Publications

Article

The Learning Effects of Monitoring

By: Dennis Campbell, Marc Epstein and F. Asis Martinez-Jerez

This paper investigates the relationship between monitoring, decision making, and learning among lower-level employees. We exploit a field-research setting in which business units vary in the "tightness" with which they monitor employee decisions. We find that tighter... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Business or Company Management; Decision Making; Employees; Research; Resignation and Termination; Rights; Business Units; Governance Controls; Performance; Motivation and Incentives

January 2010 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Savage Beast (A1)

By: Noam Wasserman and LP Maurice

For several months, things had been spiraling downwards at Savage Beast, the music-recommendation company started three years before by Tim Westergren. The company's founder-CEO recently left due to pressures both at home and within the venture. Dozens of investors... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Lawsuits and Litigation; Management Teams; Partners and Partnerships

Keywords: Consumer Goods; Health; Beauty; Wellness

05 Feb 2019
News

Protecting the Power Grid

feared—but Japanese emergency crews were able to replenish the spent-fuel pool water in the nick of time, preventing massive evacuation of Tokyo. US regulators took notice. In 2012, Popik and Mott cofounded... View Details

Keywords: Ralph Ranalli; terrorism; Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution; Utilities

April–May 2005
Article

Markets for Partially-Contractible Knowledge: Bootstrapping Versus Bundling

By: James J Anton and Dennis A. Yao

We discuss how a seller can appropriate rents when selling knowledge that lacks legal property rights by solving either an expropriation or a valuation problem and then analyze how seller rents increase when a portion of the intellectual property (IP) can be protected.... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge; Markets; Rights; Valuation; Problems and Challenges; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Intellectual Property; Strategy

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September 1992 (Revised August 2004)
Case

Martin Marietta: Managing Corporate Ethics (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine

Senior managers at Martin Marietta are considering two questions: how to assess the company's seven-year-old ethics program; and how to deal with employees' fear of retribution--real or imagined--for alerting the corporate ethics office to potential problems. The case... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Resignation and Termination; Employees; Law; Business or Company Management; Programs

2014
Working Paper

Hidden Substitutes

By: John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers

In this paper, we show that preferences exhibiting some forms of complementarity in fact have an underlying substitutable structure. Specifically, we show that some preferences that are not substitutable in the setting of many-to-one matching with contracts become... View Details

Keywords: Many-to-One Matching; Many-to-Many Matching; Stability; Substitutes; Matching With Contracts; Slot-Specific Priorities; Sherlock; Market Design; Contracts; Marketplace Matching; Balance and Stability

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01 Jun 2010
News

M.I.A. Boards

company; evaluate the performance of senior managers; set executive compensation; approve key strategic and financial decisions; nominate candidates for shareholders to elect as directors; and ensure the... View Details

Keywords: John Gillespie;David Zweig; Finance

13 Feb 2014
Blog Post

We pulled it off: The Inaugural LGBTQ Conference at Harvard

issues facing the LGBTQ community. Saturday, the opening day of the conference, was held at the Harvard Law School and featured a full day of speakers on topics ranging from transgender employment rights to... View Details

June 2012
Article

Decoding Inside Information

By: Lauren Cohen, Christopher Malloy and Lukasz Pomorski

Using a simple empirical strategy, we decode the information in insider trading. Exploiting the fact that insiders trade for a variety of reasons, we show that there is predictable, identifiable "routine" insider trading that is not informative for the future of firms.... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Financial Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Law Enforcement; Opportunities; Geographic Location; Business Earnings

SSRN

Article

Policy Implications of Weak Patent Rights

By: James J. Anton, Hillary Greene and Dennis Yao

Patents vary substantially in the degree of protection provided against unauthorized imitation. In this chapter we explore a range of work addressing the economic and policy implications of "weak" patents—patents that have a significant probability of being overturned... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Motivation and Incentives; Entrepreneurship; Competition; Policy; Innovation and Invention; Rights; Monopoly; Business Startups

July 2008 (Revised August 2008)
Supplement

Fidelity Investments' Charitable Gift Fund (B)

By: Robert C. Pozen

The (B) case informs students of Fidelity's decision about pursuing a business process patent for its charitable gift fund and describes subsequent litigation and lawsuits filed by other companies over business process patent issues. View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; Business Processes

February 1990 (Revised March 1990)
Case

Quantum Semiconductor, Inc.

By: Janice H. Hammond and Roy D. Shapiro

Quantum is faced with a difficult ethical dilemma--industry studies provide evidence that chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing may cause women working in fabrication cleanrooms to suffer a higher likelihood of spontaneous abortions. The possibility of other... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Prejudice and Bias; Law; Equality and Inequality; Cost; Production; Ethics; Health; Gender; Semiconductor Industry

April 2012
Article

The Impact of Relative Standards on the Propensity to Disclose

By: Alessandro Acquisti, Leslie John and George Loewenstein

Two sets of studies illustrate the comparative nature of disclosure behavior. The first set investigates how divulgence is affected by signals about others' readiness to divulge. Study 1A shows a "herding" effect, such that survey respondents are more willing to... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Surveys; Management Practices and Processes; Ethics; Corporate Disclosure; Judgments; Consumer Behavior; Standards

10 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Why a Federal Rule on CEO Pay Disclosure May Get You In Trouble With Customers

remember thinking, oh, that must just be my dad; he must be the only person who cares about that." The Dodd-frank Requirement Fast-forward to 2010, when the US Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

08 Mar 2017
Blog Post

Education Sector Opportunities at HBS

and FirstLine Schools. Alyssa graduated from UVA in 2011 where she majored in Political Philosophy, Policy and Law (PPL) and Spanish. Chelsea... View Details

22 Apr 2020
Research Event

How Investors Are Sizing Up Climate Change’s Risks—and Opportunities

also looking at the “transition risks” associated with shifting to a lower-carbon economy. New and more stringent regulations and practices will likely spur that transition,... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services

September 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

An Innovative Anti-bribery Commitment?

By: Eugene Soltes

Reebonz, an online luxury goods platform based in Singapore that operates across the Asia-Pacific region, offers its investors the opportunity to redeem shares if either the firm or its founder are investigated by the U.S. or U.K governments with regard to complying... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; United Kingdom Bribery Act; Law; Leadership; Moral Sensibility; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; United States; United Kingdom; Asia

September 1984 (Revised July 2005)
Case

Higgins v. Commissioner

By: Henry B. Reiling

Discusses the issue of whether an activity is a trade or business. The Court held that the taxpayer's very substantial stock and bond portfolio management activities were not a trade or business, whereas the taxpayer's real estate activities did constitute a trade or... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Courts and Trials; Investment Portfolio; Property; United States