Commons Dilemma - Publications - Faculty & Research

13 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

When Good Incentives Lead to Bad Decisions

sample of actual applications from entrepreneurs seeking commercial loans for the first time. They acquired the loan files from a large commercial lender in India, a country challenged by a dearth of verifiable financial data. As is View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking

18 Nov 2022
HBS Case

What Does It Take to Safeguard a Legacy in Asset Management?

2021, the firm had 36 employees and $18 billion in assets. That year, its flagship small-company fund outperformed 99 percent of competitors. “An important question for organizations is how to avoid group thinking in teams. ” As Brown approached retirement (and his... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

10 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: January 10

Under founding director Dr. Aristotle Alip's leadership, CARD has become one of the top microfinance institutions in the world. More recently, larger commercial and financial institutions are seeking a slice of the microfinance market. The main View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 May 2011
HBS Case

QuikTrip’s Investment in Retail Employees Pays Off

heard." "Retailers like Mercadona and QuikTrip have created ways to institutionalize improvement.” Ton notes that another commonality between QuikTrip and Mercadona lies in the strongly held values of its leadership. QuikTrip's... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

09 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Organizations

expected to try to fill up their own vessels with fish on each voyage—to do less would not be in their competitive interest. Yet if every fisherman acts this way, all will lose out as the overall stock becomes depleted. Economists call this dynamic View Details

Keywords: by Paul Lawrence & Nitin Nohria

28 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

How to Avoid a Price Increase

Gourville discusses the price-versus-quantity dilemma in this e-mail interview. Manda Salls: When prices for raw materials increase, companies need to compensate to keep their profit margin on target. What are the typical responses? John... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

02 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

What If Closing the Wage Gap Means Everyone Earns Less?

It’s a sticky but common dilemma for managers: A valued employee finds out that a coworker earns more, gets upset, and demands a raise. If gender or race figure into the wage gap, tensions can escalate fast.... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

04 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

When Founders Recruit Friends and Family as Investors

chance to thrive. Drawing on more than a decade of researching smashing successes and painful failures alike, Wasserman walks readers through the dilemmas that plague and challenge most new entrepreneurs, starting with pre-founding career... View Details

Keywords: by Noam Wasserman

22 Jul 2019
Book

How to Be a Digital Platform Leader

authors explain the fundamentals of platforms, different strategies and business models, common errors, and platform battlegrounds of the future that involve competing technologies and implications for organizations. There is advice for... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

14 May 2009
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Teams

not underestimate or ignore undesired results. How Can Individual Performers Be Developed Into Team Players? HBS Cases: When Good Teams Go Bad Know when teamwork doesn't work—and how to fix it. Professors Jeff Polzer and Scott Snook teach "The Army Crew Team" case and... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

03 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

HBS Faculty on Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa

Instead, we value democracy of the kind that not only heeds majority opinion but also has a healthy respect for individual and minority rights. This is an important distinction, because liberal democracies tend not to impose a "democracy vs. security" View Details

Keywords: Re: Deepak Malhotra; Energy; Utilities

21 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

How to Sink a Startup

Wasserman realized that he wanted to learn more about the dilemmas inherent in launching ventures. He returned to HBS, first to earn a PhD (in 2002) and then as a professor, dedicating his research to the pitfalls of founding and how to... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons

04 Jun 2018
Research & Ideas

Think of it as Professors in Cars Having Coffee

product portfolio. Maybe we are no longer going to produce assault weapons. Or maybe we will make a really interesting effort into producing smart weapons.” Unique ideas and insights are common on the podcast Harvard Business School After... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Education; Entertainment & Recreation

23 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 23, 2008

illustration of the earliest trends and dilemmas (c. 1900–1930), when business schools found themselves caught between their business connections and their striving for moral legitimacy in higher education. We show how several of the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 10

Publications February 2015 Academy of Management Review Reflections on the 2013 Decade Award: "Exploitation, Exploration, and Process Management: The Productivity Dilemma Revisited" Ten Years Later By: Benner, Mary, and... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

19 Jun 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, June 19, 2018

investors, could provide this commitment mechanism. Common ownership of competitors within industries and long-time horizons in ownership of shares are key characteristics for investors that could act as stewards of the commons. Social... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

20 Mar 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, March 20, 2018

March 2018 Review of Economics and Statistics Scraped Data and Sticky Prices By: Cavallo, Alberto Abstract—I use daily prices collected from online retailers in five countries to study the impact of measurement bias on three common price... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Jul 2016
Research & Ideas

Is Your Org Chart Stuck in a Rut? Try a Scientific Experiment

restructuring can feel like a “just because” pursuit among companies, which often coincides with a change in C-suite leadership. “If you bring in an executive from the outside, it’s very common that, as soon as they get into their chair,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

13 Aug 2008
Research & Ideas

The Inner Life of Leaders

require adaptation and the avoidance of the repetition compulsion. Q: Your book describes leadership dilemmas facing well-known individuals historically and currently, including Robert S. McNamara, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King Jr.,... View Details