Publications

April 2024 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Anthropic: Building Safe AI

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

In late 2024, Anthropic, a leading AI safety and research company, achieved a significant breakthrough with computer use capabilities that allowed AI to interact with computers like humans. Co-founded by former OpenAI employees and known for its generative AI... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Growth and Maturation; Corporate Strategy; Technology Industry; United States

24 Oct 2024
Research & Ideas

Charting the US-China Trade War: What Does 'Made in Vietnam' Mean?

Exports from Vietnam to the United States have grown significantly since America’s trade war with China began in 2018. At the same time, Vietnam has been importing more Chinese goods. This has led many to question: is “Made in Vietnam” really “Made in China"? Not as... View Details

Keywords: by Ana Elena Azpúrua; Manufacturing; Shipping

January 2018 (Revised May 2018)
Case

AT&T Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century

By: Daniel P. Gross and William R. Kerr

By the 1930s, AT&T dominated the American phone industry, serving 10 million telephones and employing over 100,000 switchboard operators. But beginning in the mid-1910s, the company began changing from manually operated switchboards to mechanical switching systems that... View Details

Keywords: AT＆T; Bell Telephone; Phone Lines; Phone Operators; Mechanical Switching; Layoffs; Technological Change; Transition; History; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Disruption; Change Management; Communications Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States

06 Feb 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas: February 6, 2018

Innovation and Economic Performance By: Delgado, Mercedes, and Karen G. Mills Abstract—An active debate has centered on the importance of manufacturing for driving innovation in the U.S. economy. This paper proposes an alternative framework that focuses on the role of... View Details

09 Nov 2010
First Look

First Look: November 9, 2010

quickly expose the shortcomings of your business strategy. But can you identify its weak points in good times as well? And can you focus on those weak points that really matter? I identify seven questions all executives should ask in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Business and Low Income Sectors: The Creation of Economic and Social Value

In the last three decades, innovative commercial solutions have emerged in developing nations focusing on providing effective responses to the hugely underserved needs of low-income populations, both as consumers as well as active participants in productive value... View Details

23 May 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Board Games: Timing of Independent Directors’ Dissent in China

Keywords: by Juan Ma & Tarun Khanna

2021
Article

Fundraising for Stigmatized Groups: A Text Message Donation Experiment

By: Katerina Linos, Laura Jakli and Melissa Carlson

As government welfare programming contracts and NGOs increasingly assume core aid functions, they must address a long-standing challenge—that people in need often belong to stigmatized groups. To study other-regarding behavior, we fielded an experiment through a... View Details

Keywords: Demographics; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Communication Strategy; Civil Society or Community; Non-Governmental Organizations; Welfare; Greece

04 Jan 2019
Working Paper Summaries

The Digital Commons: Tragedy or Opportunity? A Reflection on the 50th Anniversary of Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons

Keywords: by Frank Nagle

Article

Operational Efficiency and Effective Management in the Catheterization Laboratory

By: Grant W. Reed, Michael L. Tushman and Samir R. Kapadia

Operational efficiency is a core business principle in which organizations strive to deliver high-quality goods or services in a cost-effective manner. This concept has become increasingly relevant to cardiac catheterization laboratories, as insurers move away from... View Details

Keywords: Cath Lab; Catheterization Laboratory; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Efficiency; Management; Performance Productivity; Cost Management; Health Industry

Find at Harvard

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01 Jul 2013
Research & Ideas

Crowdfunding a Poor Investment?

nearly double the amount in 2012. That's nothing compared to the bonanza expected when the SEC opens up the floodgates for nonaccredited individual investors to directly acquire equity in private companies—and for companies to directly solicit the View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

March 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

CalPERS' Emerging Equity Markets Principles

By: Robert G. Eccles and Aldo Sesia

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CaIPERS)—the largest public pension fund in the U.S.—had adopted a new principles-based approach to investing in emerging market equities in November 2007. Previously, CalPERS internal and external money managers were... View Details

Keywords: Values and Beliefs; Investment Return; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Emerging Markets; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Value; Public Administration Industry; Public Administration Industry; China; California

March 2009 (Revised April 2009)
Case

AFSCME vs. Mozilo...and "Say on Pay" for All! (A) (Abridged)

By: Fabrizio Ferri and James Weber

Richard Ferlauto, director of pensions and benefits policy at the AFSCME, the largest public sector workers union in the U.S., was responsible for protecting the pensions of its members. Because pensions were invested for decades, Ferlauto wanted the companies in which... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Investment; Investment Activism; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; United States

01 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 1

Good News: CSR Strategy and Newspaper Coverage of Negative Firm Events Authors: Jiao Luo, Stephan Meier, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee Abstract One of the benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs, it has been argued, is that... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

25 Oct 2010
HBS Case

Tesco’s Stumble into the US Market

makes ideal Harvard Business School case material for teaching everything from multinational strategy to on-the-ground logistics. Marketing professor John A. Quelch recently introduced Tesco PLC: Fresh & Easy in the United States, developed from View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

2014
Working Paper

Waste, Recycling and Entrepreneurship in Central and Northern Europe, 1870–1940

By: Geoffrey Jones and Andrew Spadafora

This working paper examines the role of entrepreneurs in the municipal solid waste industry in industrialized central and northern Europe from the late nineteenth century to the 1940s. It explores the emergence of numerous German, Danish, and other European... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Entrepreneurship; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Health; History; Green Technology Industry; Germany; Denmark; Hungary; United Kingdom