Publications

June 12, 2017
Article

Corporate Balance Sheets in Emerging Markets: A Comparison of the Global Crisis and the Asian Financial Crisis

By: Laura Alfaro, Gonzalo Asis, Anusha Chari and Ugo Panizza

Leverage levels in emerging market firms rose dramatically in the aftermath of the Global Crisis. This column examines whether concerns of a repeat of the Asian financial crisis, which was largely attributed to corporate financial roots, are justified. While firm... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Emerging Markets; System Shocks

24 Jul 2018
Op-Ed

4 Ways Managers Can Exercise Their 'Agency' to Change the World

must strive to help find solutions. It’s the managers who have learned to exercise their “agency” at every level of a company who will be in the best position to do their job and achieve great things for their organizations and beyond.... View Details

Keywords: by George Serafeim

Summer 2008
Editorial

Will the Stork Return to Europe and Japan? Understanding Fertility within Developed Nations

By: James Feyrer, Bruce Sacerdote and Ariel Dora Stern

Only a few rich nations are currently at replacement levels of fertility and many are considerably below. We believe that changes in the status of women are driving fertility change. At low levels of female status, women specialize in household production and... View Details

Keywords: Income; Household; Gender; Japan; Italy; United States; Sweden; Spain

August 1994
Case

Komatsu Ltd. (B): Profit Planning and Product Costing

Describes Komatsu's profit planning and product costing systems. Komatsu can boast a high degree of employee dedication to achieving its profit plan. Also explores the logic behind the design of a new cost system at Komatsu that is less accurate at the product level... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Cost Management; Profit

Summer 2018
Article

Why High-Tech Commoditization Is Accelerating

By: Willy C. Shih

Knowledge embedded within state-of-the-art production and design tools is a powerful force that is leveling the global technology playing field. It democratizes innovation and makes future competition more challenging. This paper describes the knowledge flows through... View Details

Register to Read

2012
Chapter

Structuring Consulting Firms

By: Tim Morris, Heidi K. Gardner and N. Anand

This chapter presents a model of the way in which consulting and other professional-service firms organize themselves and grow. We will argue that the fundamental structural-design challenge for consulting firms, like other professional firms, is to adapt appropriately... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Management Practices and Processes; Demand and Consumers; Service Operations; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Projects; Groups and Teams; Consulting Industry; Service Industry

Summer 2019
Article

The Political Influence of Voters' Interests on SEC Enforcement

By: Jonas Heese

I examine whether political influence as a response to voters’ interest in employment levels is reflected in the enforcement actions of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). I find that large employers are less likely to experience SEC enforcement actions.... View Details

Keywords: SEC Enforcement; Government Preferences; Voters' Interests; Political Influence; Employment; Public Opinion; Government Administration; Governance Compliance; Political Elections

SSRN

2009
Working Paper

Asset Specificity and Vertical Integration: Williamson's Hypothesis Reconsidered

By: Christian Alejandro Ruzzier

A point repeatedly stressed by transaction cost economics is that the more specific the asset, the more likely is vertical integration to be optimal. In spite of the profusion of empirical papers supporting this prediction, recent surveys and casual observation suggest... View Details

Keywords: Assets; Vertical Integration

December 2008
Article

Corporate Governance and Agency Conflicts

By: Aiyesha Dey

I investigate whether corporate governance is associated with the level of agency conflicts in firms. I employ exploratory principal components analysis on 22 individual governance variables to obtain seven factors that represent the different dimensions of governance... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Agency Theory

June 2023
Case

Launching Egypt’s First Digital Banking Platform: QNB Bebasata

By: Mark Egan, Billy Chan and Ahmed Dahawy

The leadership team at QNB Alahli, Egypt's second biggest private bank, looked back on their efforts to create a brand-new, fully digital banking platform since 2019. A digital-only banking service was unprecedented in Egypt, a country where over 90% of financial... View Details

Keywords: Digital Transformation; Banks and Banking; Innovation and Invention; Competitive Strategy; Business Model; Product Launch; Finance; Banking Industry; Egypt

February 2003
Background Note

Identity Issues in Teams

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Hillary Anger Elfenbein

This note explains how identity dynamics underlie many of the observable interpersonal problems that team members encounter, ranging from lack of participation and low involvement to misunderstandings and dysfunctional emotional conflict. It provides a framework for... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Managerial Roles; Outcome or Result; Performance Effectiveness; Groups and Teams; Conflict and Resolution; Emotions; Identity

Article

Power, Competitiveness, and Advice Taking: Why the Powerful Don't Listen

By: L. P. Tost, F. Gino and R. Larrick

Four experiments test the prediction that feelings of power lead individuals to discount advice received from both experts and novices. Experiment 1 documents a negative relationship between subjective feelings of power and use of advice. Experiments 2 and 3 further... View Details

Keywords: Advice Taking; Power; Expertise; Confidence; Competitive Mindset; Competition

Teaching Interest

Overview

2018 - present Harvard Business School, Transforming Health Care Delivery (MBA elective curriculum) 2014 - 2017 Harvard Business Schoool, Technology and Operations Management (first-year required MBA curriculum) Summer 2012 Harvard Kennedy School of Government,... View Details

October 1991 (Revised November 1993)
Case

Play Time Toy Co.

