Publications

December 2019 (Revised June 2024)
Case

The Dutch East India Company in 1612 (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci

The Dutch East India Company’s board of directors must decide what to do about an impending legal requirement to liquidate the company’s assets and return to shareholders their capital and any profits earned during a ten-year lock-up period. The charter granted to the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Globalized Firms and Management; Organizational Structure; Laws and Statutes; Financial Markets; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business History; Shipping Industry; Netherlands

14 Feb 2012
News

Cost-Saving Measures

Keywords: National Security and International Affairs; Government; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

October 2010
Case

Cherie Blair: Inventing Herself

By: Boris Groysberg, Robin Abrahams and Lindsay Tanne

Cherie Blair was famous, or infamous, in the United Kingdom as first lady from 1997 to 2007. Her marriage to Tony Blair, however, was the result of her own groundbreaking career in law--a career she fought to keep during the 10 years of her husband's tenure as Prime... View Details

Keywords: Work-Life Balance; Success; Lawsuits and Litigation; Government Administration; United Kingdom

March 2010 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Microsoft's IP Ventures

By: Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Microsoft's IP Ventures program, through which Microsoft spun out promising but unused technologies into new companies, is a new approach to corporate venture capital. The program provides "IP for equity" and has proven very successful in achieving its main... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Equity; Financing and Loans; Investment; Intellectual Property; Rights; Software; Washington (state, US)

2010
Working Paper

The Role of Institutional Development in the Prevalence and Value of Family Firms

We investigate the role played by institutional development in the prevalence and value of family firms, while controlling for the potential effect of cultural norms. China provides a good research lab since it combines great heterogeneity in institutional development... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Data and Data Sets; Law; Management; Organizational Culture; Research; Value; China

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October 1988
Case

Agrico, Inc.: A Software Dilemma

By: F. Warren McFarlan

An information systems vice president has one hour to make an ethical decision: should a software program, left inadvertently on the company's computer, be copied and stored? Copying the program would protect clients' assets, but it seems to violate the vendor... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Ethics; Contracts; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Information Technology Industry

December 2001
Article

Enforcing Property Rights Through Reputation: Groups in Mexico's Early Industrialization, 1878-1913

By: Noel Maurer and Tridib Sharma

Keywords: History; Rights; Groups and Teams; Reputation; Property; Developing Countries and Economies; Mexico

Find at Harvard

06 Apr 2017
News

From Lobster Traps to Border Fencing

A Massachusetts firm that makes wire mesh for lobster traps says its technology could save millions in building the US-Mexico border wall proposed by President Donald Trump. "It's difficult to climb, it's difficult to cut—I think it just makes more sense than a... View Details

Keywords: Donald Trump; homeland security; Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

01 Dec 2009
News

Faculty Research Online

“I Read Playboy for the Articles”: Justifying and Rationalizing Questionable Preferences When people behave in ways that might appear selfish, prejudiced, or perverted, they employ a host of strategies designed to justify questionable behavior with rational excuses: “I... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

01 Jun 2016
News

Research Brief: The High Cost of Election Expectations

Researchers have long known that building high levels of voter trust and participation are essential to help fragile democracies thrive. The 2013 national elections in Kenya, which followed vast government changes after a flawed national election in 2007 and a... View Details

Keywords: Erin Peterson

01 Sep 2015
News

Faculty Q&A: The Working World

How did you become interested in the impact of high-skill immigrant labor? In the 1990s I helped develop a wireless data technology for a Korean company. The inventor was a Korean scientist living in Silicon Valley, so I spent a lot of time flying back and forth... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

01 Mar 2006
News

In Memoriam

HBS professor J. Keith Butters, an authority on finance and taxation, died in Lexington, Massachusetts, in December. He was 90. The Thomas D. Casserly Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, Butters retired from the HBS faculty in 1986 after 43 years of... View Details

Keywords: J. Keith Butters; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

Article

Cash-for-Information Whistleblower Programs: Effects on Whistleblowing and Consequences for Whistleblowers

By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and Gerardo Pérez Cavazos

Cash-for-information whistleblower programs have gained momentum as a regulatory tool to enforce corporate misconduct. Yet, little is known about how financial incentives affect whistleblowers’ decisions to report potential misconduct to authorities. Similarly, there... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Whistleblowers; Financial Incentives; Ethics; Governance Compliance; Lawsuits and Litigation

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December 2019 (Revised November 2023)
Background Note

Legal Analysis: Insider Trading Liability

By: Trevor Fetter, Eugene F. Soltes and Grant Wahlquist

There are numerous restrictions against trading on material, nonpublic information (MNPI)—typically called “insider trading.” This note describes the limitations facing managers and investors as enforced civilly and criminally within the United States. View Details

Keywords: Insider Trading; Legal Liability; Ethics; Crime and Corruption; Finance; United States