Publications
Publications
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(5,896)
- Faculty Publications (1,480)
- 2020
- Working Paper
A Framework for Product Impact-Weighted Accounts
By: George Serafeim and Katie Trinh
While there has been significant progress in the measurement of an organization’s environmental and social impacts from its operations, metrics to evaluate the impact of products once they come to market lag far behind. In this paper, we provide a framework for... View Details
- February 3, 2020
- Article
Should Your Family Business Have a "No In-Laws" Policy?
By: Christina R. Wing and Rohit K. Gera
Should in-laws, even if they’re highly qualified, work in the family business? While there’s no “one-size-fits-all” guideline, if you are considering involving in-laws in the family business, it’s important to think through some general policies in advance. Document a... View Details
- 2019
- Article
Go-Shops Revisited
By: Guhan Subramanian and Annie Zhao
A go-shop process turns the traditional M&A deal process on its head: rather than a pre-signing market canvass followed by a post-signing “no shop” period, a go-shop deal involves a limited pre-signing market check, followed by a post-signing “go shop” process to find... View Details
- 2020
- Article
Mutual Funds: Skill and Performance
By: Jonathan B. Berk, Jules van Binsbergen and Max Miller
The authors summarize the recent literature on mutual fund manager skill and performance. They discuss the latest contributions in the field and reinterpret them through the lens of the rational expectations framework (efficient market hypothesis). They further discuss... View Details
- January 2020 (Revised December 2024)
- Case
Governing PG&E
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
The five commissioners of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) listened intently at a public forum in April 2019 as PG&E Corporation’s out-going chairman Richard Kelly described the company’s proposed new board. PG&E, which provided electricity and natural... View Details
Keywords: Bankruptcy; Board Of Directors; Board Dynamics; Business Ethics; Business Model Innovation; Corporate Boards; Energy Efficiency; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Government And Business; Hedge Funds; Institutional Investors; Legal Aspects Of Business; Regulated Monopolies; Regulation; Shareholders; Stakeholder Management; Strategy And Execution; Utilities; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing and Advisory Boards; Ethics; Capital Structure; Climate Change; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Environmental Sustainability; Executive Compensation; Leadership; Management; Safety; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; California; United States
- January 2020
- Teaching Note
GeBBS Healthcare Solutions: Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind? (A) and (B)
This teaching note is meant to accompany “GeBBS Healthcare Solutions: Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind? (A),” HBS No. 820-041, and “GeBBS Healthcare Solutions: Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind? (B),” HBS No. 820-074. The cases follow Nitin Thakor, President... View Details
- January 2020
- Case
Sunset Limited or Full Speed Ahead? Amtrak Talks to Congress
By: John D. Macomber
Richard Anderson took the helm of Amtrak in 2017 after leading a successful turnaround at Delta Airlines. Amtrak is a US state owned enterprise with about $3.5 bn in annual revenue (and a large operating loss) that is responsible for substantial segments of passenger... View Details
- January 2, 2020
- Article
Changes in Quality of Care After Hospital Mergers and Acquisitions
By: Nancy Dean Beaulieu, Leemore S. Dafny, B. E. Landon, Jesse Dalton, Ifedayo Kuye and J. Michael McWilliams
Background: The hospital industry has consolidated substantially during the past two decades and at an accelerated pace since 2010. Multiple studies have shown that hospital mergers have led to higher prices for commercially insured patients, but research about effects... View Details
- 2020
- Book
Fit to Compete: Why Honest Conversations About Your Company's Capabilities Are the Key to a Winning Strategy
By: Michael Beer
Is Silence Killing Your Strategy?
In his thirty years of working in corporations, Harvard Business School professor Michael Beer has witnessed firsthand how organizational silence derails strategic objectives. When employees can't speak truth to power, senior... View Details
In his thirty years of working in corporations, Harvard Business School professor Michael Beer has witnessed firsthand how organizational silence derails strategic objectives. When employees can't speak truth to power, senior... View Details
Keywords: Honesty; Communication; Organizational Culture; Trust; Strategy; Performance Effectiveness
- January–February 2020
- Article
Give Your Colleague the Rating He Deserves—or the One He Wants?
