Publications

October–December 2023
Article

A Practical Guide to Conversation Research: How to Study What People Say to Each Other

By: Michael Yeomans, Katelynn Boland, Hanne K. Collins, Nicole Abi-Esber and Alison Wood Brooks

Conversation—a verbal interaction between two or more people—is a complex, pervasive, and consequential human behavior. Conversations have been studied across many academic disciplines. However, advances in recording and analysis techniques over the last decade have... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Analytics and Data Science; Research

2024
Working Paper

Hidden Alpha

By: Manuel Amman, Alexander Cochardt, Lauren Cohen and Stephan Heller

This paper documents the central role of hidden connections between fund managers and firm officers in financial markets, drawing on an extensive dataset of over 100 thousand manually identified Facebook profiles and their 35 million Facebook friends. Our findings... View Details

Keywords: Returns; Investment Return; Networks

2021
Working Paper

Expanding the Entrepreneurial Cultural Toolkit: The Temporal Interplay of the Substantive and the Symbolic

By: Rebecca Karp and Siobhan O'Mahony

Much research shows how entrepreneurs leverage symbolic toolkits via storytelling and narratives to convince resource providers of their venture’s legitimacy. Although investors’ legitimacy concerns may be initially met with symbolic actions, it is unclear whether... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Sales; Entrepreneurship And Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Customers; Acquisition

June 2021 (Revised November 2021)
Case

Asian Corporate Governance Association: Stemming a 'Race to the Bottom' by Stock Exchanges?

By: Charles C.Y. Wang and Billy Chan

This case describes the movement towards dual-class listings on Asian stock exchanges and the efforts of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA), a not-for-profit shareholder advocacy group, to discourage this trend. As a not-for-profit organization with no... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Nonprofit Organizations; Stocks; Financial Markets; Financial Services Industry; Hong Kong; China; Asia

October 2021
Article

Directors' Perceptions of Board Effectiveness and Internal Operations

By: J. Yo-Jud Cheng, Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Rajesh Vijayaraghavan

We contribute to the growing literature on the effectiveness of corporate boards by examining the effect of two insights that have been largely unexplored in prior studies that use public data. First, since boards’ responsibilities are wide-ranging, more holistic... View Details

Keywords: Boards Of Directors; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Performance Effectiveness; Perception

Find at Harvard

Article

The Wisdom of Competitive Crowds

By: Kenneth C. Lichtendahl, Yael Grushka-Cockayne and Phillip E. Pfeifer

When several individuals are asked to forecast an uncertain quantity, they often face implicit or explicit incentives to be the most accurate. Despite the desire to elicit honest forecasts, such competition induces forecasters to report strategically and nontruthfully.... View Details

Keywords: Forecast; Forecasting and Prediction

2017
Chapter

Innovation Policies

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Past work has shown that failure tolerance by principals has the potential to stimulate innovation, but has not examined how this affects which projects principals will start. We demonstrate that failure tolerance has an equilibrium price – in terms of an investor’s... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Investing; Abandonment Option; Failure Tolerance; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Attitudes; Investment; Failure

2017
Working Paper

Innovation Policies

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Past work has shown that failure tolerance by principals has the potential to stimulate innovation, but has not examined how this affects which projects principals will start. We demonstrate that failure tolerance has an equilibrium price ― in terms of an investor's... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Investing; Abandonment Option; Failure Tolerance; Venture Capital; Attitudes; Investment; Failure; Innovation and Invention

SSRN

October 2005 (Revised February 2007)
Case

Red Flag Software Co.

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Tarun Khanna, David Lane and Elizabeth Raabe

In 2005, just five years after its formal launch, Beijing-based Red Flag Software was the world's second-largest distributor of the Linux operating system and was expecting its first annual profit. On a unit basis, Red Flag led the world in desktops (PCs) shipped with... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competitive Advantage; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Globalized Markets and Industries; Information Technology Industry; Distribution Industry; Beijing; United States

12 Oct 2022
Video

Lumumba Seegars: Inequality & Agency in ERGs

Better, Not Perfect

Every day, you make hundreds of decisions. They’re largely personal, but these choices have an ethical twinge as well; they value certain principles and ends over others. Max H. Bazerman argues that we can better balance both dimensions—and we needn’t seek... View Details

16 Nov 2023
News

Dean Datar Meets with Alumni in Boston

Ramchandani (MBA 1977) kicked off the second half of the program by sharing HBSAB’s history, noting its current activities, and introducing the alumni panel. The panel, moderated by Renee Fry (MBA 1999), CEO and founder, Gentreo, Next... View Details

Web

For Alumni - Entrepreneurship

For Alumni Rock100 Network When HBS alumni entrepreneurs connect, share their experiences, and learn together, a powerful community is established. Join the Rock100 global network, an exclusive community for founders of early stage, high... View Details

May 2007 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Prediction Markets at Google

By: Peter A. Coles, Karim R. Lakhani and Andrew P. McAfee

In its eight quarters of operation, Google's internally developed prediction market has delivered accurate and decisive predictions about future events of interest to the company. Google must now determine how to increase participation in the market, and how to best... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Market Participation; Information Technology