Publications

2016
Article

Does volunteering improve well-being?

By: A.V. Whillans, Scott C. Seider, Lihan Chen, Ryan J. Dwyer, Sarah Novick, Kathryn J. Gramigna, Brittany A. Mitchell, Victoria Savalei, Sally S. Dickerson and Elizabeth W. Dunn

Does volunteering causally improve well-being? To empirically test this question, we examined one instantiation of volunteering that is common at post-secondary institutions across North America: community service learning (CSL). CSL is a form of experiential learning... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Behavior; College Students; Bayesian Statistics; Education; Well-being

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March 1997 (Revised January 1999)
Case

Cambridge Technology Partners: Corporate Venturing (August 1996)

By: Paul A. Gompers and Catherine M. Conneely

Concerns the decision of Jim Sims, president and CEO of Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP) to form a corporate venture capital subsidiary. CTP is a fast-growing information technology consulting firm that has been presented with many investment opportunities from... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Venture Capital; Leadership; Information Technology; Investment; Opportunities; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Startups; Business Subsidiaries; Information Technology Industry; Consulting Industry; Cambridge

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March 1999 (Revised January 2000)
Background Note

A Note on Microeconomics for Strategists

By: Kenneth S. Corts and Jan W. Rivkin

Summarizes the core ideas about the microeconomics of markets that are most relevant to business strategy. Sections I and II develop two basic building blocks of any market, demand and supply. Section II discusses how demand and supply interact to determine the... View Details

Keywords: Microeconomics; Cost; Cost of Capital; Market Entry and Exit; Business Strategy; Competition; Corporate Strategy

2017
Working Paper

Homophily in Entrepreneurial Team Formation

By: Paul A. Gompers, Kevin Huang and Sophie Q. Wang

We study the role of homophily in group formation. Using a unique dataset of MBA students, we observe homophily in ethnicity and gender increases the probability of forming teams by 25%. Homophily in education and past working experience increases the probability of... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Diversity; Familiarity; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Performance

SSRN

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Holacracy and other forms of self-organization have received a lot of press. Proponents hail them as "flat" environments that foster flexibility, engagement, productivity, and efficiency. Critics say they're naive, unrealistic experiments. My coauthors and I argue,... View Details

14 Apr 2008
Research & Ideas

The Surprising Right Fit for Software Testing

part-time consultants are considered best-in-class—they are paid industry-competitive wages, and customers include LEGO, Microsoft, and Oracle—75 percent of them live with what others might consider a handicap: They have Asperger syndrome... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Video Game; Web Services; Computer

2015
Working Paper

Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment

By: Doug J. Chung and Das Narayandas

We conduct a field experiment in which we vary the sales force compensation scheme at an Asian enterprise that sells consumer durable goods. With variation generated by the experimental treatments, we model sales force performance to identify the effectiveness of... View Details

Keywords: Sales Force Compensation; Field Experiment; Heterogeneity; Loss Aversion; Reciprocity; Motivation and Incentives; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits

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Profile

Tricia Lee

Why was earning your MBA at HBS important to you? I've always dreamt of not only working in the entertainment industry, but changing the way people experience it through technology and new formats. After graduating from Stanford, I ended... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment / Media; Technology; Entrepreneurship

October 2007 (Revised November 2010)
Module Note

Evaluating M&A Deals-Equity Consideration

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

What the acquiring company pays for a target in a merger or acquisition is called "consideration." Consideration can be in the form of cash, shares, or a combination of the two. Lays out the basic mechanics of equity consideration. Derives formulas for the Deal NPV of... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Equity

Video

Sanjay Bansal

Sanjay Bansal, former head of Ambootia tea estates in Darjeeling, India, discusses how he formed the Indian Bio Organic Tea Association in 1996 to work with the Indian government to develop standards for the... View Details

26 May 2021
Video

Estevan Santiago (MBA 2022)

May 2013
Case

Bridgewater Associates

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Heidi K. Gardner

Bridgewater Associates was the world's largest hedge fund with approximately $120 billion in assets under management in mid-2012, and its leaders attribute its record-beating performance to the firm's culture of "radical transparency." The founder, Ray Dalio, was... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Performance; Leadership Style; Investment; Financial Services Industry

Clubs

Volleyball Club

05 Apr 2024
News

Classroom Culture and Norms Working Group Q+A

Web

The Dedication - A Concrete Symbol: The Building of Harvard Business School 1908-1927 – Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Historical Collections

facilities have extended from McKim, Mead & White’s original site plan, mostly in keeping with the founding principles of fostering the community and intellectual exchange that President A. Lawrence Lowell,... View Details

January–February 2019
Article

Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don't

By: Feng Zhu and Marco Iansiti

In the digital economy, scale is no guarantee of continued success. After all, the same factors that help an online platform expand quickly—such as the low cost of adding new customers—work for challengers too. What, then, allows platforms to fight off rivals and grow... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competition; Network Effects; Competitive Strategy

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January 1997 (Revised November 1997)
Case

IBM and Siemens: Revitalizing the Rolm Division (B)

By: Ashish Nanda, Antonio Davila and Georgia Levenson

This supplement to the (A) case describes Siemens’ purchase of Rolm’s entire product development and manufacturing operation to form Rolm Systems and discusses the simultaneous 50/50 joint venture between IBM and Siemens to manage marketing, sales, and service for PBX... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing; Deal; Dealmaking; IBM; Siemens; Product Development; Joint Ventures; Restructuring; Corporate Strategy

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24 Jun 2021
News

Meetings. Why?

October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Project Maji: Pricing Water in Sub-Saharan Africa

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Esel Çekin

In July 2021, Sunil Lalvani, founder and CEO of Project Maji, a non-profit social enterprise headquartered in Dubai that had already provided sustainable, clean water solutions to 80,000 people living in rural communities across Ghana and Kenya, was facing an important... View Details

Keywords: Water; Pricing; Nonprofit Organizations; Projects; Price; Decision Making; Social Enterprise; Growth and Development Strategy; Equity; Green Technology; Social and Collaborative Networks; Africa; Dubai