Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,001)
- Faculty Publications (421)
- November 2012
- Case
Ahold versus Tesco—Analyzing Performance
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Penelope Rossano
The case relates to understanding and comparing the performance of two leading retail companies—Ahold and Tesco. The case introduces the tools of Dupont and Modified Dupont Decomposition. While performance as measured by return on equity has been similar for the two... View Details
- November 2012
- Article
The Organization of Firms Across Countries
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We argue that social capital as proxied by trust increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. To do this we collect new data on the decentralization of investment, hiring, production, and sales decisions from Corporate Headquarters to local... View Details
Keywords: Decentralization; Social Capital; Theory Of The Firm; Firm Objectives, Organization, And Behavior; Business Economics; Management Of Technological Innovation And R＆D; Technological Change: Choices And Consequences; Diffusion Processes; Organizational Structure; Performance Productivity; Trust; Technology Adoption; Multinational Firms and Management
- 2013
- Working Paper
Securities Litigation Risk for Foreign Companies Listed in the U.S.
By: Beiting Cheng, Suraj Srinivasan and Gwen Yu
We study securities litigation risk faced by foreign firms listed on U.S. exchanges. We take into account not only the propensity for foreign firms to commit violations of U.S. securities laws but also the costs that investors face when suing foreign firms. We find... View Details
- 2012
- Working Paper
What Do Managers Do? Exploring Persistent Performance Differences among Seemingly Similar Enterprises
By: Robert Gibbons and Rebecca Henderson
Social networks and social groups have both been seen as important to discouraging malfeasance and supporting the global pro-social norms that underlie social order, but have typically been treated either as pure substitutes or as having completely independent effects.... View Details
- July 2012
- Module Note
Corporate Strategy
By: Bharat N. Anand
This note provides an overview of strategies for multi-business firms. The note describes (i) what is meant by "corporate advantage," (ii) the different approaches that multi-business firms can pursue in order to create corporate advantage, (iii) the specific corporate... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Strategy
- 2012
- Working Paper
Clusters, Convergence, and Economic Performance
By: Mercedes Delgado, Michael E. Porter and Scott Stern
This paper evaluates the role of regional cluster composition in the economic performance of industries, clusters, and regions. On the one hand, diminishing returns to specialization in a location can result in a convergence effect: the growth rate of an industry... View Details
- July 2012
- Article
The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love
By: Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely
In four studies in which consumers assembled IKEA boxes, folded origami, and built sets of Legos, we demonstrate and investigate boundary conditions for the IKEA effect—the increase in valuation of self-made products. Participants saw their amateurish creations as... View Details
- July 2012
- Article
The Real Consequences of Market Segmentation
By: Sergey Chernenko and Adi Sunderam
We study the real effects of market segmentation due to credit ratings using a matched sample of firms just above and just below the investment-grade cutoff. These firms have similar observables, including average investment rates. However, flows into high-yield mutual... View Details
- June 2012
- Article
Consequence-Cause Matching: Looking to the Consequences of Events to Infer Their Causes
By: Robyn A. LeBoeuf and Michael I. Norton
We show that people non-normatively infer event causes from event consequences. For example, people inferred that a product failure (computer crash) had a large cause (widespread computer virus) if it had a large consequence (job loss), but that the identical failure... View Details
- April 2012 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Dovernet
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This case illustrates the implications of using stringent performance measurement systems to create performance pressure, motivate employee achievement, and sharpen a firm's competitiveness. It opens by describing the downsides of the ruthlessly competitive culture at... View Details
- April 2012
- Article
Broadening Focus: Spillovers, Complementarities and Specialization in the Hospital Industry
By: Jonathan R. Clark and Robert S. Huckman
The long-standing argument that focused operations outperform others stands in contrast to claims about the benefits of broader operational scope. The performance benefits of focus are typically attributed to reduced complexity, lower uncertainty, and the development... View Details
- March 2012 (Revised October 2013)
- Supplement
Gene Patents (B)
By: Richard Hamermesh and Phillip Andrews
The case updates events since the Court's ruling against Myriad Genetics on March 29, 2010 and should be used in conjunction with Gene Patents (A). On July 29, 2011, a US Appeals Court reversed the prior ruling against Myriad. On September 16, 2011, the first major... View Details
Keywords: Courts and Trials; Patents; Genetics; Judgments; Investment; Biotechnology Industry; United States
- 2012
- Working Paper
Earnings Management from the Bottom Up: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives Below the CEO
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Julie Wulf
Performance-based pay is an important instrument to align the interests of managers with the interests of shareholders. However, recent evidence suggests that high-powered incentives also provide managers with incentives to manipulate the firm's reported earnings. The... View Details
- 2012
- Article
The Excess Burden of Government Indecision
By: Francisco J. Gomes, Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Luis M. Viceira
Governments are known for procrastinating when it comes to resolving painful policy problems. Whatever the political motives for waiting to decide, procrastination distorts economic decisions relative to what would arise with early policy resolution. In so doing, it... View Details
- 2012
- Chapter
What Do Managers Do? Exploring Persistent Performance Differences among Seemingly Similar Enterprises
By: Rebecca Henderson and Robert Gibbons
- 2011
- Chapter
American Exceptionalism?: A Comparative Analysis of the Origins and Trajectory of U.S. Business Education Development
By: Rakesh Khurana
As business education in an academic setting becomes an increasingly global phenomenon, the university-based business school in America remains a unique institution. This holds true despite the fact that the American business school as it evolved in the post-World War... View Details
- September – October 2011
- Article
Manage the Culture Cycle
By: James L. Heskett
Organizational culture—the shared assumptions, values, and behaviors that determine "how we do things around here"—can be measured and shaped. In organizations with large numbers of customer-facing employees, it can account for up to half of the difference in operating... View Details
- 2011
- Working Paper
The Organization of Firms Across Countries
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We argue that social capital as proxied by trust increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. To do this we collect new data on the decentralization of investment, hiring, production, and sales decisions from Corporate Headquarters to local... View Details
- May – June 2011
- Article
Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth: How High Status Individuals Decrease Group Effectiveness
By: Boris Groysberg, Jeffrey T. Polzer and Hillary Anger Elfenbein
Can groups become effective simply by assembling high status individual performers? Though an affirmative answer may seem straightforward on the surface, this answer becomes more complicated when group members benefit from collaborating on interdependent tasks.... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Return Predictability in the Treasury Market: Real Rates, Inflation, and Liquidity
By: Carolin E. Pflueger and Luis M. Viceira
Estimating the liquidity differential between inflation-indexed and nominal bond yields, we separately test for time-varying real rate risk premia, inflation risk premia, and liquidity premia in U.S. and U.K. bond markets. We find strong, model independent evidence... View Details