Publications

Article

Thin Political Markets: The Soft Underbelly of Capitalism

By: Karthik Ramanna

"Thin political markets" are the processes through which some of the most complex and critical institutions of our capitalist system are determined—e.g., our accounting-standards infrastructure. In thin political markets, corporate managers are largely... View Details

Keywords: Business And Society; Lobbying; Sustainability; Leadership; Economic Systems; Accounting; Business and Community Relations; Financial Institutions; Business and Government Relations

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June 1991 (Revised June 1993)
Background Note

The Decline of the British Cotton Industry (Abridged)

Supplements the general argument concerning the decline of the British economy by showing how vertical specialization, horizontal competition, and entrenched job control combined to create incentives for management to adapt to changing international conditions by... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Business Cycles; Organizational Structure; Consumer Products Industry; Great Britain

29 Aug 2013
News

A Tale Of Two Netflix: Has The Streaming Giant Bounced Back After Qwikster?

7 Jul 2007
Other Presentation

The Competitive Advantage of Nations, States and Regions

By: Michael E. Porter

Presentation delivered to the National Council of Professors in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. View Details

Keywords: Economics; Malaysia

22 Jul 2010
Other Presentation

The Competitive Advantage of Nations: Implications for Rwanda

By: Michael E. Porter

The Competitive Advantage of Nations: Implications for Rwanda View Details

Keywords: Economics; Rwanda

29 Apr 2025
News

The Growth of the Private-Sector Space Industry

18 Mar 2014
News

The Oz of Data Opens the Curtain

Scott Howe Nineteenth-century Philadelphia retailer John Wanamaker famously said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Nearly 150 years later, Scott Howe (MBA 1994), president and CEO View Details

Keywords: Robert S. Benchley; Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services; Information

06 Sep 2012
Working Paper Summaries

FIN Around the World: The Contribution of Financing Activity to Profitability

Keywords: by Russell Lundholm, George Serafeim & Gwen Yu

01 Sep 2009
News

Make the Most of HBS Alumni Resources

www.alumni.hbs.edu/volunteers/boards/. In June, I had the pleasure of attending my 10th Reunion. I heard several faculty presentations on topics that are particularly relevant to these challenging economic... View Details

Keywords: Educational Support Services; Educational Services

December 2010 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Asian Agri and the Future of Palm Oil

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

For Asian Agri and other Indonesian palm oil producers, the future promised rising demand from fast-growing Asian populations, but also intensifying criticism from environmental groups. With the highest yield and lowest production cost of any edible oil, palm oil... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Social Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Strategy; Supply Chain Management; Natural Environment; Marketing Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Indonesia; Malaysia

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Research Summary

Dissertation: "Essays in International Non-market Strategy and the Political Economy of Environmental Regulation"

My dissertation is part of a research agenda intended to advance our understanding of the interaction between companies and non-market actors (e.g. regulators) in an international context. The empirical setting of my analysis is the European Union Emissions Trading... View Details

27 Nov 2017
Research & Ideas

Beware the Lasting Impression of a 'Temporary' Selfie

encourages people to take more risks when they decide to post. So the impression from those posts can linger in the mind of an observer, say, a colleague or employer, and “come back to haunt,” according to new research published in a... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

2017
Book

Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book explores whether profits and environmental sustainability are compatible through the lens of a global history of green entrepreneurship between the nineteenth century and today. It tells the story of the extraordinary and often eccentric men and women who... View Details

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2007
Working Paper

The Price of Capital: Evidence from Trade Data

By: Laura Alfaro and Faisal Ahmed

We use highly disaggregated data on trade in capital goods to study differences in the price of capital across countries. This strategy is motivated by the fact that most countries import the bulk of machinery equipment from a small number of industrialized countries.... View Details

Keywords: Price; Goods and Commodities; Trade

2011
Book

Capitalism at Risk: Rethinking the Role of Business

By: Joseph L. Bower, Herman B. Leonard and Lynn S. Paine

The spread of capitalism worldwide has made people wealthier than ever before. But capitalism's future is far from assured. The global financial meltdown of 2008 nearly triggered another Great Depression, economies in Europe are still teetering, and powerful... View Details

Keywords: Business And Society; Economic Systems; Economic Growth; Leading Change; Business and Community Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business Strategy

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05 Sep 2019
News

The problem of medical debt, and the wonky fight behind Bernie Sanders’s plan to eliminate it, explained

April 2017
Article

The Responsibilities and Role of Business in Relation to Society: Back to Basics?

By: Nien-he Hsieh

In this address, I outline a back-to-basics approach to specifying the responsibilities and role of business in relation to society. Three “basics” comprise the approach. The first is arguing that basic principles of ordinary morality, such as a duty not to harm,... View Details

Keywords: Business And Society; Corporate Responsibility; Harm; Human Rights; Institutions; Pareto Efficiency; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Moral Sensibility; Society; Rights

2008
Working Paper

The Internalization of Advertising Services: An Inter-Industry Analysis

By: Sharon Horsky, Steven C. Michael and Alvin J. Silk

The common perception appears to be that vertical integration of advertising services is more the exception than the rule in the U.S. advertising industry. This study investigates the extent of such outsourcing and examines inter-industry variation in the use of... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Cost; Analytics and Data Science; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Service Operations; Creativity; Perception; Vertical Integration; Information Technology; Advertising Industry; United States