Publications

Educators

2023
Working Paper

Going Beyond the ‘Self’ in Self-Control: Interpersonal Consequences of Commitment Strategy Use

By: Ariella Kristal and Julian Zlatev

Commitment strategies are effective mechanisms individuals can use to overcome self-control problems. Across seven studies (and three supplemental studies), we explore the negative interpersonal consequences of commitment strategy use. In Study 1, using an incentivized... View Details

Keywords: Self-control; Willpower; Commitment Strategies; Goals and Objectives; Behavior; Strategy; Perception

07 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

When Glasses Land the Gig: Employers Still Choose Workers Who 'Look the Part'

to aid evaluations. The study examined some of the characteristics that employers look for in photos when assessing whether a candidate is a good fit. And it is an effect, Troncoso, notes, that goes “above and beyond demographics and... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

March 2020
Article

Organizing Knowledge Production Teams Within Firms for Innovation

By: Vikas A. Aggarwal, David H. Hsu and Andy Wu

How should firms organize their pool of inventive human capital for firm-level innovation? While access to diverse knowledge may aid knowledge recombination, which can facilitate innovation, prior literature has focused primarily on one way of achieving that: diversity... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Recombination; Organization Design; Team Boundary; Innovation; Knowledge Sharing; Diversity; Innovation and Invention; Groups and Teams; Human Capital; Organizational Design

June 1995 (Revised September 2019)
Teaching Note

Richardson Sheffield

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Ashish Nanda

This note was prepared to aid instructors in the use of "Richardson Sheffield," HBS No. 392-089. The case traces Bryan Upton’s 20-plus years as managing director of a Sheffield-based cutlery company and describes the strategic and organizational actions he took to... View Details

Keywords: Development; General Management; Human Resources; Management; Leadership; Strategy; United Kingdom

30 Oct 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Do Voters Appreciate Responsive Governments? Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief

Keywords: by Shawn A. Cole, Andrew Healy & Eric D. Werker

November – December 2011
Article

Explaining Influence Rents: The Case for an Institutions-Based View of Strategy

By: Gautam Ahuja and Sai Yayavaram

Research in strategy has identified and tried to explain four types of rents: monopolistic rents, efficiency rents, quasi rents, and Schumpeterian rents. Building on previous work on political and institutional strategies, we add a fifth type of rent: influence rents.... View Details

Keywords: Institutions; Influence Rents; Generic Strategies; Strategy; Organizations; Renting or Rental; Economics

16 Jan 2008
Working Paper Summaries

The Political Economy of “Natural” Disasters

Keywords: by Charles Cohen & Eric D. Werker

Research Summary

Can Gambling Increase Savings? Empirical Evidence on Prize-linked Savings Accounts

This paper studies whether prize-linked savings (PLS) accounts, which offer random, lottery-like payouts to account holders in lieu of risk-free interest, can aid individuals in increasing savings levels by adding the chance to “win big.” Using micro-level data from... View Details

Keywords: Lottery; Banking; Saving; Commercial Banking; Africa

September 2007
Article

Collaborative Brokerage, Generative Creativity, and Creative Success

Analyzing data on utility patents from 1975 to 2002 in the careers of 35,400 collaborative inventors, this study examines the influence of brokered versus cohesive collaborative social structures on an individual's creativity. We test the hypothesis that... View Details

Keywords: Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Patents; Personal Development and Career; Creativity; Power and Influence; Social and Collaborative Networks

May 2022
Article

Coins for Bombs: The Predictive Ability of On-Chain Transfers for Terrorist Attacks

By: Dan Amiram, Evgeny Lyandres and Daniel Rabetti

This study examines whether we can learn from the behavior of blockchain-based transfers to predict the financing of terrorist attacks. We exploit blockchain transaction transparency to map millions of transfers for hundreds of large on-chain service providers. The... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Bitcoin; Accounting; AI and Machine Learning; National Security; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

March 1998
Article

On the Sequencing of Privatization in Transition Economies

By: Gautam Ahuja and Sumit K. Majumdar

This paper presents an empirical criterion for establishing privatization priorities for state-owned enteiprises. The approach uses firm performance, defined as productive efficiency, as the basis for deciding the sequence in which firms are privatized. Sequencing is... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Performance Efficiency; Privatization; Developing Countries and Economies; Planning; Service Industry; India

2013
Working Paper

U.S. High-Skilled Immigration, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship: Empirical Approaches and Evidence

By: William R. Kerr

High-skilled immigrants are a very important component of U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship. Immigrants account for roughly a quarter of U.S. workers in these fields, and they have a similar contribution in terms of output measures like patents or firm starts. This... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Diaspora; Diasporas; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Immigration

Research Summary

4. Collaborative Brokerage, Generative Creativity, and Creative Success

Joint work with Lee Fleming (Technology and Operations Management Unit, Harvard Business School) and David Chen (Doctoral Candidate, Harvard Business School and Harvard School of... View Details

2010
Working Paper

Performance Tradeoffs in Team Knowledge Sourcing

By: Bradley R. Staats, Melissa Valentine and Amy C. Edmondson

This research examines how teams organize knowledge sourcing (obtaining access to others' knowledge or expertise) and investigates the performance trade-offs involved in two approaches to knowledge sourcing in teams. One approach a team can take is to specialize, such... View Details

Keywords: Information Management; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Performance Efficiency; Performance Productivity; Quality; Groups and Teams; Information Technology Industry; India

2010
Working Paper

International Capital Allocation, Sovereign Borrowing, and Growth

By: Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych

The key in the investigation of "where" and "why" capital flows, relative to the neoclassical benchmark, is how we measure these flows. The macro literature has been using three main yardsticks: the current account balance, returns to capital, and the volume of net... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Performance Productivity; Capital; Economics

2007
Text Book

The Moral Leader: Challenges, Tools, and Insights

By: Sandra J. Sucher

Successful leaders—at any level and in any arena—are inevitably presented with moral and ethical choices. This unique and innovative textbook is designed to encourage students and managers to confront those fundamental moral challenges, to develop skills in moral... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Moral Sensibility; Leadership

June 2023
Article

When Does Uncertainty Matter? Understanding the Impact of Predictive Uncertainty in ML Assisted Decision Making

By: Sean McGrath, Parth Mehta, Alexandra Zytek, Isaac Lage and Himabindu Lakkaraju

As machine learning (ML) models are increasingly being employed to assist human decision makers, it becomes critical to provide these decision makers with relevant inputs which can help them decide if and how to incorporate model predictions into their decision... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Decision Making

2021
Book

Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective

By: Jaqueline Bhabha, Margareta Matache and Caroline M. Elkins

In this sweeping international perspective on reparations, Time for Reparations makes the case that past state injustice—be it slavery or colonization, forced sterilization or widespread atrocities—has enduring consequences that generate ongoing harm, which... View Details

Keywords: Reparations; Slavery; Colonization; Structural Racism; State Injustice