Publications

13 Mar 2009
News

Historical Collections Exhibit Examines Role of Primary Source Materials in Scholarly Research

Do Managers Have a Role to Play in Sustaining the Institutions of Capitalism?

In the latest paper for the Initiative on 21st Century Capitalism, Rebecca Henderson and Karthik Ramanna, professors at Harvard, look to business leaders to ask the important question: Do managers have a role to play in sustaining free and fair capitalism? The... View Details

October 2008
Article

Creativity and the Role of the Leader

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Mukti Khaire

In today's innovation-driven economy, understanding how to generate great ideas has become an urgent managerial priority. Suddenly, the spotlight has turned on the academics who've studied creativity for decades. How relevant is their research to the practical... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Commercialization; Managerial Roles; Creativity; Innovation and Management; Social and Collaborative Networks; Diversity

Web

Donor Societies - Alumni

and friends who make planned gifts of any amount to HBS are invited to join this Society, named in honor of John C. Whitehead (MBA 1947), a visionary View Details

13 Jul 2020
News

Roles Foundations Play in Shaping Impact Investing

Article

The Role of Finance and Private Investment in Developing Sustainable Cities

By: John D. Macomber

Three trends will drive urban investment, development, and entrepreneurship in the next two decades. This article provides tools to identify the situations and circumstances that will be most favorable for private sector involvement in consideration of these trends.... View Details

Keywords: Trends; Demographics; Private Sector; Investment; City; Infrastructure; Opportunities; Urban Development

2018
Book

The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society

By: William R. Kerr

The global race for talent is on, with countries and businesses competing for the best and brightest. Foreign talent has transformed U.S. science and engineering, reshaped the economy, and influenced society at large. But America is bogged down in thorny debates on... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; Policy; Labor; Economy; Talent and Talent Management; United States

March 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Siebel Systems: The Role of the CFO

By: Malcolm P. Baker and Lauren Barley

Mike Lawrie, the newly appointed CEO of Siebel Systems, considers a combination of growth and spending cuts to turn around the struggling software company. Focuses on the role of the chief financial officer, Ken Goldman, in corporate governance and compliance under... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Leading Change; Entrepreneurship; Job Design and Levels; Corporate Governance; Financial Strategy; Management Teams; Corporate Finance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Information Technology Industry

Educators

2006
Article

Capital Budgeting: The Role of Cost Allocations

By: Ian D. Gow and Stefan Reichelstein

A common issue for firms is how to allocate capital resources to various investment alternatives. An extensive and long-standing literature in finance has examined various aspects of capital budgeting, including capital constraints, the determination of discount rates,... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Resource Allocation; Performance Evaluation; Cost Management; Research; Investment; Cash Flow; Risk Management; Performance Capacity

September–October 2013
Article

The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring

By: Lamar Pierce and Michael W. Toffel

Governments and other organizations often outsource activities to achieve cost savings from market competition. Yet such benefits are often accompanied by poor quality resulting from moral hazard, which can be particularly onerous when outsourcing the monitoring and... View Details

September 2022
Article

The Power and Limits of Expertise: Swiss–Swedish Linking of Vehicle Emission Standards in the 1970s and 1980s

By: Mattias Näsman and Sabine Pitteloud

Recent decades have witnessed increased public concern about vehicle emissions and growing frustration with political inaction and business preferences for the status quo. This article provides historical perspective on such regulatory dynamics by analyzing the Swiss... View Details

Keywords: Business And The Environment; Business And Society; Emission Reduction; Automobiles; Standard Setting; Norm-enforcement; Regulation; Expertise; Experts; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Regulation; Standards; Auto Industry; Switzerland; Sweden

2021
Book

Management as a Calling: Leading Business, Serving Society

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Business leaders have tremendous power to influence our society, how it operates, whether it is fair, and the extent to which it impacts the environment. And yet, we do not recognize or call out the responsibility that comes with that power. This book is meant to... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Power and Influence; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Leadership

2009
Working Paper

International Differences in the Size and Roles of Corporate Headquarters: An Empirical Examination

By: David J. Collis, David Young and Michael Goold

This paper examines differences in the size and roles of corporate headquarters around the world. Based on a survey of over 600 multibusiness corporations in seven countries (France, Germany, Holland, UK, Japan, US, and Chile) the paper describes the differences among... View Details

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Size; Organizational Structure; Culture; Japan; France; Germany; Netherlands; United Kingdom; United States; Chile

Article

Thin Political Markets: The Soft Underbelly of Capitalism

By: Karthik Ramanna

"Thin political markets" are the processes through which some of the most complex and critical institutions of our capitalist system are determined—e.g., our accounting-standards infrastructure. In thin political markets, corporate managers are largely... View Details

Keywords: Business And Society; Lobbying; Sustainability; Leadership; Economic Systems; Accounting; Business and Community Relations; Financial Institutions; Business and Government Relations

Register to Read

16 Feb 2018
Working Paper Summaries

A New Categorization of the US Economy: The Role of Supply Chain Industries in Innovation and Economic Performance

Keywords: by Mercedes Delgado and Karen G. Mills; Manufacturing

Article

Strategic Orientations in a Competitive Context: The Role of Strategic Orientation Differentiation

By: Rohit Deshpandé, Amir Grinstein and Elie Ofek

Strategic orientation studies often provide 'best practice prescriptions' for firms in a given context—matching orientations to environmental conditions. While this perspective has value, empirical results are equivocal, and an important reality has been overlooked:... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Change Management; Situation or Environment; Decision Choices and Conditions

2021
Working Paper

The Business of K-12 Education in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

This working paper examines the evolution of K-12 education in China, especially between 1985 and the present day, drawing extensive interviews with participants in the educational sector. China has been hugely successful in reaching almost 100 percent literacy,... View Details

Keywords: K-12 Education; China; Real Estate; Early Childhood Education; Performance Evaluation; Teaching; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Personal Development and Career; Social Issues; Nonprofit Organizations; Private Sector; Education Industry; Real Estate Industry; China