Publications

September 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Supplement

The Future of Iraq Project (B)

By: Noel Maurer and Sogomon Tarontsi

The first round of bidding on the rights to develop Iraq's oil field did not go as planned. All the bidding groups wanted to charge a fee per barrel that the Iraqi government considered too high. As a result, the Iraqi government conducted the auction a second time,... View Details

Keywords: Non-Renewable Energy; Foreign Direct Investment; Contracts; Auctions; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; Iraq

2024
Article

Neyman Meets Causal Machine Learning: Experimental Evaluation of Individualized Treatment Rules

By: Michael Lingzhi Li and Kosuke Imai

A century ago, Neyman showed how to evaluate the efficacy of treatment using a randomized experiment under a minimal set of assumptions. This classical repeated sampling framework serves as a basis of routine experimental analyses conducted by today’s scientists across... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Research

2021
Working Paper

The Business of K-12 Education in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

This working paper examines the evolution of K-12 education in China, especially between 1985 and the present day, drawing extensive interviews with participants in the educational sector. China has been hugely successful in reaching almost 100 percent literacy,... View Details

Keywords: K-12 Education; China; Real Estate; Early Childhood Education; Performance Evaluation; Teaching; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Personal Development and Career; Social Issues; Nonprofit Organizations; Private Sector; Education Industry; Real Estate Industry; China

Summer 2014
Article

Designed for Workarounds: A Qualitative Study of the Causes of Operational Failures in Hospitals

By: Anita L. Tucker, W. Scott Heisler and Laura D. Janisse

Frontline care providers in hospitals spend at least 10% of their time working around operational failures, which are situations where information, supplies, or equipment needed for patient care are insufficient. However, little is known about underlying causes of... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain; Health Care and Treatment; Failure; Business Processes; Health Industry

Winter 2022
Article

Courageous Leadership: Paul Polman’s Insights for the Next Generation of Business Managers

By: John Pontillo, Celia Bravard and Andrew J. Hoffman

In 2021, John Pontillo, Celia Bravard, and Andrew Hoffman conducted a series of interviews with Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever. They discussed how business managers and leaders can build a new model of capitalism that serves the needs of society. Here’s what they... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Social Issues

June 1994 (Revised September 1994)
Background Note

Commercializing Technology: Imaginative Understanding of User Needs

By: Dorothy A. Leonard

The transformation of technology into commercially successful products is a process fraught with risk and uncertainty, and increasing pressure on time to market is exacerbating the difficulties. This note first describes a study conducted by Hewlett-Packard to improve... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Communication Strategy; Customers; Design; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Product Development; Research; Risk and Uncertainty; Commercialization; Technology Adoption

Educators

2012
Working Paper

An Exploration of Luxury Hotels in Tanzania

By: Diego A. Comin

Tourism is a tradable service activity that could allow some African countries to generate significant growth. Tanzania, given its unique natural assets, is an ideal candidate. However, despite being so richly endowed in touristic resources, Tanzania receives very few... View Details

Keywords: Natural Environment; Business Ventures; Luxury; Revenue; Price; Developing Countries and Economies; Accommodations Industry; Tourism Industry; Tanzania

September 2020
Case

Disrupting Justice at RightNow: Persevere, Pivot or Perish

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Amir Reza Rezvani

The case examines the focus of an early stage company, and how an unexpected external incidence can threaten or void the business model. It encompasses issues such as defining and pivoting a business model, organizational requirements for a pivot, investor relations,... View Details

Keywords: Legal Aspects Of Business; Startup; Teams; Pivot; Financing; Entrepreneurship; Law; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Financing and Loans; Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Legal Services Industry; Germany

Educators

2009
Working Paper

Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting

By: Lisa D. Ordonez, Maurice E. Schweitzer, Adam D. Galinsky and Max H. Bazerman

Goal setting is one of the most replicated and influential paradigms in the management literature. Hundreds of studies conducted in numerous countries and contexts have consistently demonstrated that setting specific, challenging goals can powerfully drive behavior and... View Details

Keywords: Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives

May 2017
Other Article

Stepwise Distributed Open Innovation Contests for Software Development: Acceleration of Genome-Wide Association Analysis

By: Andrew Hill, Po-Ru Loh, Ragu B. Bharadwaj, Pascal Pons, Jingbo Shang, Eva C. Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani, Iain Kilty and Scott Jelinsky

BACKGROUND: The association of differing genotypes with disease-related phenotypic traits offers great potential to both help identify new therapeutic targets and support stratification of patients who would gain the greatest benefit from specific drug classes.... View Details

Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Genome-wide Association Study; Logistic Regression; Open Innovation; PLINK; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

04 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Shackleton: An Entrepreneur of Survival

of us. We live to serve our selves, greater good, and our organizations. We live to serve with integrity. There are historians who have said that a particular code of behavior,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

18 Nov 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Payout Taxes and the Allocation of Investment

Keywords: by Bo Becker, Marcus Jacob & Martin Jacob

Article

The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Outcomes and Expectations

By: Alexander Bartik, Marianne Bertrand, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca and Christopher Stanton

To explore the impact of COVID on small businesses, we conducted a survey of more than 5,800 small businesses between March 28 and April 4, 2020. Several themes emerged. First, mass layoffs and closures had already occurred—just a few weeks into the crisis. Second, the... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Stimulus; CARES Act; Health Pandemics; Small Business; Surveys

08 Mar 2013
News

Feeling worried? Be wary of advice you receive

24 Jul 2015
News

Why CEO Activism Could Change the World of Public Companies

04 Mar 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Consequences to Directors of Shareholder Activism

Keywords: by Ian D. Gow, Sa-Pyung Sean Shin & Suraj Srinivasan

December 2003 (Revised April 2005)
Case

Birth of Modern Macroeconomic Policy, The: Sweden and the Great Depression

By: Julio J. Rotemberg and Lisa Lewis

By early 1937, a debate over the proper conduct of monetary policy raged in Sweden. Sweden's response to the Great Depression was unique. It had, in particular, embraced a revolutionary goal for monetary policy when it abandoned the gold standard in 1931. View Details

Keywords: History; Money; Policy; Financial Crisis; Macroeconomics; Sweden

Find at Harvard

September 2010 (Revised October 2010)
Case

HBS Class of 2009: All Talk As They Prepare to Walk?

By: Rakesh Khurana, Nitin Nohria and Dalia Rahman

Max Anderson, HBS Class of 2009, founded the MBA Oath Initiative. The oath was a voluntary pledge "to create value responsibly and ethically." Anderson and a team of students and faculty worked to launch the first MBA Oath Ceremony conducted on campus during Harvard... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Higher Education; Values and Beliefs; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Value Creation; Education Industry; Massachusetts

Educators