Publications

31 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

Can a ‘Basic Bundle’ of Health Insurance Cure Coverage Gaps and Spur Innovation?

team says. Deciding who makes decisions So, who gets to make those choices? One possibility would be to set broad guidelines via legislation and empower a medical board or government agency to define the... View Details

Keywords: by Kasandra Brabaw; Insurance; Health

November 1994
Case

Dow Corning and the Breast Implant Controversy (A)

By: Willis M. Emmons III, Monica Brand and Greg Keller

In early 1994, Dow Corning Corp. debates whether to participate in a proposed $4.2 billion product liability settlement. Specifically, the firm must decide whether to contribute $2 billion to end a class action suit filed by women suffering from connective tissue... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Ethics; Health Disorders; Government Legislation; Crime and Corruption; Legal Liability; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Strategy; Communication Strategy; Lawsuits and Litigation; Health Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

11 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

years. The British merchants also sometimes formed locally registered firms, especially in British colonies where the company legislation was modelled on Britain, which mobilized the pools of capital accumulated by resident Europeans in... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

16 Dec 2019
Research & Ideas

Taking on the Taboos That Keep Women Out of India's Workforce

hovering around 10 percent, for example, when legislation stated that 33 percent of the work should go to women. Now, Rigol says, the Indian government is adopting the same approach used in their study... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

21 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

What's Missing from the Racial Equity Dialogue?

the lives of most White people much worse. Take single-family zoning. Legislating that only single-family homes of a certain size can be built together was a radical experiment that initially aimed to separate Black home buyers from White... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

18 Jun 2018
Research & Ideas

Warning: Scary Warning Labels Work!

Marketers can make a bottle of sugar water look like golden elixir. Can health advocates sour the taste for consumers? (SteveDF) San Francisco is in a three-year battle with the American Beverage Industry over whether soda companies can be forced to include consumer... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Advertising; Public Relations

02 Mar 2021
HBS Case

The Tulsa Massacre: Is Racial Justice Possible 100 Years Later?

American history, yet descendants of residents harmed by the attack note that government officials have never made reparations for those killed or for homes and businesses that were destroyed. The killing of George Floyd by a police... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

03 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Dealing with the ‘Irrational’ Negotiator

to ensure that she understands why the offer is in her best interest. She may simply have misunderstood or ignored a crucial piece of information. Mistake 2: They Are Not Irrational; They Have Hidden Constraints In 2005, the U.S. View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra & Max H. Bazerman

04 Apr 2022
What Do You Think?

As Disney Board Chair, What Would You Advise CEO Bob Chapek Regarding 'Don’t Say Gay'?

reassessing our approach to advocacy—including political giving in Florida and beyond.” He also announced that Disney had signed the Human Rights Campaign’s statement opposing such legislative efforts and had pledged $5 million in support... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

09 Jun 2008
Lessons from the Classroom

Monetizing IP: The Executive’s Challenge

value of their intellectual property. Q: How effective are copyright law and patent law, both here and globally, in protecting IP? What are the weaknesses that companies need to think about? A: The range of patent and copyright View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Video Game; Web Services

18 Feb 2014
First Look

First Look: February 18

that these spillover effects cannot be seamlessly offset, even though issuers are large, highly rated firms. Our results illustrate that instabilities associated with money market funds persist despite recent changes to the regulations View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

business. In Europe, Unilever's organizational legacy, as well as social legislation in most of Europe, imposed constraints on what could be achieved in the rationalization of production facilities and brands. In some respects the most... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

October 2013 (Revised November 2016)
Case

Carbon Engineering

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Sid Misra

Dr. David Keith, President of Carbon Engineering, a company based in Calgary, Alberta, is commercializing a technology to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The company plans to market the captured CO2 to produce low carbon transportation fuels in... View Details

January 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Case

ByteDance: TikTok and the Trials of Going Viral

By: William C. Kirby and John P. McHugh

In 2020, TikTok became the most valuable start-up ever. The short-form, video-sharing social media platform emerged as the crown jewel of the Chinese technology firm ByteDance, realizing 850 million monthly users and an estimated worth of $180 billion. However, a... View Details

12 May 2016
Research & Ideas

When Mass Shootings Lead to Looser Gun Restrictions

In the United States, there’s much debate over whether gun-related legislation can diminish the likelihood of mass shootings. New research from Harvard Business School turns the question on its head: Do mass shootings lead to more... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

30 Jun 2021
In Practice

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2021

voting. It is the willingness to work together at the grass roots and in government to solve problems, as I argue in my own recent book, Think Outside the Building. "Instead of theories about democracy or its rise and fall, I plan to... View Details

Keywords: by Kathryn Haviland

January 2020
Background Note

Climate Change in 2020: Implications for Business

By: Rebecca M. Henderson, Sophus A. Reinert and Mariana Oseguera

This note provides general information about climate change and its implications for business. Included is an overview of climate change science and a number of its impacts, including rising sea levels, changing weather patterns and extreme weather, pressure on water... View Details