Publications

November 2022 (Revised March 2023)
Case

OneSmart

By: Nien-he Hsieh, Meg Rithmire and Shu Lin

At the end of 2021, Xi “Steve” Zhang was facing an existential crisis for himself and his business. OneSmart was a premium educational company founded in 2008 offering K-12 afterschool tutoring for students nationwide under a number of brands. The company was founded... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Crisis Management; Failure; Education Industry; China

September 2004 (Revised January 2005)
Case

Brazil's WTO Cotton Case: Negotiation Through Litigation

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Robert Lawrence and J. Katherine Milligan

Brazil has just won a case action against the U.S. cotton agriculture program at the World Trade Organization. What does this mean for future agricultural programs in the United States? For future trade policies of the United States, Brazil, and others in the global... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Trade; Globalized Markets and Industries; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Lawsuits and Litigation; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Types; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States; Brazil

November 2021
Article

Strict ID Laws Don't Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel, 2008–2018

By: Enrico Cantoni and Vincent Pons

U.S. states increasingly require identification to vote—an ostensive attempt to deter fraud that prompts complaints of selective disenfranchisement. Using a difference-in-differences design on a 1.6-billion-observations panel dataset, 2008–2018, we find that the laws... View Details

Keywords: Voter ID Laws; Voter Turnout; Voting; Political Elections; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States

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22 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Advertising: It’s Not ‘Mad Men’ Anymore

PR, media buying, marketing research, etc.) captured by firms controlled by the four largest holding companies has remained a stable 25 percent for the past decade. This figure is roughly half the estimates often reported in the trade... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

November 2008 (Revised July 2009)
Background Note

A Managerial Perspective on Clinical Trials

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich

This note describes the history and regulation of clinical trials, managerial challenges related to pharmaceutical product testing, and current debates regarding prescription drug safety. Since clinical testing takes between five and seven years, and consumes up to 70... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Health Testing and Trials; Product Development; Safety; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

December 2008 (Revised October 2013)
Case

Amylin Pharmaceuticals: Diabetes and Beyond (A)

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Rachel Gordon

Ginger Graham, CEO of Amylin Pharmaceuticals, joined the company with the expectation of taking the company's signature drug, Symlin, to market. However, unforeseen regulatory challenges have put the approval process in jeopardy. At the same time, the company has a... View Details

Keywords: Regulations; Drug Regulations; Symlin; Negotiation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Resource Allocation; Negotiation Deal; Product Development; Research and Development; Commercialization; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

January 15, 2021
Article

Social Media Companies Should Self-Regulate. Now

By: Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer and David B. Yoffie

We argue that social media firms should ramp up self-regulation of content in 2021. This argument is based on research on numerous industries where firms and/or industry associations devised self-regulatory strategies that successfully limited or forestalled more... View Details

Keywords: Self-regulation; Internet and the Web; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Government Relations; Social Media

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04 Sep 2001
Lessons from the Classroom

Getting Back on Course

Many of the women specified a desire to work for organizations whose goals were compatible with their own values and to have more control over the calendar and the clock when they return to the workplace.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

25 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Politics is Failing America, and What Business Can Do To Help

continues to serve the needs of its preferred customers: the small number of hardcore primary voters, big-pocketed donors, and special-interest groups, the study says. That closed loop is no accident, the... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

July 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Agricultural Biotechnology and its Regulation

By: Forest L. Reinhardt

In the United States, genetically modified corn and soybeans are now widely grown and consumed. In Europe, however, they have been dubbed "Frankenstein foods," shunned by packaged food manufacturers, and subjected to a host of governmental restrictions. This case... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Genetics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Corporate Strategy; Trade; Law; Goods and Commodities; Safety; Environmental Sustainability; Government and Politics; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Biotechnology Industry; Europe; United States

January–February 2011
Article

Adverse Selection in Online 'Trust' Certifications and Search Results

By: Benjamin Edelman

Widely used online "trust" authorities issue certifications without substantial verification of recipients' actual trustworthiness. This lax approach gives rise to adverse selection: the sites that seek and obtain trust certifications are actually less trustworthy than... View Details

Keywords: Online Advertising; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Safety; Trust; Internet; Search Technology; Web Sites

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30 Sep 2014
First Look

First Look: September 30

crisis of 2008-2009, emerging-market governments have increasingly restricted foreign capital inflows. The data show a statistically significant drop in cumulative abnormal returns for Brazilian firms following capital View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 17

Projects By: MacCormack, Alan, and Anant Mishra Abstract—Formal contracts represent an important governance instrument with which firms exercise control of and compensate partners in R&D projects. The... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: Feb. 21

and contracts in shaping the growth and influence of business enterprises. It presents entrepreneurs, executives, and the firms they controlled as driving actors in national economies and international... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 21

Davin, Joseph P., Sunil Gupta, and Mikołaj Jan Piskorski Abstract—We study the impact of peer behavior on the adoption of mobile apps in a social network. To identify social influence properly, we introduce... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Target Malaria: Editing Mosquitoes through Gene Drives

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

Target Malaria, a non-profit research consortium, is exploring the application of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to combat malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its approach uses gene drives, a revolutionary tool, to suppress the population of malaria-carrying... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Technological Innovation; Nonprofit Organizations; Business Strategy; Genetics; Ethics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States; United Kingdom; Burkina Faso; Africa

October 2008
Case

Financial Crisis in Asia: 1997-1998 (Abridged)

By: Huw Pill, Rafael M. Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer

What caused the 1997-98 Asia Crisis: Asian nations' poor economic management, international financial contagion, close "crony" relations between local politicians and capitalists? This case examines how the crisis erupted in Thailand and spread in a chain of events... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Crisis; Ethics; Financial Institutions; Financial Management; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Government Relations; Asia

December 2024
Article

Is There Too Little Antitrust Enforcement in the U.S. Hospital Sector?

By: Zarek Brot-Goldberg, Zack Cooper, Stuart Craig and Lev Klarnet

From 2002 to 2020, there were over 1,000 mergers of U.S. hospitals. During this period, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took enforcement actions against 13 transactions. However, using the FTC’s standard screening tools, we find that 20% of these mergers could have... View Details

Keywords: Monopoly; Mergers and Acquisitions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competition; Health Industry

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November 2005 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Brazil Sugar and the WTO: Agricultural Reform in the European Union

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Kerry Herman and Irina Tarsis

Pedro de Camargo Neto, Brazil's secretary of trade and production for the Ministry of Agriculture, has won a WTO sugar decision for Brazil against the EU sugar policies. This case analyzes what this decision will mean to world food policies, especially those of the EU... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Trade; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Policy; Government and Politics; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe; United States; Brazil