By: Thomas R. Piper

The president of a toy company is considering the adoption of level production in a business characterized by highly seasonal sales. The issues include balancing the cost savings and the inventory risk, estimating the seasonal financing need, and determining the... View Details

Keywords: Production; Cost Management; Banks and Banking; Sales; Goods and Commodities; Financial Management; Risk Management; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

April 1999 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Al Dunlap at Sunbeam

By: Brian J. Hall, Rakesh Khurana and Carleen Madigan

Al Dunlap was one of the best-known corporate turnaround artists of the 1990s. In 1996, he was hired at Sunbeam to effect a restructuring, but was fired almost two years later when the company's financial performance and stock price began to decline. Many of the... View Details

Keywords: Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Restructuring; Stock Shares; Performance Evaluation; Leadership Style; Resignation and Termination; Motivation and Incentives; Executive Compensation; Outcome or Result; Consumer Products Industry; United States

04 Aug 2014
Op-Ed

Why Small-Business Lending Is Not Recovering

more tentative for small firms than for large firms. Regarding points of access to capital, community banks have long been crucial to small business lending. But community bank failures have been high and few new ones have started up. Troubled and failed banks reached... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Banking; Financial Services

March 2021
Article

Parental Burnout Around the Globe: A 42-Country Study

By: Isabelle Roskam, Joyce Aguiar, Ege Akgun, Gizem Arikan, Mariana Artavia, Herve Avalosse, Kaisa Aunola, Michael Bader, Claire Bahati, Elizabeth J. Barham, Elaine Besson, Wim Beyers, Emilie Boujut, Maria Elena Brianda, Anna Brytek-Matera, Neomie Carbonneau, Filipa Cesar, Bin-Bin Chen, Geraldine Dorard, Luciana Carla dos Santos Elias, Sandra Dunsmuir, Natalia Egorova, Nicolas Favez, Anne-Marie Fontaine, Heather Foran, Julia Fricke, Kaichiro Furutani, Laura Gallee, Myrna Gannage, Maria Gaspar, Lucie Godbout, Amit Goldenberg, James J. Gross, Maria Ancuta Gurza, Ruby Hall, Muhammad Aamir Hashmi, Ogma Hatta, Mai Helmy, Thi Van Hoang, Mai Trang Huynh, Emerence Kaneza, Taishi Kawamoto, Goran Knezevic, Bassantea Lodegaena Kpassagou, Ljiljana B. Lazarevic, Sarah Le Vigouroux, Astrid Lebert-Charron, Vanessa Leme, Gao-Xian Lin, Carolyn MacCann, Denisse Manrique-Millones, Marisa Marias, Maria Isabel Miranda-Orrego, Marina Miscioscia, Clara Morgades-Bamba, Seyyedeh Fatemeh Mousavi, Badra Moutassem-Mimouni, Ana Muntean, Hugh Murphy, Alexis Ndayizigiye, Josue Ngnombouowo Tenkue, Sally Olderbak, Sophie Ornawka, Fatumo Osman, Daniela Oyarce-Cadiz, Pablo A Perez-Diaz, Konstantinos V Petrides, Claudia Pineda-Marin, Katharina Prandstetter, Alena Prikhidko, Ricardo T Ricci, Fernando Salinas-Quiroz, Raquel Sanchez-Rodriguez, Ainize Sarrionandia, Celine Scola, Vincent Sezibera, Paola Silva, Alessandra Simonelli, Bart Soenens, Emma Sorbring, Matilda Sorkkila, Charlotte Schrooyen, Elena Stanculescu, Elena Starchenkova, Dorota Szczygiel, Javier Tapia, Thi Minh Thuy Tri, Melissa Tremblay, A. Meltem Ustandag-Budak, Maday Valdes Pacheco, Hedwig van Bakel, Lesley Verhofstadt, Jaqueline Wendland, Saengduean Yotanyamaneewong and Moira Mikolajczak

High levels of stress in the parenting domain can lead to parental burnout, a condition that has severe consequences for both parents and children. It is not yet clear, however, whether parental burnout varies by culture, and if so, why it might do so. In this study,... View Details

Keywords: Exhaustion; Culture; Individualism; Collectivism; Prevalence; Family and Family Relationships; Values and Beliefs; Global Range