by David J. Collis - Publications - Faculty & Research

September 2012
Article

The Size and Composition of Corporate Headquarters in Multinational Companies: Empirical Evidence

By: David J. Collis, David Young and Michael Goold

Based on a six-country survey of nearly 250 multinationals (MNCs), this paper is the first empirical analysis to describe the size and composition of MNC headquarters and to account for differences among them. Findings are as follows: MNC corporate headquarters are... View Details

Keywords: Headquarters; Subsidiaries; Multinational Corporations; Organization Design; Administrative Heritage; International Strategy; Business Subsidiaries; Organizational Design; Multinational Firms and Management; Size; Business Headquarters; Global Strategy

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2020
Chapter

Building Emergency Savings Through Employer-Sponsored Rainy-Day Savings Accounts

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, J. Mark Iwry, David C. John, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

Roughly half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. When financial shocks occur during their working life, many of these households tap into their retirement savings accounts. We explore the practical considerations and challenges associated with helping households... View Details

Keywords: Savings; Household; Saving

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February 2022
Article

Borrowing to Save? The Impact of Automatic Enrollment on Debt

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and William L. Skimmyhorn

Does automatic enrollment into a retirement plan increase financial distress due to increased borrowing outside the plan? We study a natural experiment created when the U.S. Army began automatically enrolling newly hired civilian employees into the Thrift Savings Plan.... View Details

Keywords: Retirement Savings; Automatic Enrollment; Choice Architecture; Nudge; Financial Distress; Retirement; Saving; Borrowing and Debt; Behavior

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March 2011 (Revised February 2014)
Case

Cree, Inc.: Which Bright Future?

By: David J. Collis, Mary Furey and Matthew Shaffer

After its founding in the late 1980s, Cree Inc. quickly grew into a major player in the emerging LED market. By 2007, technological improvements in LEDs had made them suitable for TV, computer, and mobile "backlighting"; and concerns over global warning led to calls to... View Details

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2010
Chapter

The Impact of Employer Matching on Savings Plan Participation under Automatic Enrollment

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

Existing research has documented the large impact that automatic enrollment has on savings plan participation. All the companies examined in these studies, however, have combined automatic enrollment with an employer match. This raises a question about how effective... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Consumer Behavior; Personal Finance; Investment Funds; Microeconomics; Compensation and Benefits

03 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 3

principles within each course module, and a synopsis of each case, along with the lessons the case is meant to convey. Purchase this note:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/911069-PDF-ENG Predictive Biosciences Thomas Eisenmann, Jeffrey View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2025
Article

Automatic Enrollment with a 12% Default Contribution Rate

By: John Beshears, Ruofei Guo, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and James J. Choi

We study a retirement savings plan with a default contribution rate of 12% of income, which is much higher than previously studied defaults. Twenty-five percent of employees had not opted out of this default 12 months after hire; a literature review finds that the... View Details

Keywords: Retirement Savings; Defined Contribution Retirement Plan; Automatic Enrollment; Retirement; Saving; Income; Decision Choices and Conditions

13 Jul 2010
First Look

First Look: July 13

Ramanna, and Douglas J. Skinner Abstract Based on extant literature, we review the positive theory of GAAP. The theory predicts that GAAP's principal focus is on control (performance measurement and stewardship) and that verifiability and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

28 Sep 2010
First Look

First Look: September 28, 2010

Review (forthcoming) Abstract Companies in Victorian Britain operated in a laissez-faire legal environment from the perspective of outside investors, implying that such investors were not protected by the legal system. This article seeks... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Feb 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, February 12, 2019

Ngwe, Donald, Kris J. Ferreira, and Thales Teixeira Abstract— Many online stores are designed such that shoppers can easily access any available discounted products. We propose that deliberately increasing search frictions View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

August 2014
Article

What Makes Annuitization More Appealing?

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and Stephen P. Zeldes

We conduct and analyze two large surveys of hypothetical annuitization choices. We find that allowing individuals to annuitize a fraction of their wealth increases annuitization relative to a situation where annuitization is an "all or nothing" decision. Very few... View Details

Keywords: Annuity; Pension; Retirement Income; Framing; Annuities; Retirement

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21 Jun 2011
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First Look: June 21

characterizes the financial world. They also overlook the role of natural selection. To be sure, natural selection in the financial world is not exactly analogous to the processes first described by Darwin and elaborated on View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Aug 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 1

July 31, 2017 AIDS A Commitment Contract to Achieve Virologic Suppression in Poorly Adherent Patients with HIV/AIDS By: Alsan, Marcella, John Beshears, Wendy S. Armstrong, James J. Choi, Brigitte C. Madrian, Minh Ly T. Nguyen, Carlos Del... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

27 Feb 2007
First Look

First Look: February 27, 2007

2007) Abstract This article explores the barriers and facilitators experienced by ethnic minority medical students in achieving personal and professional success. Cyclical Wages in a Search-and-Bargaining Model with Large Firms... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2017
Article

Why Do We Hate Hypocrites? Evidence for a Theory of False Signaling

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Roseanna Sommers, Paul Bloom and David G. Rand

Why do people judge hypocrites, who condemn immoral behaviors that they in fact engage in, so negatively? We propose that hypocrites are disliked because their condemnation sends a false signal about their personal conduct, deceptively suggesting that they behave... View Details

Keywords: Moral Psychology; Condemnation; Vignettes; Deception; Social Signaling; Open Data; Open Materials; Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Perception

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March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
Teaching Note

Group Functions at the Maersk Group

By: David J. Collis

In 2014, seven years after he was appointed CEO of the Danish shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Møller Maersk (the Maersk Group), Nils Andersen was reexamining the size and role of corporate headquarters in the company he had reshaped as a "premium conglomerate."... View Details