By: Anthony J. Mayo, Joshua D. Margolis and Amy Gallo
The article presents a case study on business friendship and its possible effect on employee ratings. It mentions a hypothetical case where one member of a team didn't meet his deadlines on the development of a new product, the use of a peer-to-peer employee rating... View Details
- January 2020
- Article
Rethinking Measurement of Pay Disparity and Its Relation to Firm Performance
By: Ethan Rouen
I develop measures of firm-level pay disparity and examine their relation to firm performance. Using comprehensive compensation data for a large sample of firms, I find no statistically significant relation between the ratio of CEO-to-mean employee compensation and... View Details
- 2020
- Book
Teaching by Heart: One Professor's Journey to Inspire
By: Thomas J. DeLong
The best teachers are leaders, and the best leaders are teachers. Teaching by Heart summarizes the author's key insights gained from more than 40 years of teaching and managing. It illustrates how teachers can both lift people up and let them down. It proposes... View Details
- January 2020
- Article
The Job Rating Game: Revolving Doors and Analyst Incentives
By: Elisabeth Kempf
Investment banks frequently hire analysts from rating agencies. While many argue that this "revolving door" creates captured analysts, it can also create incentives to improve accuracy. To study this issue, I construct an original dataset, linking analysts to their... View Details
- December 2019 (Revised August 2022)
- Exercise
Janet Ames (A)
By: Brian Trelstad and Brian Trelstad
The series of Janet Ames cases follow a fictional alumna of Harvard Business School into her consulting career in Boston. Over the series of cases, Ames is first offered the opportunity to join the board of a Boston-based non-profit organization, which offers students... View Details
- December 2019 (Revised August 2022)
- Exercise
Janet Ames (B)
By: Brian Trelstad and Brian Trelstad
The series of Janet Ames cases follow a fictional alumna of Harvard Business School into her consulting career in Boston. Over the series of cases, Ames is first offered the opportunity to join the board of a Boston-based non-profit organization, which offers students... View Details
Keywords: Philanthropy; Board; Non-profit Management; Career Changes And Transitions; Evaluation; Personal Development and Career; Opportunities; Decision Choices and Conditions; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Governing and Advisory Boards; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Management; United States
- December 2019 (Revised August 2022)
- Exercise
Janet Ames (C)
By: Brian Trelstad and Brian Trelstad
The series of Janet Ames cases follow a fictional alumna of Harvard Business School into her consulting career in Boston. Over the series of cases, Ames is first offered the opportunity to join the board of a Boston-based non-profit organization, which offers students... View Details
- Article
How to Use Heuristics for Differential Privacy
By: Seth Neel, Aaron Leon Roth and Zhiwei Steven Wu
We develop theory for using heuristics to solve computationally hard problems in differential privacy. Heuristic approaches have enjoyed tremendous success in machine learning, for which performance can be empirically evaluated. However, privacy guarantees cannot be... View Details
- November 9, 2019
- Article
Effect of Revealing Authors' Conflicts of Interests in Peer Review: Randomized Controlled Trial
By: Leslie K. John, George Loewenstein, Andrew Marder and Michael Callaham
Objective: To assess the impact of disclosing authors’ conflict of interest declarations to peer reviewers at a medical journal.
Design: Randomised controlled trial.
Setting: The study was conducted within the manuscript review process at the... View Details
Design: Randomised controlled trial.
Setting: The study was conducted within the manuscript review process at the... View Details
- October 14, 2019
- Article
The Truth About Open Offices: There Are Reasons Why They Don't Produce the Desired Interactions
By: Ethan Bernstein and Ben Waber
It’s never been easier for workers to collaborate—or so it seems. Open, flexible, activity-based spaces are displacing cubicles, making people more visible. Messaging is displacing phone calls, making people more accessible. Enterprise social media such as Slack and... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Intelligent Design of Inclusive Growth Strategies
By: Robert S. Kaplan, George Serafeim and Eduardo Tugendhat
Improving corporate engagement with society, as advocated in the Business Roundtable’s 2019 statement, should not be viewed as a zero-sum proposition where attention to new stakeholders detracts from delivering shareholder value. Corporate programs for sustainable and... View Details