Publications

April 2017 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity

By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu

Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying to political activism. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must... View Details

Educators

February 2018 (Revised February 2018)
Supplement

HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics (B)

By: William C. Kirby and Yuanzhuo Wang

This case provides a brief overview of the success and challenges of the HNA Group between 2015 and late 2017 when it grew rapidly through global acquisitions to become 170 on the 2017 Fortune 500 list. A firm that had begun as a provincial airline in China was now a... View Details

Keywords: Internationalization; Scrutiny; Growth; China; Philanthropy; One Belt One Road; Globalized Markets and Industries; Growth and Development; Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Air Transportation Industry; Financial Services Industry; Tourism Industry; China; United States; Europe; Asia; South America; Southeast Asia

January 1991 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Black Caucus Groups at Xerox Corp. (A)

In 1970 Xerox had a very progressive affirmative action program yet, once hired, black employees faced serious problems, due both to overt discrimination and to their exclusion from the informal networks of support, information and mentoring that the other salespeople... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Alliances; Race Characteristics; Employees; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; United States

Educators

02 May 2024
Video

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on AI’s Impact on Business and Society

How Organizations Respond to Institutional Constraint

Corporate political activity is an increasingly important source of institutional change in the 21st century which has seen a decline of collective political action among the business elite and a rise in political action by individual firms. Rather... View Details

Forthcoming
Article

On the Limits of Anonymization for Promoting Diversity in Organizations

By: Linda W. Chang and Edward H. Chang

Anonymization of job applicant resumes is a recommended strategy to increase diversity in organizations, but large-scale tests have shown mixed results. We consider decision-makers’ social dominance orientation (SDO), a measure of anti-egalitarianism/endorsement of... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Selection and Staffing; Rank and Position

Herman B. ("Dutch") Leonard is Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the George F. Baker, Jr. Professor of Public Sector Management at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. In... View Details

Keywords: education industry; federal government; health care; nonprofit industry; state government

19 Aug 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice

Keywords: by N. Gregory Mankiw, Matthew Weinzierl & Danny Yagan

2010
Casebook

Global Capital and National Institutions: Crisis and Choice in the International Financial Architecture

By: Laura Alfaro

All managers face a business environment in which international and macroeconomic phenomena matter. International capital flows can significantly affect countries' development efforts and provide clear investment opportunities for businesses. During the 1990s and early... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital; International Finance; Globalized Economies and Regions; Policy; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations

Find at Harvard

This paper investigates how executive employment contracts influence corporate financial policies during the final year of the contract term, using a new, hand-collected data set of CEO employment agreements. On the one hand, the impending... View Details

18 Apr 2024
Lecture

Innovation Opportunities Created by COVID-19 Can Help: And How to Make Them Happen

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

The crush of patients created by COVID enabled the creation of sites for care outside the traditional hospital, such as retail pharmacies, ambulatory surgery centers, urgent care centers, telemedicine, and wireless sensors. Public policy mirrored these changes by... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Health Industry; Insurance Industry

January–February 2020
Article

Consumer Reactions to Drip Pricing

By: Shelle Santana, Steven Dallas and Vicki Morwitz

This research examines how drip pricing—a strategy whereby a firm advertises only part of a product’s price upfront and then reveals additional mandatory or optional fees/surcharges as the consumer proceeds through the buying process—affects consumer choice and... View Details

Keywords: Drip Pricing; Pricing; Consumer Protection; Hidden Fees; Price; Consumer Behavior; Perception

Find at Harvard

October 2013
Article

The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care

By: Michael E. Porter and Thomas H. Lee

In health care, the days of business as usual are over. Around the world, every health care system is struggling with rising costs and uneven quality, despite the hard work of well-intentioned, well-trained clinicians. Health care leaders and policy makers have tried... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategy; Value; Customer Focus and Relationships; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

Find at Harvard

2023
Article

A Review of Commercialisation Mechanisms for Carbon Dioxide Removal

By: Conor Hickey, Sam Fankhauser, Stephen Smith and Myles Allen

The deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) needs to be scaled up to achieve net zero emission pledges. In this paper we survey the policy mechanisms currently in place globally to incentivise CDR, together with an estimate of what different mechanisms are paying... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Dioxide Removal; Climate Change; Markets; Cost; Policy; Environmental Regulation

2013
Working Paper

The Dynamics of Firm Lobbying

By: William R. Kerr, William F. Lincoln and Prachi Mishra

We study the determinants of the dynamics of firm lobbying behavior using a panel data set covering 1998–2006. Our data exhibit three striking facts: (i) few firms lobby, (ii) lobbying status is strongly associated with firm size, and (iii) lobbying status is highly... View Details

Keywords: Lobbying; Political Economy; H-1B; Business Ventures; Policy; Government Legislation; Immigration; Business and Government Relations; Research; Prejudice and Bias

SSRN

2013
Chapter

Assessing Potential Carbon Revenues from Reduced Forest Cover Loss in Liberia

By: Jessica Donovan, Keith Lawrence, Christopher Neyor, Eduard Niesten and Eric Werker

We conducted an analysis that explores the merits of a low-carbon development strategy for Liberia. This chapter describes both our cost-benefit analysis initiative and a plausible policy process for Liberia. We proposed a simple approach that models the costs and... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Revenue; Liberia; Deforestation; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Liberia

April 1993 (Revised October 1995)
Case

American Barrick Resources Corporation: Managing Gold Price Risk

By: Peter Tufano

Managing the risk of changing prices of gold is central to the business strategy of American Barrick Resources Corp., one of North America's largest and most successful gold-mining firms. The case contrasts this firm's hedging policies with those of its rivals that do... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Business Strategy; Mining; Mining Industry; United States

Educators

2014
Working Paper

The Contract Year Phenomenon in the Corner Office: An Analysis of Firm Behavior During CEO Contract Renewals

By: Ping Liu and Yuhai Xuan

This paper investigates how executive employment contracts influence corporate financial policies during the final year of the contract term, using a new, hand-collected data set of CEO employment agreements. On the one hand, the impending expiration of fixed-term... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Contracts; Behavior; Employment