Publications
Publications
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(5,512)
- Faculty Publications (915)
- September 2019
- Article
The Persistence of Broadband User Behavior: Implications for Universal Service and Competition Policy
By: Andre Boik, Shane Greenstein and Jeffrey Prince
In several markets, firms compete not for consumer expenditure but consumer attention. We examine user priorities over the allocation of their time, and interpret that behavior in light of salient tensions in policy discussions over universal service, data caps, and... View Details
- August 2019 (Revised August 2024)
- Case
The Walt Disney Company: Theme Parks
By: Rory McDonald, Allison Mnookin and Iuliana Mogosanu
As he seeks to place the division he leads on a firm footing for the future, Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, is considering a range of investments designed either to upgrade the guest experience in the company’s existing parks or to expand access... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Value of Intermediation in the Stock Market
By: Marco Di Maggio, Mark Egan and Francesco Franzoni
We estimate a structural model of broker choice to quantitatively decompose the value that institutional investors attach to broker services. Studying over 300 million institutional equity trades, we find that investors are sensitive to both explicit and implicit... View Details
- July 2019
- Article
Market Reaction to Mandatory Nonfinancial Disclosure
By: Jody Grewal, Edward J. Riedl and George Serafeim
We examine the equity market reaction to events associated with the passage of a directive in the European Union (EU) mandating increased nonfinancial disclosure. These disclosures relate to firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and would be... View Details
Keywords: Nonfinancial Information; Nonfinancial Performance; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Investor Behavior; Disclosure; Disclosure Regulation; Regulation; Sustainability; Corporate Performance; Information; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Performance; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance; Outcome or Result
- 2019
- Working Paper
Veil-of-Ignorance Reasoning Favors the Greater Good
By: Karen Huang, Joshua D. Greene and Max Bazerman
The “veil of ignorance” is a moral reasoning device designed to promote impartial decision-making by denying decision-makers access to potentially biasing information about who will benefit most or least from the available options. Veil-of-ignorance reasoning was... View Details
- June 18, 2019
- Article
Research: Investors Reward Companies That Talk Up Their Digital Initiatives
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Wilbur Chen
A study of how companies disclose their digital initiatives on earnings calls and written communications finds that more firms are using these technologies, that financial markets reward companies that disclose such initiatives, but that financial performance... View Details
- May 2019
- Teaching Note
Tesla, Inc. in 2018
By: Siko Sikochi and Suraj Srinivasan
Teaching Note for HBS No. 119-013. The case facilitates a discussion about corporate governance and its role in achieving sustainable profitability and driving long-term shareholder value. The discussion can focus on such questions as what constitutes good governance,... View Details
- May 2019
- Article
Who Consumes Firm Disclosures? Evidence from Earnings Conference Calls
By: Anne Heinrichs, Jihwon Park and Eugene F. Soltes
Using a set of proprietary records, we examine who consumes quarterly earnings conference calls and under which circumstances the calls are consumed. While there is significant interest in calls by institutional investors and sell-side analysts, we find that investors... View Details
- April 2019 (Revised July 2019)
- Case
Innovation and Business in Emerging Markets
By: Geoffrey Jones, Tarun Khanna, Nataliya Langburd Wright and Morgan Spencer
The case is built around video clips from top business leaders in emerging markets who were interviewed for Harvard Business School’s innovative Creating Emerging Markets oral history project. The case is focused on the issue of innovation in emerging markets from a... View Details
- April 2019 (Revised June 2019)
- Case
Western Governors University: 10x Vision
By: William R. Kerr and Susie L. Ma
Western Governors University (WGU) was a nonprofit institution of higher education whose online learning model served more than 100,000 students in 2019 and was scaling rapidly. President Scott Pulsipher wanted to expand WGU’s reach to millions more with a plan called... View Details
- Spring 2019
- Article
Fluid Teams and Knowledge Retrieval: Scaling Service Operations
By: Melissa A. Valentine, Tom Fangyun Tan, Bradley R. Staats and Amy C. Edmondson
