnership with the largest job platform in Brazil to study how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices of firms affect talent allocation. We find both an average job-seeker’s preference for ESG and a large degree of... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Job Search; Talent and Talent Management; Wages; Attitudes

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2012
Working Paper

Relational Contracts and Organizational Capabilities

By: R. Gibbons and R. Henderson

A large literature identifies unique organizational capabilities as a potent source of competitive advantage, yet our knowledge of why capabilities fail to diffuse more rapidly-particularly in situations in which competitors apparently have strong incentives to adopt... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Contracts; Competency and Skills; Relationships; Complexity

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30 May 2000
Lessons from the Classroom

Entrepreneurship’s Wild Ride

business phenomenon. And any links between the two—has academic inquiry affected practice, or have evolving practices influenced study of the field? Perhaps the best place to start is with your own view of how the field has evolved. A:... View Details

Keywords: by William Mahoney

June 2020 (Revised October 2020)
Case

What Went Wrong with Boeing's 737 Max?

By: William W. George and Amram Migdal

This case describes the development of the Boeing 737 Max airplane model and the events leading up to two tragic plane crashes, in which a total of 346 people died: the crash of Lion Air flight 610 on October 29, 2018, in Indonesia, and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Communication Intention and Meaning; Communication Strategy; Forms of Communication; Announcements; Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Globalization; Global Strategy; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Governance Controls; Human Resources; Resignation and Termination; Leadership; Leadership Style; Management; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Style; Management Systems; Risk Management; Time Management; Markets; Demand and Consumers; Digital Platforms; Supply and Industry; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Industry Structures; Operations; Product Development; Organizations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Outcome or Result; Failure; Success; Planning; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Relationships; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Safety; Strategy; Transportation; Air Transportation; Aerospace Industry; Air Transportation Industry; Africa; Ethiopia; Asia; Indonesia; North and Central America; United States; Seattle; Chicago

Research Summary

Research Overview

Globalization and innovation are two key forces that will shape individual and business success in the 21st century. To thrive, individuals and organizations must collaborate effectively across cultural lines to solve pressing business problems and develop new products... View Details

June 2017
Article

The Social Trajectory of a Finance Professor and the Common Sense of Capital

By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana

This paper traces the career of Michael Jensen, a Chicago finance PhD turned Harvard Business School professor to reveal the intellectual and social conditions that enabled the emergence and institutionalization of what we call the “neoliberal common sense of capital,”... View Details

Keywords: Executive Pay; The Firm; Michael Jensen; Neo-Liberalism; Shareholder Value; Agency Theory; Corporate Governance; Executive Compensation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Transformation

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March 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Case

iMatari

By: Joseph L. Badaracco and Matthew Preble

In late 2012, recent Harvard Business School graduate Hannah Lopez is given the opportunity to lead entry into a new market for Plámo, a company that created startup companies in Europe and emerging markets based upon existing successful business models. She had only... View Details

Keywords: Ethical Behavior; Ethical Judgment; Entrepreneurship; Imitation; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Europe; Middle East

October 2002 (Revised May 2004)
Case

Starbucks and Conservation International

By: James E. Austin and Cate Reavis

Starbucks, the world's leading specialty coffee company, developed a strategic alliance with Conservation International, a major international environmental nonprofit organization. The purpose of the alliance was to promote coffee-growing practices of small farms that... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Growth and Development Strategy; Markets; Demand and Consumers; Production; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Cooperative Ownership; Performance Efficiency; Alliances; Nonprofit Organizations; Food and Beverage Industry; Mexico

25 Jul 2005
Research & Ideas

Fool vs. Jerk: Whom Would You Hire?

jerk. Things got a lot more interesting, though, when people faced the choice between competent jerks and lovable fools. Ask managers about this choice—and we've asked many of them, both as part of our research and in executive education... View Details

Keywords: by Tiziana Casciaro & Miguel Sousa Lobo

2005
Book

Gifts of Time and Money: The Role of Charity in America's Communities

By: Arthur C. Brooks

Policymakers, civic leaders, and scholars have increasingly focused their attention over the last decade-and-a-half on the importance of voluntary participation in civil society. From George H. W. Bush's Thousand Points of Light to Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps to George... View Details

Keywords: Volunteering; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Society; United States

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04 Nov 2008
First Look

First Look: November 4, 2008

Lerner, and Jean Tirole Abstract The sub-prime crisis has shown a harsh spotlight on the practices of securities underwriters, which provided too many complex securities that proved to ultimately have little value. This uproar calls... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Overview

By: Eva Ascarza

Professor Ascarza’s research primarily focuses on providing researchers and marketers a better understanding of how to manage customer retention so as to reduce churn and increase firm’s profitability. She addresses these issues by building empirical models of customer... View Details

Keywords: Customer Retention; Churn; Field Experiments

February 1996
Case

Indianopolis: Implementing Competition in City Services

By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Roger Atherton

Mayor Stephen Goldsmith of Indianapolis introduces competition to provide city services and implementation of new bidding procedures and work practices in the Department of Transportation. Exhibits show how work methods changed and work control procedures control work... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Business Strategy; Welfare; Transportation; Change; Cost Management; Service Industry