Publications

Winter 2021
Article

Can Staggered Boards Improve Value? Causal Evidence from Massachusetts

By: Robert Daines, Shelley Xin Li and Charles C.Y. Wang

We study the effect of staggered boards (SBs) using a quasi-experiment: a 1990 law that imposed an SB on all Massachusetts-incorporated firms. The law led to an increase in Tobin's Q, investment in CAPEX and R&D, patents, higher-quality patented innovations, and... View Details

Keywords: Staggered Board; Entrenchment; Life-cycle; Tobin's Q; Innovation; Profitability; Investor Composition; Governing and Advisory Boards; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Institutional Investing; Value

SSRN

01 Nov 2012
HBS Seminar

Bill Kerr, Harvard Business School

2024
Working Paper

Immigrant Entrepreneurship: New Estimates and a Research Agenda

By: Saheel Chodavadia, Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and Louis Maiden

Immigrants contribute disproportionately to entrepreneurship in many countries, accounting for a quarter of new employer businesses in the US. We review recent research on the measurement of immigrant entrepreneurship, the traits of immigrant founders, their economic... View Details

Keywords: Immigrant Employment; Immigration; Entrepreneurship; Demographics; Innovation and Invention

13 Sep 2018
HBS Seminar

Ashley Swanson, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

September 2005
Article

Managerial Foresight and Attempted Rent Appropriation: Insider Trading on Knowledge of Imminent Breakthroughs

By: Gautam Ahuja, Russell W. Coff and Peggy M. Lee

In order to establish a competitive advantage, firms must acquire or create resources at a price below their value in use. Absent pure luck, this requires managers to exercise foresight about a resource's future value and/or complementarities with pre-existing... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Knowledge Use and Leverage

August 2001
Case

Pharmaceutical Industry and the AIDS Crisis in Developing Countries, The

Explores the controversy over the pricing of AIDS drugs in poor countries. This issue has received wide publicity due to two events: 1) a court case in South Africa that seeks to force drug companies to license their patents and 2) the announcement by the Indian... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Developing Countries and Economies; Business and Government Relations; Pharmaceutical Industry; South Africa; India

July 2013
Article

Ethnic Innovation and U.S. Multinational Firm Activity

By: C. Fritz Foley and William R. Kerr

This paper studies the impact that immigrant innovators have on the global activities of U.S. firms by analyzing detailed data on patent applications and on the operations of the foreign affiliates of U.S. multinational firms. The results indicate that increases in the... View Details

Keywords: Technology Transfer; Innovation; Ethnic Networks; Patents; Diasporas; Ethnicity; Multinational Firms and Management; Competitive Advantage; Research and Development; Foreign Direct Investment; Innovation and Invention; United States

2023
Working Paper

Market Exclusivity and Innovation: Evidence From Antibiotics

By: Edward Kong and Olivia Zhao

The US incentivizes drug innovation via patents as well as market exclusivity periods awarded by the US Food and Drug Administration. We estimate the causal effects of extending market exclusivity for an important drug class: antibiotics. Using a... View Details

Keywords: Health Testing and Trials; Innovation and Invention; Motivation and Incentives; Government Administration; Government Legislation; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

SSRN

05 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 5, 2006

believing concentration is increasing even when it isn't, and to discuss possible reasons. What Is the Impact of Software Patent Shifts? Evidence from Lotus v. Borland Authors:Josh Lerner and Feng Zhu Periodical:International Journal of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2023
Case

Elliott Management: Capital Allocation in Biopharma

By: Amitabh Chandra, Paul Clancy and Lauren Gunasti

The case explores the intersection of capital allocation and shareholder activism in the biopharmaceutical industry. As many biopharma companies face looming patent expirations for key medicines, the case asks the question of whether investing in R&D and M&A is an... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Strategy; Capital Allocation; Biopharmaceutical Industry; Shareholder Activism; Investment Activism; Resource Allocation; Research and Development; Business and Shareholder Relations; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

March 2020
Article

Do Managers Matter? A Natural Experiment from 42 R&D Labs in India

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna and Christos A. Makridis

We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the staggered entry of new managers into India’s 42 public R&D labs between 1994 and 2006 to study how alignment between the CEO and middle-level managers affect research productivity. We show that the introduction of new lab... View Details

Keywords: Incentives; Innovation; Productivity; Management; Alignment; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Performance Productivity; India

2018
Working Paper

Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century

By: Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby, Tom Nicholas and Stefanie Stantcheva

This paper studies the effect of corporate and personal taxes on innovation in the United States over the 20th century. We use three new datasets: a panel of the universe of inventors who patent since 1920; a dataset of the employment, location, and patents of firms... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Innovation and Invention; History; United States

June 2016
Teaching Note

N12 Technologies: Building an Organization and Building a Business

By: David A. Garvin

N12 Technologies was a startup founded in 2010 that employed nanotechnology to manufacture a patented material to improve the performance of carbon fiber composites, which were used in a wide variety of products, ranging from bicycles to automobiles to aircraft parts.... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Organizational Structure; Nanotechnology; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Management Systems; Commercialization; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Bicycle Industry; Transportation Industry; United States

May 2014 (Revised January 2015)
Case

Vaxess Technologies, Inc.

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

In February 2014, Michael Schrader, chief executive of Vaxess Technologies, Inc., was assessing the startup health care company's 2014 marketing plan. On December 31st, 2013, Vaxess had obtained an exclusive license to a series of patents for a silk protein technology... View Details

Keywords: Vaccine; Cold Chain; Antigen; Temperature Controlled; Developing Markets; Immunization; Health Care and Treatment; Health Pandemics; Global Strategy; Supply Chain; Health; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

The pandemic has hastened a rise in remote working for knowledge-based organizations. This has notable benefits: Companies can save on real estate costs, hire and utilize talent globally, mitigate immigration issues, and experience productivity gains, while... View Details

March 1992 (Revised June 1995)
Case

Introduction of FM Radio (A): Finally, A ""Staticless"" Radio

Describes the evolution of radio technology and business from the initial days of wireless telegraphy to the advent, growth, and establishment of amplitude-modulated (AM) radio manufacturing and broadcasting. Begins and ends with a description of a decision the Radio... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Leading Change; Product Design; Product Development; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

07 Mar 2019
HBS Seminar

Petra Moser, NYU Stern School of Business

16 Nov 2015
HBS Seminar

Vish Krishnan, Professor of Innovation, Technology & Operations, University of California San Diego Rady School of Man

2009
Working Paper

Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation

By: William R. Kerr

We investigate the speed at which clusters of invention for a technology migrate spatially following breakthrough inventions. We identify breakthrough inventions as the top one percent of US inventions for a technology during 1975-1984 in terms of subsequent citations.... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Immigration; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Patents; Industry Clusters; United States

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