To scale service operations requires retrieving knowledge across the organization. However, prior work highlights that individuals on the periphery of organizational knowledge networks may struggle to access useful knowledge at work. A knowledge repository has the... View Details
- Article
Four Things No One Will Tell You About ESG Data
By: Sakis Kotsantonis and George Serafeim
As the ESG finance field and the use of ESG data in investment decision-making continue to grow, the authors seek to shed light on several important aspects of ESG measurement and data. This article is intended to provide a useful guide for the rapidly rising number of... View Details
Keywords: ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Reporting; Data Analytics; Sustainability; Sustainability Reporting; CSR; Transparency; Investment Management; Socially Responsible Investing; Sustainable Finance; Sustainable Development; Inclusion; Inclusive Growth; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Accountability; Investment; Management; Climate Change; Corporate Governance; Diversity; Integrated Corporate Reporting
- 2019
- Chapter
Location Fundamentals, Agglomeration Economies, and the Geography of Multinational Firms
By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Xiaoyang Chen
Multinationals exhibit distinct agglomeration patterns, which have transformed the global landscape of industrial production (Alfaro and Chen, 2014). Using a unique worldwide plant-level dataset that reports detailed location, ownership, and operation information for... View Details
- April 2019
- Article
Shooting the Messenger
By: Leslie John, Hayley Blunden and Heidi Liu
Eleven experiments provide evidence that people have a tendency to “shoot the messenger,” deeming innocent bearers of bad news unlikeable. In a preregistered lab experiment, participants rated messengers who delivered bad news from a random drawing as relatively... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
The Lifesaving Benefits of Convenient Infrastructure: Quantifying the Mortality Impact of Abandoning Shallow Tubewells Contaminated by Arsenic in Bangladesh
By: Nina Buchmann, Erica Field, Rachel Glennerster and Reshmaan Hussam
We document the consequences of a public health campaign which led to the sudden abandonment of local water infrastructure by one-fifth of Bangladesh’s population. Households who experienced quasi-randomly distributed arsenic contamination, and thus were likely to... View Details
- 2019
- Chapter
International Business and Emerging Markets in Historical Perspective
By: Geoffrey Jones
This chapter examines international business in emerging markets over the long run. It shows how the strategies of Western multinationals evolved over time. In the first era of globalization in the 19th century, Western firms sought access to resources, and they faced... View Details
- February 2019 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
Maccabitech: The Promise of Israel's Healthcare Data
By: Scott Duke Kominers and Carin-Isabel Knoop
Dr. Varda Shalev bridges technology and medicine through Maccabitech, a "research and innovation wing" of Israel's Maccabi Healthcare Services (MHS) that partners with research institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and startups. Shalev hopes to scale Maccabitech's... View Details
- Article
Why Am I Seeing This Ad? The Effect of Ad Transparency on Ad Effectiveness
By: Tami Kim, Kate Barasz and Leslie K. John
Given the increasingly specific ways marketers can target ads, many consumers and regulators are demanding ad transparency: disclosure of how consumers’ personal information was used to generate ads. We investigate how and why ad transparency impacts ad effectiveness.... View Details
- January 2019 (Revised December 2019)
- Case
CrossBoundary Energy
By: John Macomber
Almost 500 million people are without electricity in sub-Saharan Africa. Governments and public utilities are challenged to bring generation and distribution to most of them. Considerable promise exists in “off-grid” or “mini-grid” technologies, notably using renewable... View Details
Keywords: Energy Investing; Economic Development; Renewable Energy; Business Growth and Maturation; Developing Countries and Economies; Project Finance; Emerging Markets; Industry Structures; Infrastructure; Segmentation; Private Equity; Decision Choices and Conditions; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; Africa; Tanzania; Ghana
- 2019
- Working Paper
The Impact of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment
By: Donald Ngwe, Kris J. Ferreira and Thales Teixeira
Many online stores are designed such that shoppers can easily access any available discounted products. We propose that deliberately increasing search frictions by placing small obstacles to locating discounted items can improve online retailers’ margins and even... View Details