Publications

June 2013 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Bonnie Road

By: Arthur I Segel, John H. Vogel, Jr. and Lisa Strope

Victor Alexander was intrigued by the packet of papers that lay in front of him. The papers comprised a brochure that Garden State Bank had put together in an effort to sell the Bonnie Road Distribution Center in Somerset, New Jersey, for $9.7 million. It was April... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Investment; Acquisition; Buildings and Facilities; Property; Partners and Partnerships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Distribution Industry; Real Estate Industry; Texas

March 2021 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Blue Meridian Partners (A): Scaling for Impact

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

In 2018, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation in a bold move transferred all its assets to a fund pooled with other General Partners and Limited Partners, called Blue Meridian Partners, to focus substantial long range investments in a few carefully chosen nonprofits.The... View Details

Keywords: Venture Philanthropy; Scaling; COVID-19 Pandemic; Social Justice; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Venture Capital; Business Model; Social Issues; Poverty; Values and Beliefs; Decisions; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Nonprofit Organizations; Investment Portfolio

July–August 2013
Article

Building Sustainable Cities

By: John D. Macomber

By 2050 the number of people living in cities will have nearly doubled, to 6 billion, and the problems created by this rampant urbanization are among the most important challenges of our time. Of all resource-management issues, the author argues, water, electricity,... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Urban Development; Entrepreneurship; Infrastructure; City

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November 2023
Case

The Commons Project in Rwanda—Building Digital Infrastructure for the Global Public Good

By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui and Tom Quinn

In September 2022, The Commons Project Foundation (TCP) CEO Zhenya Lindgardt and her team met on a Zoom call to discuss building tools to help Rwandans manage their health data. They believed that helping Africa build digital infrastructure would improve much-needed... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Capital; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Health Care and Treatment; Information Management; Adaptation; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology Industry; Rwanda; United States

22 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

The Immigrant Technologist: Studying Technology Transfer with China

Chinese entrepreneurs educated or trained in the United States remained here to start their companies if they could do so. In Beijing, we met a number of these entrepreneurs who are choosing instead to be based full-time in China, even if they have U.S.-based venture... View Details

Keywords: Re: William R. Kerr; Technology; Computer

December 2014
Article

The Contaminating Effects of Building Instrumental Ties: How Networking Can Make Us Feel Dirty

By: Tiziana Casciaro, Francesca Gino and Maryam Kouchaki

To create social ties to support their professional or personal goals, people actively engage in instrumental networking. Drawing from moral psychology research, we posit that this intentional behavior has unintended consequences for an individual's morality. Unlike... View Details

Keywords: Networking; Morality; Dirtiness; Power; Networks; Moral Sensibility; Identity; Power and Influence

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January 2020
Case

Sunset Limited or Full Speed Ahead? Amtrak Talks to Congress

By: John D. Macomber

Richard Anderson took the helm of Amtrak in 2017 after leading a successful turnaround at Delta Airlines. Amtrak is a US state owned enterprise with about $3.5 bn in annual revenue (and a large operating loss) that is responsible for substantial segments of passenger... View Details

Keywords: Railroad; Passenger Transportation; Urbanization; Cities; U.S. Congress; Infrastructure; Transition; Transportation; Rail Transportation; Climate Change; Urban Scope; Strategic Planning; Business and Government Relations; Rail Industry; United States

02 Mar 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Short-Termism, Investor Clientele, and Firm Risk

Keywords: by Francois Brochet, Maria Loumioti & George Serafeim

30 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 30

offered high returns over the past decade. Download the paper from SSRN ($5): http://papers.nber.org/papers/w15014 Buy Local? The Geography of Successful and Unsuccessful Venture Capital Expansion Authors:Henry Chen, Paul Gompers, Anna... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

14 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

The Widening Rift Between Corporations and Society

answers to issues of capitalism? A: Think of a Russian doll. Business is inside capitalism, but capitalism is inside society, and society is inside history. The forms that capitalism takes in different eras... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

08 Nov 2024
Op-Ed

How Private Investors Can Help Solve Africa's Climate Crisis

area’s peace, stability, and national security. And the situation is getting progressively worse, partly due to people migrating out of suddenly unlivable situations. “Governments and development finance institutions clearly don’t have the View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber; Green Technology; Energy

07 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: Sept. 7

sociologists present a clear analysis of Cuba's economic and social circumstances and suggest steps for Cuba to reactivate economic growth and improve the welfare of its citizens. These authors focus first on trade, capital inflows,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Mar 2009
First Look

First Look: March 3, 2009

809-073 The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is one of the largest and fastest-growing pools of investment capital in the world and follows an unusually active program of investment management. In the market turmoil of late 2008, Mark... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Article

What Managers Need to Know About Social Tools: Avoid the Common Pitfalls So That Your Organization Can Collaborate, Learn, and Innovate

By: Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley

Workplaces have adopted internal social tools—think stand-alone technologies such as Slack, Yammer, and Chatter, or embedded applications such as Microsoft Teams and JIRA—at a staggering rate. In an ambitious study of 4,200 companies, conducted by the McKinsey Global... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Social Tools; Social and Collaborative Networks; Knowledge Sharing; Performance Improvement; Management

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16 Jun 2015
First Look

First Look: June 16, 2015

senior executives emphasize in their communications. We find that our measure of disclosure time horizon is associated with capital market pressures and executives' short-term monetary incentives. Consistent with the language emphasized... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2017 (Revised February 2018)
Case

Becton Dickinson: Global Health Strategy

By: Mark R. Kramer and Sarah Mehta

Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) was a medical technology firm headquartered in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, with 43,000 employees and 2016 revenues of $12.5 billion. For several years, the company had pursued developing products that created shared value, defined as... View Details

Keywords: Shared Value; Creating Shared Value; Odon Device; Medical Technology; Value Creation; Values and Beliefs; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Emerging Markets; Social Issues; Competitive Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Africa; Asia; Middle East