Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,788)
- Faculty Publications (454)
- March 2016
- Article
Dividends as Reference Points: A Behavioral Signaling Approach
By: Malcolm Baker, Brock Mendel and Jeffrey Wurgler
We outline a dividend signaling model that features investors who are averse to dividend cuts. Managers with strong unobservable cash earnings separate by paying high dividends but retain enough to be likely not to fall short next period. The model is consistent with a... View Details
Keywords: Investment
- March 2016
- Article
To Groupon or Not to Groupon: The Profitability of Deep Discounts
By: Benjamin Edelman, Sonia Jaffe and Scott Duke Kominers
We examine the profitability and implications of online discount vouchers, a relatively new marketing tool that offers consumers large discounts when they prepay for participating firms' goods and services. Within a model of repeat experience good purchase, we examine... View Details
- Article
Third-party Punishment as a Costly Signal of Trustworthiness
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Paul Bloom and David G. Rand
Third-party punishment (TPP), in which unaffected observers punish selfishness, promotes cooperation by deterring defection. But why should individuals choose to bear the costs of punishing? We present a game theoretic model of TPP as a costly signal of... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised May 2016)
- Case
Blue Origin, NASA, and New Space (A)
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Angela Acocella
Jeff Bezos, six years after starting a revolution in retailing with Amazon.com, turned his life-long passion for space into a start-up, Blue Origin. Blue (as it was called) was a part of the New Space industry, a collection of startup aerospace engineering companies... View Details
- January 2016 (Revised October 2016)
- Case
Saudi Aramco and Corporate Venture Capital
By: Joseph B. Fuller, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Nathaniel Burbank
Saudi Aramco launched an internal venture capital arm in 2011, which promptly became the world's largest investor in energy related startups. In choosing to proceed, the company's New Business Development unit (NPD) wrestled with a number of challenges. How should the... View Details
- December 2015 (Revised January 2016)
- Case
Woolf Farming and the California Water Crisis
By: Forest Reinhardt, David Bell, Natalie Kindred, Mary Shelman and Laura Winig
This case highlights the tough choices, competing interests, and decision-making mechanisms involved in California's management of its severe drought, entering its fifth year in 2015. Stuart Woolf, CEO of Woolf Farming, a grower and processor of almonds, tomatoes, and... View Details
- Article
Beyond Good Intentions: Prompting People to Make Plans Improves Follow-through on Important Tasks
By: Todd Rogers, Katherine L Milkman, Leslie K. John and Michael I. Norton
Many intend to stay fit but fail to exercise or eat healthfully; students intend to earn good grades but study too little; citizens intend to vote but fail to turnout. How can policymakers help people follow through on intentions like these? Plan-making, a tool that... View Details
- Article
The Cost of Capital for Alternative Investments
By: Jakub W. Jurek and Erik Stafford
Traditional risk factor models indicate that hedge funds capture pre-fee alphas of 6% to 10% per annum over the period from 1996 to 2012. At the same time, the hedge fund return series is not reliably distinguishable from the returns of mechanical S&P 500 put-writing... View Details
- August 2015 (Revised October 2017)
- Case
Turnaround at Norsk Gjenvinning (A)
By: George Serafeim
Erik Osmundsen, CEO of Norsk Gjenvinning (NG), had initiated a program to strenghten corporate governance, eliminate corruption and improve compliance, and as a result the company had experienced a turnover of almost half of its top 70 line managers and strained... View Details
Keywords: Change Leadership; Governance; Compliance; Waste Management; Environmental Impact; Social Responsibility; Industry Regulation; Regulatory Enforcement; Turnaround; Turn Around Management; Corruption; Leading Change; Change Management; Crime and Corruption; Governance Compliance; Wastes and Waste Processing; Industrial Products Industry; Norway; Scandinavia; Europe
- 2015
- Chapter
Corporate and Integrated Reporting: A Functional Perspective
By: Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim
In this chapter, we present the two primary functions of corporate reporting (information and transformation) and why currently isolated financial and sustainability reporting are not likely to effectively perform these functions. We describe the concept of integrated... View Details
- July 2015 (Revised October 2015)
- Case
Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank
By: Amy C. Edmondson, Erin L. Henry, Andreas Georgoulias and Natalie Bartlett
Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank details the development of the bank's new Office of Outreach Partnerships to sustain a culture of innovation through maintaining and generating partnerships in order to fulfill the bank's greater... View Details
Keywords: Business Organization; Business And Community; Well-being; Wealth and Poverty; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Organizational Culture; Technology Adoption; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Change Management; Nonprofit Organizations; Expansion; Partners and Partnerships; Restructuring; Welfare or Wellbeing; Business and Community Relations; Non-Governmental Organizations; Banking Industry; Latin America
- 2015
- Working Paper
Stability, Strategy-Proofness, and Cumulative Offer Mechanisms
By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Alexander Westkamp
We consider the setting of many-to-one matching with contracts, where firms may
demand multiple contracts but each worker desires at most one contract. We introduce
three novel conditions—observable substitutability, observable size monotonicity,... View Details
- Article
Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization
By: Shoshana Zuboff
This article describes an emergent logic of accumulation in the networked sphere, 'surveillance capitalism,' and considers its implications for 'information civilization.' The institutionalizing practices and operational assumptions of Google Inc. are the... View Details
- 2015
- Article
What's so Institutional about Leadership?: Leadership Mechanisms of Value Infusion
By: Ryan Raffaelli and Mary Ann Glynn
Leaders are important social actors in organizations, centrally involved in establishing and maintaining institutional values, a view that was articulated by Philip Selznick (1957) nearly a half-century ago, but often overlooked in institutionalists' accounts. Our... View Details
- March 2015 (Revised March 2016)
- Background Note
Note: Industry Self-Regulation: Sustaining the Commons in the 21st Century?
By: Rebecca Henderson, Amram Migdal and Tony He
Industry self-regulation has, in general, a lousy track record. Many studies have shown that it is often ineffective unless backed by the power of the state, and that in some cases it serves rather to forestall government intervention or to reduce competition than as... View Details
- March 2015 (Revised September 2016)
- Case
Terrapin Laboratory
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Joseph B. Fuller
Describes the formation and rapid growth of a drug testing company. The company needs to decide whether to enter the painkiller testing market, in addition to growing its drug treatment center business. The associated teaching materials provide students the opportunity... View Details
- March 2015
- Article
Monetary Policy and Long-Term Real Rates
By: Samuel G. Hanson and Jeremy C. Stein
Changes in monetary policy have surprisingly strong effects on forward real rates in the distant future. A 100 basis point increase in the two-year nominal yield on a Federal Open Markets Committee announcement day is associated with a 42 basis point increase in the... View Details
- January 15, 2015
- Article
Surviving in a Family Business When You're Not Part of the Family
By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer
Navigating office politics in a family-owned business can be challenging for non-family executives. Based on experience with various business families worldwide, this article offers strategies for success:
Play in your room: Non-family executives should... View Details
Play in your room: Non-family executives should... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Match Your Own Price? Self-Matching as a Retailer's Multichannel Pricing Strategy
By: Pavel Kireyev, Vineet Kumar and Elie Ofek
Multichannel retailing has created several new strategic choices for firms. With respect to pricing, an important decision is whether to offer a "self-matching policy." Self-matching allows a multichannel retailer to offer the lowest of its online and in-store prices... View Details
- January 2015 (Revised March 2017)
- Case
New Urban Mechanics
By: Mitchell Weiss
Funding to scale Citizens Connect, Boston's 311 app, is both a blessing and a burden and tests two public entrepreneurs. In 2012, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts provides Boston's Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics with a grant to scale Citizens Connect across the... View Details
Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Civic Technology; Government Innovation; Civic Innovation; Cities; New Urban Mechanics; Thomas. M. Menino; Chris Osgood; Nigel Jacob; Connected Bits; SeeClickFix; Ben Berkowitz; Eric Carlson; Dave Mitchell; Government Technology; Open Innovation; Open Source Software; Citizens Connect; Commonwealth Connect; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Innovation and Management; Open Source Distribution; Public Administration Industry; Information Technology Industry; Boston