Publications

January 2005 (Revised June 2005)
Case

Zipcar: Influencing Customer Behavior

By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

At Zipcar, customers share the use of cars and, as a result, rely on each other for their service experience. Customers are required to keep the car clean and the gas tank full and to return the car on time. Told from the perspective of two customers: Sal Fishman, who... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Governance Controls; Behavior; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Consumer Behavior; Leasing; Transportation Industry; Service Industry; United States

September 2017 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Chai Point: Disrupting Chai

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani

Chai Point is India’s largest organized chai retailer. It has missed its target for retail store openings by approximately 25%, goals that are very important to its investors who are also board members. However, it has developed an exciting new internet-based tea... View Details

17 Jun 2002
Research & Ideas

Entrepreneurship in Asia and Foreign Direct Investment

Barron's Business Terms, FDI is "investment in a country by foreign citizens, often involving majority stock ownership of an enterprise." Huang is looking deeper into how and why FDI played quite different roles in these four... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

17 Jul 2000
What Do You Think?

Where Is the Microsoft Board?

Summing Up The predominance of opinions expressed a concern about what happened in Microsoft's dispute with the Government and laid the blame at the feet of both the company's leadership and of board members who either supported the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

December 2012 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Pemex (A): In a Free Fall?

By: Noel Maurer and Aldo Musacchio

Keywords: Turnarounds; Oil Prices; State-owned Enterprises; Oil Companies; National Oil Companies; Energy; Privatization; State Ownership; Corporate Governance; Energy Industry; Mexico; North America

30 May 2018
What Do You Think?

Should Intellectual Property be Protected in International Trade?

column. Addressing that question, David Wittenberg presented the argument for the negative when he commented that, “That idea (that government acquires an ownership interest in IP created within its borders)... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology

23 Jul 2024
In Practice

The New Rules of Trade with China: Navigating Tariffs, Turmoil, and Opportunities

under aggregate data but constitutes legitimate economic activity. Businesses hoping to hedge against policy risks may also benefit from extra due diligence for their suppliers to establish whether they have Chinese ownership stakes or... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Manufacturing; Retail; Fashion; Industrial Products; Consumer Products; Steel; Transportation; Telecommunications

22 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Not Your Father’s State-Run Capitalism

companies operate and how government invests in them. And yet, the business world has been slow to catch up to these changes, says Associate Professor Aldo Musacchio, a member of the Business, Government, and the International Economy... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

07 Mar 2000
Research & Ideas

Putting Health Care Consumers in the Driver’s Seat

A mid-November conference on consumer-driven health care attracted nearly two hundred providers of health-care services, technology, and information; government professionals; and insurance executives to the HBS campus for a two-day... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Health

29 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

'Green Bonds' May Be Our Best Bet for Environmental Damage Control

George Serafeim and Malcolm Baker have long been interested in investor motivations that go beyond pure financial return to include environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. With the recent uptick in green bonds, they wondered... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy; Utilities; Construction; Green Technology; Public Administration

21 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Is a Gap in Small-Business Credit Holding Back the American Economy?

creation. In the next post in our series, Mills will explore both the cyclical impact of the recession on small-business lending, along with the structural issues that will continue to impede bank credit markets. Other Articles In This Series Why Small-Business Lending... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Manufacturing

July–August 2014
Article

Obamacare Rules Pose Challenges for S Corp Owners

By: Josh Baron, Steve Salley and Judith L. Walsh

The article offers information financial impacts of tax by the U.S. Affordable Care Act (ACA) applied in January 2013 on family business shareholders and owners of S Corp. It discusses suggestions in tax planning to equalize tax burden including establishing family... View Details

Keywords: Ownership Type; Family Ownership; Compensation and Benefits; Taxation; Government Legislation

Find at Harvard

Read Now

17 Jan 2007
Op-Ed

Learning from Private-Equity Boards

for corporate boards. The yes answer reflects the fact that many productive aspects of corporate governance and control that have proven effective in the private-equity industry were noticeably absent at Enron. If Enron's board (which was... View Details

Keywords: by Malcolm Salter; Financial Services

10 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Privatization and the New European Economy

politicians—cared only about their own objectives." As the new German Railway tries to wean itself from total government ownership of its stock while depending on the powers that be in Berlin for... View Details

Keywords: by James E. Aisner; Air Transportation; Transportation

14 Nov 2019
Book

Lifting the Lid on Turkey's Hidden Business History

government intervention in the economy. Businesses in Turkey like many emerging markets also had to navigate great turbulence. Between the 1960s and 1980s, there were repeated military coups, and hyper-inflation between the 1970s and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

19 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Codeacademy’s Delicate Work of Adding Monetization Without Crushing Mission

It seems to suggest a real unmet need in educational systems. How integral will coding skills be going forward, and what role should government play in attending to those needs? A: Analytical skills and comfort with technology are... View Details

Keywords: Re: Jeffrey J. Bussgang; Technology

16 Sep 2015
Op-Ed

The Real Duty of the Board of Directors

ownership of modern corporations is a central point of our new paper, Materiality in Corporate Governance: The Statement of Significant Audiences and Materiality. Aiming to improve corporations’ public disclosures, we argue that the board... View Details

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles & Tim Youmans

September 2008
Article

Testing Limits to Policy Reversal: Evidence from Indian Privatizations

By: Siddhartha G. Dastidar, Raymond Fisman and Tarun Khanna

Keywords: Policy; Privatization; India

Find at Harvard

Read Now

January 2001 (Revised May 2001)
Background Note

State, The

By: Rawi E. Abdelal

Surveys approaches to understanding the state; highlights the relationships between the state, order, and property; and offers an analytical framework for how states vary from place to place and over time. View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Governance Compliance; Framework; Economic Sectors; Policy; Private Ownership; Public Ownership; Entrepreneurship; Development Economics; Equality and Inequality