Publications

2014
Working Paper

Management Practices, Relational Contracts and the Decline of General Motors

By: Susan Helper and Rebecca Henderson

General Motors was once regarded as one of the best managed and most successful firms in the world, but between 1980 and 2009 its share of the US market fell from 62.6 to 19.8 percent, and in 2009 the firm went bankrupt. In this paper we argue that the conventional... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Structure; Decision Making; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry

18 Jul 2014
News

“The Promise of Microfinance and Women’s Empowerment; What Does the Evidence Say?;”

20 Sep 2019
Research & Ideas

Solving the Riddle of How Companies Grow Over Time

“Even though investors may want to see higher growth, it may be better to sacrifice some short-term growth to gain persistence.” About the Author Michael Blanding is a writer based in View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Manufacturing

06 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

The Determinants of Corporate Venture Capital Success

produce a machine based on the recently developed process named xerography. Invented by the patent lawyer Chester Carlson, xerography involved a process by which images were... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Gompers & Josh Lerner

May 19, 2021
Article

Measuring the Impact of #MeToo on Gender Equity in Hollywood

By: Hong Luo and Laurina Zhang

The #MeToo movement has brought issues of sexual harassment and gender inequities to the forefront around the world. But how much of a tangible impact has it had on the experiences of women in the workplace? In this piece, the authors discuss their research that... View Details

Keywords: #MeToo Movement; Gender Equity; Creative Industries; Impact; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Film Entertainment; Social Issues

Register to Read

December 2022
Article

Conflicting Interests and the Effect of Fiduciary Duty: Evidence from Variable Annuities

By: Mark Egan, Shan Ge and Johnny Tang

We examine the variable annuity market to study conflicts of interest and the effect of fiduciary duty in brokerage markets. Insurers typically pay brokers higher commissions for selling more expensive annuities. Our results indicate that sales are four times as... View Details

Keywords: Variable Annuity; Brokers; Fiduciary Duty; Finance; Investment; Insurance; Conflict of Interests; Financial Services Industry; Insurance Industry; United States

SSRN

02 Jan 2013
What Do You Think?

Should We Rethink the Promise of Teams?

objectively (be) willing to learn continuously . Not be afraid to fail accept responsibility for failures as a team leader and accept credit for success as a team." Regarding the use of teams in View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Article

Advancing Research on Hybrid Organizing—Insights from the Study of Social Enterprises

By: Julie Battilana and Matthew Lee

Hybrid organizations that combine multiple organizational forms deviate from socially legitimate templates for organizing and thus experience unique organizing challenges. In this paper, we introduce and develop the concept of hybrid organizing, which we define as the... View Details

Keywords: Hybrid Organizations; Social Enterprise; Organizational Structure; Social Entrepreneurship

Purchase

September 2009
Article

Virtue out of Necessity? Compliance, Commitment and the Improvement of Labor Conditions in Global Supply Chains

By: Akshay Mangla, Richard Locke and Matthew Amengual

Private, voluntary compliance programs, promoted by global corporations and nongovernmental organizations alike, have produced only modest and uneven improvements in working conditions and labor rights in most global supply chains. Through a detailed study of a major... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Ethics; Supply Chain; Governance Compliance; Globalization

Web

Faculty & Researchers - Managing the Future of Work

Entrepreneurs. Since joining the HBS faculty in 1986, she also served as Co-Chair of the HBS MBA Program, Chair of Field View Details

28 Aug 2009
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Private Equity Ownership on Portfolio Firms’ Corporate Tax Planning

Keywords: by Brad Badertscher, Sharon P. Katz & Sonja Olhoft Rego; Financial Services

08 Jan 2001
What Do You Think?

Have We Extended the Boundaries of the Firm Too Far?

capability in order to preserve proprietary information (Kulkarni). Doherty was concerned that organizations might extend their boundaries without a clear strategy. He offered a "2x2" rule-of-thumb strategy for doing this based... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

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

29 Jan 2019
News

Seth Klarman on the Critical Value of the Long View

admired businesses—how much do those evolve over time based on your market cap? What’s in vogue and in favor is ‘admired.’ ” There is a common thread, the article notes, to these criticisms: “Klarman’s... View Details

2014
Working Paper

The Organizational and Geographic Drivers of Absorptive Capacity: An Empirical Analysis of Pharmaceutical R&D Laboratories

By: Francesca Lazzeri and Gary P. Pisano

Scholars and practitioners alike now recognize that a firm's capacity to assimilate and use know-how from external sources—what Cohen and Levinthal (1990) called "absorptive capacity"—plays a central role in innovation performance. In recent years, a common strategy... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Industry Clusters; Knowledge Acquisition; Pharmaceutical Industry; San Francisco; San Diego; Massachusetts

SSRN

26 Jan 2017
News

The Challenges and Rewards of Teaching by the Case Method

Susan Harmeling (MBA 1991) is founder and president of the International Case Method Institute, a consulting firm whose mission is to develop international business curricula View Details

09 Feb 2018
Research & Ideas

Big Hits: The Best of the 2018 Super Bowl Ads

year. And unlike for most TV advertising, viewers actually watch Super Bowl commercials. Which advertiser did best? It depends on whether we judge based on aesthetic aspects of View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Telecommunications

21 Aug 2000
Lessons from the Classroom

Under the Magnifying Glass: The Benefits of Being a Case Study

What is it really like to be the subject of a case study? According to top executives of four Latin American enterprises that have been held under View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

November 2007
Article

Standing Out from the Crowd: The Visibility-Enhancing Effects of IPO-related Signals on Alliance Formation by Entrepreneurial Firms

By: Tim Pollock and Ranjay Gulati

In this study, we explore how multiple signals related to entrepreneurial companies at the time of their initial public offering (IPO) influence the firms' ability to acquire non-financial resources over time. Specifically, the study looks at how signals based on... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Initial Public Offering; Investment; Alliances; Risk and Uncertainty; Power and Influence