Publications

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24 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

“I read Playboy for the articles”: Justifying and Rationalizing Questionable Preferences

Keywords: by Zoë Chance & Michael I. Norton

May 2024
Case

Shell's Balancing Act: Resource Allocation and the Green Transition

By: David Collis and Haisley Wert

In mid-2023, amid pressure from climate change activists, shareholder activists, and confronting enormous uncertainty about the future demand for and price of fossil fuels, new Shell CEO Wael Sawan (Harvard MBA 2003) announced a change in strategy for the U.K. oil... View Details

Keywords: Portfolio Analysis; Climate; Oil; Oil And Gas; Oil Companies; Renewables; Petroleum; Investor Demand; Investors; Corporate Strategy; Resource Allocation; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Energy Industry; United Kingdom

November 2011
Article

How Great Companies Think Differently

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Corporate leaders have long subscribed to the belief that the sole purpose of business is to make money. That narrow view, deeply embedded in the American capitalist system, molds the actions of most corporations, constraining them to focus on maximizing short-term... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Profit; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Behavior; Social Issues; Competitive Advantage

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May 2007
Article

Corporate Financing Decisions When Investors Take the Path of Least Resistance

By: Malcolm Baker, Joshua Coval and Jeremy Stein

We explore the consequences for corporate financial policy that arise when investors exhibit inertial behavior. One implication of investor inertia is that, all else equal, a firm pursuing a strategy of equity-financed growth will prefer a stock-for-stock merger to... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Investment; Policy; Corporate Finance

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26 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

Lipstick Tips: How Influencers Are Making Over Beauty Marketing

typical celebrity cover girl, her social media posts compel thousands of customers to purchase the products she recommends. Alessia Vettese New research shows that “influencers” like Hughes are changing the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products; Beauty & Cosmetics

2023
Working Paper

Causes and Consequences of State Violence against Civilians: The Rohingya of Myanmar

By: C. Austin Davis, Paula Lopez-Pena, A. Mushfiq Mobarak and Jaya Wen

The Rohingya crisis is a severe, ongoing conflict involving large-scale violence and forced displacement, yet its causes are contested and its consequences lack systematic documentation. We marshal a variety of existing and original data to shed light on its drivers,... View Details

Keywords: War; Conflict and Resolution; Motivation and Incentives; Developing Countries and Economies; Myanmar

June 2020
Case

MOD Pizza: A Winning Recipe? (Abridged)

By: Boris Groysberg, John D. Vaughan and Matthew Preble

This is an abridged version of “MOD Pizza: A Winning Recipe?” HBS Case No. 416-004. Scott and Ally Svenson, the founders of MOD Pizza, had to make a number of decisions in planning how to scale their small company. They wanted to grow MOD from 45 stores as of May 2015... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Selection and Staffing; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Service Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

30 Nov 2021
Interview

TikTok: Super App or Supernova?

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Brian Kenny

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was launched in 2012 around the simple idea of helping users entertain themselves on their smartphones while on the Beijing Subway. By May 2020, TikTok operated in 155 countries and had roughly 1 billion monthly active users, placing... View Details

Keywords: Apps; Artificial Intelligence; Business Startups; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Business Model; Digital Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Social Media

25 Jan 2021
Book

In a Nutshell, Why American Capitalism Succeeded

American. I structured the book around trying to understand why business had come to have such a central place in America and to assessing the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Manufacturing

2005
Other Unpublished Work

Corporate Financing Decisions When Investors Take the Path of Least Resistance

By: Malcolm Baker, Joshua Coval and Jeremy Stein

We explore the consequences for corporate financial policy that arise when investors exhibit inertial behavior. One implication of investor inertia is that, all else equal, a firm pursuing a strategy of equity-financed growth will prefer a stock-for-stock merger to... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Behavior; Stocks; Mergers and Acquisitions; Policy; Investment; Financial Institutions; Equity; Corporate Finance

16 Nov 2016
Research & Ideas

Turning One Thousand Customers into One Million

For example, how could Uber recruit drivers with only a few customers, and at the same time, attract customers if there were no drivers? How could Airbnb convince potential room renters to join its platform without a large catalog of... View Details

Keywords: by Thales S. Teixeira and Michael Blanding; Retail; Transportation; Accommodations

20 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Blind Spots: We’re Not as Ethical as We Think

exert undue pressure at the time of the decision and increase the odds that self-interest will dominate can help you use self-control strategies to curb that influence. One such strategy involves putting in View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

February 2023
Case

Enstitute

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Kumba Sennaar and Sarah Mehta

Shaila Ittycheria (MBA ’10) founded the nonprofit organization Enstitute, in 2012 in New York City. Determined to challenge the status quo within higher education, Shaila and her cofounder sought to expand opportunities for talented young people by placing them in... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Operations; Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Education Industry; Employment Industry; United States

2012
Working Paper

Earnings Management from the Bottom Up: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives Below the CEO

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Julie Wulf

Performance-based pay is an important instrument to align the interests of managers with the interests of shareholders. However, recent evidence suggests that high-powered incentives also provide managers with incentives to manipulate the firm's reported earnings. The... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Interests; Business and Shareholder Relations; Motivation and Incentives; Earnings Management; Performance Evaluation; Stock Options

22 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Master the One-on-One Meeting

Whether you’re a CEO or a line manager, your team is just as important as a group as its members are as individuals. Today’s tech companies offer many perks to attract and retain the best employees. We offer competitive salaries, training... View Details

Keywords: by Julia B. Austin

02 May 2023
What Do You Think?

How Should Artificial Intelligence Be Regulated—if at All?

players, often with unorthodox moves. Sure, at the moment AI causes machines to do dumb things and say things that aren’t true. And yes, AI could spread damaging information even more rapidly and convincingly than View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Information Technology; Technology

29 Sep 2015
First Look

September 29, 2015

Julia Lee, Francesca Gino, and Bradley R. Staats Abstract—It may be possible to offer people a new understanding of their best-self concepts, leading to positive personal and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

09 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 9

end Rolex offerings. Only 14 weeks before year end, he is reviewing the timing of his cash flows and the impact that various promotion options will have on his ability to place the initial order for Swatch... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2009
Case

Incept LLC and Confluent Surgical (A)

By: Bhaskar Chakravorti, Toby E. Stuart and James Weber

A venture capitalist must decide whether to invest in a medical technology company that licenses intellectual property from a privately held IP holding company based on a platform technology. Entrepreneurs Amar Sawhney and Fred Khosravi founded Incept LLC to... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Intellectual Property; Rights; Agreements and Arrangements; Partners and Partnerships; Trust; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry