Publications

March 2008 (Revised April 2009)
Case

Eliot Spitzer: Pushing Wall Street to Reform

By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer faced a decision about how to stop wrongdoing committed by major Wall Street firms during the Internet boom. The equities analysts of Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street firms were charged with objectively advising retail... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Decisions; Financial Institutions; Stocks; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Laws and Statutes; Lawsuits and Litigation; Conflict of Interests; Internet; Financial Services Industry; United States

Article

Buyer-Initiated vs. Seller-Initiated Information Revelation

Sales presentations are the core of the selling process where salespeople provide information to prospects. One challenge is that the amount of information available to be potentially communicated may exceed salespeople's ability to communicate or customers' ability to... View Details

Keywords: Information; Quality; Marketing Communications; Game Theory; Sales

Professor Montgomery's research centers on strategy and corporate governance. Of particular interest are the unique roles leaders play in developing and implementing strategy; the means organizations use to create value across multiple lines of business; and issues... View Details

September 2020 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Moderna (A)

By: Marco Iansiti, Karim R. Lakhani, Hannah Mayer and Kerry Herman

In summer 2020, Stephane Bancel, CEO of biotech firm Moderna, faces several challenges as his company races to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. The case explores how a company builds a digital organization, and leverages artificial intelligence and other digital... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Vaccine; Digital Organizations; Organizational Structure; Operations; Management; Health Pandemics; Research and Development; Goals and Objectives

2017
Working Paper

Management as a Technology?

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

Are some management practices akin to a technology that can explain firm and national productivity, or do they simply reflect contingent management styles? We collect data on core management practices from over 11,000 firms in 34 countries. We find large cross-country... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices; Productivity; Competition; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Productivity

SSRN

December 2014
Other Article

Private Equity, Jobs, and Productivity—Online Appendix

By: Steven J. Davis, John Haltiwanger, Kyle Handley, Ron Jarmin, Josh Lerner and Javier Miranda

Private equity critics claim that leveraged buyouts bring huge job losses. To investigate this claim, we construct and analyze a new dataset that covers U.S. private equity transactions from 1980 to 2005. We track 3,200 target firms and their 150,000 establishments... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Private Equity; Performance Productivity

April 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Case

BlackRock Solutions

By: Kenneth A. Froot and Scott Waggoner

The BlackRock Solutions case examines the different functions and economics of a global asset manager's value chain, with particular emphasis on the "money management" and the "investment systems platform" businesses. Students analyze why BlackRock decided to unbundle... View Details

Keywords: Investment Management; Strategic Vision; Organizational Behavior; Economies Of Scale And Scope; Unbundling Of Services; Strategic Planning; Risk Management; Financial Management; Asset Management; Competitive Advantage; Value; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Culture; Investment; Financial Strategy

2022
Article

Diffusing Management Practices within the Firm: The Role of Information Provision

By: Michael J. Lenox and Michael W. Toffel

Why are some firms more successful in adopting profitable environmental management practices than others? A key role of corporate managers is to encourage subsidiaries to adopt innovative practices. We examine the conditions under which corporate managers use... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Strategy; Information Provision; Environmental Management; Knowledge Dissemination

2008
Working Paper

Market Reaction to the Adoption of IFRS in Europe

By: Christopher S. Armstrong, Mary E. Barth, Alan D. Jagolinzer and Edward J. Riedl

This study examines the European stock market reaction to sixteen events associated with the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Europe. European IFRS adoption represented a major milestone towards financial reporting convergence yet... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Financial Markets; Code Law; Standards; Adoption; Europe

March 2000 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Ethan Berman at RiskMetrics Group (A)

Ethan Berman, CEO of J.P. Morgan's risk management spinoff, has grown RiskMetrics Group (RMG) from a small team of 30 to a 70-person firm contemplating an IPO. Along the way, the consensus-based decision-making process that he espoused started to prove unwieldy; his... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Style; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Making; Service Industry; Consulting Industry

2007
Working Paper

Global Competitors as Next-Door Neighbors: Competition and Geographic Concentration in the Semiconductor Industry

By: Minyuan Zhao and Juan Alcacer

Despite the many advantages offered by technology clusters, firms located in them face the risk of losing valuable knowledge to nearby competitors. In this study, we argue that multi-location firms strategically organize their R&D activities to appropriate the value of... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Industry Clusters; Innovation and Invention; Geographic Location; Competitive Strategy; Globalization; Semiconductor Industry

SSRN

October 2002
Case

A Father's Love: Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer and Bradley Campbell

John Crowley, CEO of Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, a start-up biotechnology firm developing an orphan drug to treat a rare lysosomal storage disorder from which his children suffer, must choose between a partnership and a buyout to have sufficient funds and support to get... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Business Startups; Partners and Partnerships; Financing and Loans; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Sales; Price; Product Development; Motivation and Incentives; Decision Choices and Conditions; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

Article

The C-Suite Skills That Matter Most

By: Raffaella Sadun, Joseph B. Fuller, Stephen Hansen and PJ Neal

Landing a job as a CEO today is no longer all about industry expertise and financial savvy. What companies are really seeking are leaders with strong social skills. That’s what the authors discovered after analyzing nearly 7,000 job descriptions for C-suite roles.... View Details

Keywords: C-Suite; Skills; Skills Development; Social Skills; Management Skills; Interpersonal Communication; Talent and Talent Management

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Malcolm Baker is the Robert G. Kirby Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, where he teaches the required course in finance and a short immersive program on investing in life sciences.

His research is in the... View Details

Keywords: asset management; biotechnology; financial services; high technology; investment banking industry; pharmaceuticals; private equity (LBO funds); shipping; transportation

26 Nov 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Demand Estimation in Models of Imperfect Competition

Keywords: by Alexander MacKay and Nathan H. Miller

14 Oct 2019
News

Private-equity deals depress worker wages, study finds

Christopher T. Stanton

Christopher Stanton is Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit. Professor Stanton's research streams focus on personnel economics, organizational economics, labor markets, and entrepreneurship. His MBA... View Details

2007
Working Paper

Competition in Modular Clusters

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and C. Jason Woodard

The last twenty years have witnessed the rise of disaggregated "clusters," "networks," or "ecosystems" of firms. In these clusters the activities of R&D, product design, production, distribution, and system integration may be split up among hundreds or even thousands... View Details

Keywords: Price; Profit; Digital Platforms; Industry Clusters; Competition; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration