Publications

Ryan W. Buell is a Professor of Business Administration in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches View Details

Keywords: banking; e-commerce industry; fast food; financial services; high technology; hotels ＆ motels; insurance industry; restaurant; retailing; service industry; transportation

January 2007 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Austin, Blakeley, & Cambridge, LLC

The founding partners of ABC, LLC, one of the leading private equity firms in the world, are trying to understand why some of the other top firms in the business, such as KKR and Apollo, have been tapping the public equity markets for their own funds, and whether they... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Public Equity; Investment Funds; Going Public; Financial Services Industry

April 2002
Article

Internal Capital Markets and Firm-Level Compensation Incentives for Division Managers

By: Julie Wulf

Do multidivisional firms structure compensation contracts for division managers to mitigate incentive problems in their internal capital markets? I find evidence that compensation and investment incentives are substitutes: firms providing a stronger link to firm... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Executive Compensation; Capital Budgeting; Motivation and Incentives; Profit; Decisions; Resource Allocation; Performance; Investment; Contracts

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02 Feb 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States

Keywords: by David H. Autor, William R. Kerr & Adriana D. Kugler

08 Jun 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Location Choices Under Strategic Interactions

Keywords: by Juan Alcacer

23 Apr 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Financial Policies in Misvalued Credit Markets

Keywords: by Jarrad Harford, Marc Martos-Vila & Matthew Rhodes-Kropf; Financial Services; Banking

2014
Article

Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in China: Symbol or Substance?

By: Christopher Marquis and Cuili Qian

This study focuses on how and why firms strategically respond to government signals regarding appropriate corporate activity. We integrate institutional theory and research on corporate political strategy to develop a political dependence model that explains (a) how... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Theory; Political Strategy; Non-market Strategy; China; Corporate Social Responsibility; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Emerging Markets; Government and Politics; China

09 May 2013
HBS Seminar

D.J. Wu, Georgia Tech

September 1997
Background Note

Note on Political Risk Analysis

By: Debora L. Spar

Describes the emergence and subsequent decline of the political risk analysis industry. Discusses what political risk means for multinational firms and various ways in which firms have tried to analyze and grapple with these risks. View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Foreign Direct Investment; Government and Politics

May 2022 (Revised June 2022)
Case

Proposing to Redesign a Global Investment Bank

By: David G. Fubini

A major, NYC-based, global investment bank is looking to rethink its Systems strategy amid a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Your firm has served the client across most of its major geographies on a range of substantial Systems and IT efforts, but is facing... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Professional Services; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Digital Strategy; Presentations; Competitive Strategy; Consulting Industry; New York (city, NY)

2007
Book

When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance

By: Thomas J. DeLong, John J. Gabarro and Robert Lees

For too long, professional services firms (PSFs) have relied on the "producer-manager" model, which works well in uncomplicated business environments. However, today's managing directors must balance conflicting roles, more demanding clients, tougher competitors, and... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Management Practices and Processes; Service Operations; Performance Effectiveness; Strategy

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2015
Chapter

Innovation and Business Growth

By: William R. Kerr

Innovation and the pursuit of new business opportunities are essential for growth at the firm level; moreover, they provide the foundation for an economy to achieve new levels of technological prowess, productivity, and ultimately prosperity. This chapter describes... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Economic Growth; Innovation and Invention

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14 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

Should You Bring Advertising Expertise In-House?

reasons include structural changes in the advertising industry such as the unbundling of agency services, and improved communication tools that make it easier and more cost efficient for View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Advertising

March 1992
Case

Applied Materials

By: Steven C. Wheelwright

Describes three subsequent generations of product development effort at an equipment firm supplying the semiconductor industry. The firm is partway into the third generation development and must decide whether and how to accelerate product development to respond to... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Competitive Strategy; Decision Making; Industry Structures; Industrial Products Industry; Semiconductor Industry

2000
Other Unpublished Work

Do Executive Stock Options Encourage Risk-Taking?

By: Randolph B. Cohen, Brian J. Hall and Luis M. Viceira

Executive stock options create incentives for executives to manage firms in ways that maximize firm market value. Since options increase in value with the volatility of the underlying stock, executive stock options provide managers with incentives to take actions that... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Motivation and Incentives; Stock Options; Executive Compensation

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16 Jan 2025
Blog Post

Alumni Career Journey: Sophie Levin (MS/MBA 2022) - How Risk Can Be the Key to a Sustainable Future

venture firm called The Engine. During my second internship at The Engine, I discovered cell-cultured meat. I was immediately captivated by the... View Details

Bharat N. Anand

Bharat N. Anand is the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning at Harvard University, and the Henry R. Byers Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Professor Anand is an expert in digital strategy, media and... View Details

Keywords: broadcasting; entertainment; information; media; motion pictures; music; publishing industry; sports; television

06 Oct 2016
HBS Seminar

John Van Reenen, MIT Sloan School of Management

2010
Working Paper

Growth through Heterogeneous Innovations

By: Ufuk Akcigit and William R. Kerr

We study how exploration versus exploitation innovations impact economic growth through a tractable endogenous growth framework that contains multiple innovation sizes, multi-product firms, and entry/exit. Firms invest in exploration R&D to acquire new product lines... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Decision Choices and Conditions; Economic Growth; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Size; Research and Development; United States