Publications

28 May 2008
First Look

First Look: May 28, 2008

institutional theory, we hypothesize that ratings are particularly likely to spur responses from firms whose legitimacy is threatened—and thus are shamed—by these ratings. We extend existing theory by drawing on the strategic choice... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2010
Article

Leadership Competencies for Implementing Planned Organizational Change

By: Julie Battilana, Mattia Gilmartin, Anne-Claire Pache, Metin Sengul and Jeffrey A. Alexander

This paper bridges the leadership and organizational change literatures by exploring the relationship between managers' leadership competencies (namely, their effectiveness at person-oriented and task-oriented behaviors) and the likelihood that they will emphasize the... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Competency and Skills; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Planning; Relationships; Business Processes; Projects; Theory; Change; Behavior; Health Industry; United Kingdom

2011
Other Unpublished Work

Functional Centralization and the Division of Labor in Management

By: Julie Wulf, Maria Guadalupe and Hongyi Li

This paper shows that the trend towards flatter hierarchies in large US firms since the mid-80's has been accompanied by increased centralization of activities at the top of the organization. In particular, the number of functional managers (e.g., Chief Financial... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Management Teams; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Diversification; Information Technology; United States

12 Feb 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, February 12, 2019

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55629 Infringing Use as a Path to Legal Consumption: Evidence from a Field Experiment By: Luo, Hong, and Julie Holland Mortimer Abstract— Copyright infringement may result from frictions... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

03 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 3

offerings to maintain differentiation from copycats. Purchase this case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/512065-PDF-ENG Citibank: Weathering the Commercial Real Estate Crisis of the Early 1990s Julie M. View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

December 2011
Article

How Do Acquirers Retain Successful Target CEOs? The Role of Governance

By: Julie Wulf and Harbir Singh

The resource-based view argues that acquisitions can build competitive advantage partially through retention of valuable human capital of the target firm. However, making commitments to retain and motivate successful top managers is a challenge when contracts are not... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Mergers and Acquisitions; Acquisition; Equity; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Contracts; Performance; Governance; Legal Services Industry

25 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 25

of tomorrow's innovative new products, arguing that companies must reinvest in new product and process development in the U.S. industrial sector. Only by reviving this "industrial commons" can the world's largest economy build... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Aug 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 1

July 31, 2017 AIDS A Commitment Contract to Achieve Virologic Suppression in Poorly Adherent Patients with HIV/AIDS By: Alsan, Marcella, John Beshears, Wendy S. Armstrong, James J. Choi, Brigitte C. Madrian, Minh Ly T. Nguyen, Carlos Del... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2008
Working Paper

The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization

By: Maria Guadalupe and Julie Wulf

This paper establishes a causal effect of competition from trade liberalization on various characteristics of organizational design. We exploit a unique panel dataset on firm hierarchies (1986-1999) of large U.S. firms and find that increasing competition leads firms... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Managerial Roles; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy

19 Mar 2013
First Look

First Look: March 19

Structure and the Division of Labor in Top Management Authors:Guadalupe, Maria, Hongyi Li, and Julie Wulf Abstract Top management structures in large U.S. firms have changed significantly since the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2007
Working Paper

Acting Globally but Thinking Locally? The Influence of Local Communities on Organizations

By: Christopher Marquis and Julie Battilana

We develop an institutional theory of how local communities continue to matter for organizations, and why community factors are particularly important in a global age. Since globalization has taken center stage in both practitioner and academic circles, research has... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Local Range; Globalization; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Community Relations; Power and Influence

30 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 30

still the world's currency of choice. The Agglomeration of U.S. Ethnic Inventors Author:William R. Kerr Publication:In Economics of Agglomeration, edited by Edward Glaeser. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming. (Harvard... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 2013
Article

Overcoming Resistance to Organizational Change: Strong Ties and Affective Cooptation

By: Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro

We propose a relational theory of how change agents in organizations use the strength of ties in their network to overcome resistance to change. We argue that strong ties to potentially influential organization members who are ambivalent about a change (fence-sitters)... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Power and Influence; Health Industry; United Kingdom

29 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 29

Working PapersLocal Dividend Clienteles Authors:Bo Becker, Zoran Ivkovich, and Scott WeisbennerNBER Working Paper Series, No. 15175, July 2009 Abstract We exploit demographic variation to identify the effect of dividend demand on firm... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Jan 2007
First Look

First Look: January 23, 2007

Acquisition of Abbey: Banking Across Borders Harvard Business School Case 707-485 Banco Santander, Spain's largest commercial bank, announced in July 2004 the acquisition of Abbey National Bank, the fifth largest U.K. commercial bank.... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2014
Other Article

Communicating Change: When Identity Becomes a Source of Vulnerability for Institutional Challengers

By: Ryann Elizabeth Manning, Julie Battilana and Lakshmi Ramarajan

Social movements challenge institutions through two related communication processes: articulating collective action frames and constructing collective movement identity. We argue that frames not only express movement identity, but also provide openings through which... View Details

Keywords: Identity Threat; Institutional Change; Social Movements; Framing; Social Issues; Identity; Organizational Culture; Change

October 2015
Article

Hormones and Ethics: Understanding the Biological Basis of Unethical Conduct

By: Jooa Julie Lee, Francesca Gino, Ellie Shuo Jin, Leslie K. Rice and Robert A. Josephs

Globally, fraud has been rising sharply over the last decade, with current estimates placing financial losses at greater than $3.7 trillion dollars annually. Unfortunately, fraud prevention has been stymied by lack of a clear and comprehensive understanding of its... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Ethics; Science

2004
Working Paper

Are Perks Purely Managerial Excess?

By: Raghuram G. Rajan and Julie Wulf

Why do some firms tend to offer executives a variety of perks while others offer none at all? A widespread view in the corporate finance literature is that executive perks are a form of agency or private benefit and a way for managers to misappropriate some of the... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Performance Productivity; Executive Compensation; Corporate Finance

January 2006
Article

Are Perks Purely Managerial Excess?

By: Raghuram G. Rajan and Julie Wulf

A widespread view is that executive perks exemplify agency problems--they are a route through which managers misappropriate a firm's surplus. Accordingly, firms with high free cash flow, operating in industries with limited investment prospects, should offer more... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Cash Flow; Business or Company Management; Situation or Environment; Performance Productivity; Investment; Executive Compensation