Publications

Research Summary

Long-Run Performance Following Equity Issue

By: Paul A. Gompers

In an effort to establish how the transition from private to public firm affects performance, Paul A. Gompers is examining the long-run performance of companies that issue equity in an initial public or seasoned offering. He is also attempting to determine whether... View Details

May 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Case

Willa Seldon at Tides Center (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker

Willa Seldon, an African-American woman with 16 years of for-profit experience, was hired as executive director of Tides Center, a nonprofit in San Francisco, CA. Tides Center was a fiscal sponsor dedicated to supporting individuals and groups working toward social... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Nonprofit Organizations; Transition; Change Management; Leadership Style; Performance; Customer Satisfaction; San Francisco

Article

Foreign Competition and Domestic Innovation: Evidence from U.S. Patents

By: David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon H. Hanson, Gary P. Pisano and Pian Shu

Manufacturing accounts for more than three-quarters of U.S. corporate patents. The competitive shock to this sector emanating from China's economic ascent could in theory either augment or stifle U.S. innovation. Using three decades of U.S. patents matched to corporate... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Production; Trade; Competition; Innovation and Invention; United States

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2016
Working Paper

Pivoting Isn't Enough: Principled Pragmatism and Strategic Reorientation in New Ventures

By: Rory McDonald and Cheng Gao

New technology ventures often experience deviations from their original plans that oblige them to reorient in pursuit of better fit between their evolving products and target customers. Yet research is largely silent on how entrepreneurs explain and justify their... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Reorientation; Technology Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Product Development Processes; Organizational Adaptation; Qualitative Methods (General); Information Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Communication; Entrepreneurship; Alignment; Innovation and Invention; Product Development

16 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Can Decades of Military Overspending be Fixed?

wings on them." Forty percent or more of the funds for DoD aircraft are spent on electronics equipment. It has not been uncommon for weapon programs to take ten or more years to design, develop, produce, and deploy View Details

Keywords: by J. Ronald Fox; Service

2008
Working Paper

Traveling Agents: Political Change and Bureaucratic Turnover in India

By: Lakshmi Iyer and Anandi Mani

We develop a framework to empirically examine how politicians with electoral pressures control bureaucrats with career concerns as well as the consequences for bureaucrats' career investments. Unique micro-level data on Indian bureaucrats support our key predictions.... View Details

Keywords: Governance Controls; Political Elections; Management Skills; Managerial Roles; Personal Development and Career; Societal Protocols; India

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January 2004 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Electronic Arts in Online Gaming

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Justin Wong

Electronic Arts (EA), the world's largest independent video-game publisher, must decide whether to support Microsoft's initiatives in online gaming. Historically, EA has been platform-agnostic, releasing versions of its titles for all major console platforms. However,... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Digital Platforms; Network Effects; Policy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Revenue; Segmentation; Sales; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Electronics Industry

12 Apr 2016
News

Equality Takes Work

Research Summary

Conceptualizing and measuring environmental sustainability

By: Michael W. Toffel

This research involves developing clarity around the murky construct of environmental sustainability, and improving techniques to measure corporate environmental performance. My prior research in this domain includes View Details

October 20, 2023
Article

How ENGOs Can Support Corporate Climate Change Efforts

By: Michael W. Toffel

Nearly half of CEOs view climate change as affecting their companies now or within the coming decade, but there is also a wide gap between what CEOs say is progress on tackling climate change and what many of their investors believe are effective actions. Companies... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations

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September 2015 (Revised December 2016)
Case

Wanda Studios Qingdao

By: Henry McGee and Willy Shih

Wang Jianlin, founder and Chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group (Wanda), kept close tabs on one of his flagship projects going up on the shores of the Yellow Sea. There construction was underway on Wanda Studios Qingdao, the largest film and production facility in the... View Details

Keywords: Dalian Wanda Group; AMC Entertainment; Wang Jianlin; Movie Industry; Vertical Specialization; Film; Film Entertainment; Theater Entertainment; Entertainment; Vertical Integration; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; China; United States

2024
Article

Thy Neighbor's Gendarme? How Citizens of Buffer States in North Africa View EU Border Security Externalization

By: Matt Buehler, Kristin Fabbe and Eleni Kyrkopoulou

To stop refugees and migrants, states have enlisted neighboring third countries to act as buffers, thereby outsourcing border security. With many sub-Saharan migrants transiting North Africa, these regimes there have increasingly served as the EU’s gendarme. Existing... View Details

Keywords: Border Externalization; Border Security; Migration; Sub-Saharan African Migrants; Immigration; National Security; North Africa; Morocco

30 May 2024
Video

BiGS Voices from Latin America: An interview with Fulvio Pagani of Grupo Arcor

Article

Entrepreneurship and Urban Growth: An Empirical Assessment with Historical Mines

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr

We study entrepreneurship and growth through the lens of U.S. cities. Initial entrepreneurship correlates strongly with urban employment growth, but endogeneity bedevils interpretation. Chinitz (1961) hypothesized that coal mines near cities led to specialization in... View Details

Keywords: Industrial Organization; Chinitz; Agglomeration; Clusters; Cities; Mines; Industry Clusters; Urban Development; Entrepreneurship; City; Mining; Mining Industry; United States

September 2020
Case

Merck: COVID-19 Vaccines

By: Willy C. Shih

COVID-19 infections were still climbing across the U.S. and many other parts of the world in September 2020, and it seemed that every time Ken Frazier, the CEO of Merck & Co. consented to an interview in recent months he always seemed to hear the same question,... View Details

Keywords: Vaccines; COVID-19 Pandemic; Health Pandemics; Health Testing and Trials; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Business Strategy; Product Launch; Pharmaceutical Industry

June 2001 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Madison Avenue: Digital Media Services (B)

In late 1999, Madison Avenue was experiencing phenomenal growth in sales, clients, employees, and services provided. The stress and strain on the firm's employees was considerable and threatened to jeopardize the high-quality, active-ad management for which the firm... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth Management; Service Operations; Digital Marketing; Business Processes; Advertising Industry

July 1991 (Revised June 1992)
Case

Retail Promotional Pricing: When Is a Sale Really a Sale? (A)

Addresses the controversy that surrounds highly promotional retail pricing referred to as "high-low pricing" by the trade. High-low pricing involves setting prices at an initially high level for a brief period of time, then discounting off the so-called "regular" or... View Details

Keywords: Courts and Trials; Price; Ethics; Consumer Behavior; Product Marketing; Retail Industry; Colorado