Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(117,452)
- Faculty Publications (142)
- January 1995
- Background Note
Note on Foreign Direct Investment
By: Debora L. Spar
Between 1985 and 1990, the global economy witnessed an unprecedented surge in flows of foreign direct investment (FDI). This sudden increase called back into prominence the range of questions that have long surrounded FDI. What causes firms to expand or contract their... View Details
Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment
- December 1994
- Case
Being There: Sony Corporation and Columbia Pictures
By: Debora L. Spar
In September 1989, Sony Corp. of Japan bid $3.4 billion for Columbia Pictures. It was the highest bid ever by a Japanese company for any U.S. property. The case examines the validity of Sony's objectives in making this purchase, and also the political uproar that the... View Details
- December 1994 (Revised February 1995)
- Case
Controlling International Oil (A): The Seven Sisters
By: Debora L. Spar and Richard H.K. Vietor
- January 1994
- Case
China (B): Polaroid of Shanghai Ltd.
By: Debora L. Spar
Examines the experience of Polaroid of Shanghai Ltd. (PSL), a joint venture between the U.S.-based Polaroid Corp. and the Shanghai Motion Picture Industry Co., within the framework of China's foreign investment climate. Discusses the evolution of foreign investment in... View Details
- September 1993 (Revised September 1997)
- Case
China (A): The Great Awakening
By: Debora L. Spar
As the third largest economy after the United States and Japan, China's startling economic growth has spurred increasing interest in the economic, social, and political factors that catapulted the country to sudden prominence. This case starts with an overview of the... View Details
- March 1993 (Revised July 1994)
- Case
Gerber Products Company: Investing in the New Poland
By: Debora L. Spar
Examines Gerber Products Co.'s evaluation of Alima S.A., one of Poland's largest food processing plants, as a potential overseas investment in 1991. Factors that influenced Gerber's decision are discussed in detail: property rights, taxation issues, and Poland's... View Details
- October 1992 (Revised October 1994)
- Case
Foreign Investment and Free Trade: Canada in the 1990s
By: Debora L. Spar
- April 1992 (Revised September 1993)
- Case
Poland--1989
By: Debora L. Spar
Describes the political and economic situation in Poland in 1989, following the country's first democratic elections and the subsequent establishment of a Solidarity-led government. After examining the legacies left by 40 years of Communist rule, the case lays out the... View Details
- Research Summary
AIDS in Africa: Life, Death and Property Rights
By: Debora L. Spar
In the final years of the twentieth century, the world was hit by a plague of epidemic proportions--the plague of AIDS, a life-threatening disease that remained stubbornly immune to any cure or vaccine. In the developed nations of the West, AIDS was slowly brought... View Details
- Research Summary
Making Markets Work: An Executive Education Program for Africa
By: Debora L. Spar
In the last decades of the 20th century economic growth was distributed unevenly across the world. While some countries experienced sustained and unprecedented prosperity, others fell further and further behind. This widening gap was particularly evident in Africa,... View Details
- Research Summary
Managing International Trade and Investment
By: Debora L. Spar
Introduced by Debora Spar in 1995, Managing International Trade and Investment is an elective course that prepares students to deal with the distinct set of management challenges that face cross-border businesses. Building on experience that suggests that what works... View Details
- Research Summary
Of Measurement and Mission: Accounting for Performance in Non-Governmental Organizations
By: Debora L. Spar
As members of civil society NGOs would seem to have a built-in proclivity towards representation: towards working on behalf of some group of people, or toward some specific goal. Yet in practice such moments of accountability are rare. Unlike other social agents,... View Details
- Teaching Interest
Overview
By: Debora L. Spar
I currently teach an Elective Course on Capitalism and the State (CATS), and serve as Course Head for a new Required Curriculum course on the Social Purpose of the Firm (SPF). Previously, I developed and taught Managing International Trade and Investment (MITI) in the... View Details
- Research Summary
Overview
By: Debora L. Spar
My work focuses generally on the intersection between technological change and societal structures, and on the many areas in which business both shapes and is shaped by societal norms. View Details
Keywords: Technological And Scientific Innovation; Technological Change: Choices And Consequences; Business ＆ Government Relations; Business And Community; Capitalism; Reproduction; Technological Innovation; Government and Politics; Gender; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Education Industry; United States; Europe; Africa; Asia
- Research Summary
Profitable Souls: Foreign Investment and the Fate of Human Rights
By: Debora L. Spar
This is a project about foreign investment, about what happens when big multinational firms invest in small, poor, and often nasty places. Typically, most observers assume that this is a largely negative relationship: that multinationals exploit the local population,... View Details
- Research Summary
Ruling the Waves: Business and Politics along the Technological Frontier
By: Debora L. Spar
There are certain periods of time when technological innovation pushes at the frontiers of government and law; when technology undermines state authority and opens massive loopholes for entreneneurs to exploit. During these critical junctures, rules disappear and... View Details
- Research Summary
The Baby Business: How Markets are Changing the Future of Birth
By: Debora L. Spar
It is difficult to conceive of the child as commerce. For even at the start of the 21st century, we like to believe that some things remain beyond both markets and science; that there are some things that money can't buy. In economic terms, these things are defined as... View Details
- Research Summary
The Business of Stem Cells
By: Debora L. Spar
In 2004, the topic of stem cell research made both medical and moral headlines. Buoyed by a series of technological breakthroughs, stem cell scientists grew increasingly convinced that they would eventually be able to use embryonic stem cells -- the pluripotent cells... View Details