Second Great Divergence - Publications - Faculty & Research

04 Aug 2014
Op-Ed

Why Small-Business Lending Is Not Recovering

Editor's note: This is the second in a series of articles based on a Harvard Business School working paper by Karen Mills that analyzes the current state of availability of bank capital for small business. During the 2008 financial... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Banking; Financial Services

22 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

The ‘Mother of Fair Trade’ was an Unabashed Price Protectionist

crusade in her working paper The U.S. Experiment with Fair Trade Laws: State Police Powers, Federal Antitrust, and the Politics of “Fairness,” 1890–1938, forthcoming in the Business History Review. Gleason, a self-trained and California-certified pharmacist who was the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail; Health; Legal Services

25 Jul 2005
Research & Ideas

An Organization Your Customers Understand

inside the firm to create subunits that define the operating core. As you will see, responsiveness is the critical objective for units close to the customer; economic efficiency and cost control are more important for units in the operating core. Who Is Your Customer?... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

24 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

Tax Reform is on the Front Burner Again. Here’s Why You Should Care

as the state grew in the middle of the 20th century through the Great Depression and World War Two, and the advance of entitlements, we needed to fund those things and the fiscal capacity of the state grew. I think there's a lingering... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

17 Jul 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: As America Recedes from Global Leadership, Its CEOs are Stepping Up

As America recedes from global leadership under President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies, a new generation of business statesmen is stepping up to take on global issues of monumental importance: global trade, climate change, job creation, and healthy living.... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

05 May 2010
What Do You Think?

Is Denial Endemic to Management?

Bullard suggested that "Ruthless realism is, itself, pathological . The professional pilot denies a crash is inevitable until a second before impact, and that ability to believe one can save the ship is critical to the attitude of... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

02 Dec 2009
What Do You Think?

Should Immigration Policies Be More Welcoming to Low-Skilled Workers?

and importing unskilled workers to keep costs low takes away the initiative for technological advances ." And Sam Heffner, invoking the noted economist, Milton Friedman, pointed out that "before he died, the great Dr. Friedman... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

17 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 17

style, and thus set prices that limit market penetration. The winning strategy diverges from this approach in almost every respect. When innovators develop products that people want to pull into their lives, they create markets that serve... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Oct 2016
First Look

October 25, 2016

reorientations, we conducted an inductive, longitudinal field study of two startups in the “robo-advisor” sector. Despite similar initial profiles, parallel reorientations, and comparable end products, the startups’ fortunes diverged in a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

20 Jul 2016
Research & Ideas

Airplane Design Brings Out the Class Warfare in Us All

though it is always great to have high status, but it can lead to negative feelings of entitlement,” Norton says. The study included other findings about unruly passengers: The majority of disruptive passengers, 72.49 percent, were men.... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Air Transportation; Sports; Travel

08 Jul 2015
What Do You Think?

Do Americans Work Too Much and Think About Work Too Little?

moving to a 35-hour work week. But productivity doesn't seem to have suffered. And France's economy is second in health in Europe only to Germany, although some would argue that at the moment that is faint praise. In the US, the work... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Financial Services

11 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Evolving for Success [Part Two]

Companies and people need to embrace change in order to succeed in the future, according to HBS professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter. In this, the second of a two-part interview for HBS Working Knowledge, she explains the leadership skills of... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

23 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 23

to choose a home page provided by a competitor). The second principle focuses on opportunity: specifically, opportunity that is facilitated by giving developers platform access and the ability to innovate and build on platform... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

20 Mar 2017
Book

Why Companies Are Placing Users at the Core of Their Innovation Strategies

The book provides a whole view of the various ways in which both companies and governments need to start thinking about open innovation and user innovation. There are many examples throughout the book of companies getting great... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

02 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

Health Care Research and Prospects

that. The fourth piece was executive education. Two years ago we launched an executive education program specifically for future leaders in pharma and biotech. And we've run it for the second year in a row this year. It's a very... View Details

Keywords: by Wendy Guild Swearingen; Health

23 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Historically Speaking: A Roundtable at HBS

States, Europe, and Japan, it was supposed to examine two sectors: first, the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, which helped bring about the Second Industrial Revolution between the 1880s and 1920s, and second, consumer electronics... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner

03 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 3

sales, profitability, and assets. Here we analyze firm characteristics shown by industry before and after liberalization and investigate how industrial concentration, the number, and size of firms of the ownership type evolved between 1988 and 2005. We find View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

17 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

Broadband: Remaking the Advertising Industry

recently, advertisers have tapped into the popularity of social networking sites like MySpace and Second Life to create intriguing campaigns and an important presence. Q: Why is dissatisfaction increasing with traditional TV advertising?... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Advertising; Media & Broadcasting; Publishing

05 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 5, 2019

expected to generate social value in addition to profit. As a result, they also increasingly face the distinct challenge of pursuing social and financial goals at the same time. Social enterprises have a great deal of experience dealing... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

12 Feb 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, February 12, 2019

(Study 1). A second set of studies points to the specificity of the effect: Study 2A shows that it is unique to the (innocent) messenger and not mere bystanders. Study 2B shows that it is distinct from merely receiving information that... View Details