Publications

2021
Article

Institutional Policies for a Healthy Anthropocene Society

By: Andrew J. Hoffman, P. Devereaux Jennings and Nicholas A. Poggioli

The Anthropocene epoch refers to the geological epoch, now underway, that is defined by monumental, human-caused geophysical changes in planetary ecosystems. Human society is also changing, marked by an equally profound shift in attitudes, beliefs, and practices. In... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Values and Beliefs; Climate Change; Natural Environment; Society

June, 2024
Book Review

Debunking Immigration Myths: A Review Essay of 'Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success' (PublicAffairs, 2022) by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan

By: Marco Tabellini

This essay reviews Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan. This elegantly written book, highly accessible to both economists and non-economists, is a must-read for anyone interested in the topic of... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; History; United States

March–April 2022
Article

School Choice in Chile

By: Jose Correa, Natalie Epstein, Rafael Epstein, Juan Escobar, Ignacio Rios, Nicolas Aramayo, Bastian Bahamondes, Carlos Bonet, Martin Castillo, Andres Cristi, Boris Epstein and Felipe Subiabre

Centralized school admission mechanisms are an attractive way of improving social welfare and fairness in large educational systems. In this paper, we report the design and implementation of the newly established school choice system in Chile, where over 274,000... View Details

Keywords: Early Childhood Education; Secondary Education; Middle School Education; Family and Family Relationships; Welfare; Chile

Register to Read

September–October 2015
Article

Crash and Burn: Why Silicon Valley's Notion That Failure Leads to Success Won't Work for the Rest of the World

By: Debora L. Spar

In the frenzied hills of Silicon Valley, going bust is common. Research attests that close to half of start-ups supported by venture capital chew through most or all of their backers' money and that the majority never achieve their projected returns on investment. But... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Failure; Learning; Situation or Environment

September 2019
Case

Dementia Discovery Fund

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Kathy Giusti and Sarah Gulick

The case is set in March 2019, and tells the story of the founding of the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF). The idea for the fund began in 2015, when then-Prime Minister David Cameron spoke about the importance of making breakthroughs in dementia research, and pledged... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment Funds; Mission and Purpose; Recruitment; Health Care and Treatment; Pharmaceutical Industry; Financial Services Industry; Boston; Massachusetts; London; England

Educators

January 2018
Article

Big Data and Big Cities: The Promises and Limitations of Improved Measures of Urban Life

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Luca and Nikhil Naik

New, "big" data sources allow measurement of city characteristics and outcome variables at higher frequencies and finer geographic scales than ever before. However, big data will not solve large urban social science questions on its own. Big data has the most value for... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Urban Scope; City

February 2016
Teaching Note

Advanced Leadership Pathways: General Gale Pollock and Services for the Vision Impaired

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Tessa Natanay Hamilton and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Following a successful military career as an Army Nurse, achieving rank as Major General, becoming the first female Acting Surgeon General of the Army, and the 22nd Chief of the Army Nurse Corps, Pollock developed a vested interest in improving the lives of the... View Details

Keywords: Health

2015
Chapter

Managerial Responsibility and the Purpose of Business: Doing One's Job Well

By: Nien-he Hsieh

Business managers routinely make decisions that significantly affect the lives of others in both positive and negative ways. In the light of these wide-ranging effects, much scholarship has been devoted to specifying the responsibilities of managers of for-profit... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives

January 2016
Case

COFCO

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

In 2015, COFCO, China's state-owned agribusiness giant, was working to protect China's food security (a key national security priority) by extending its control of the global food system through overseas acquisitions. At the same time, COFCO sought to grow its market... View Details

Educators

2015
Chapter

Leading Proactive Punctuated Change

By: Michael Tushman, Charles O'Reilly and Bruce Harreld

This chapter focuses on leading proactive punctuated change. Based on the institutional and organizational change literatures and our extended involvement with IBM between 1999 and 2008, we suggest that proactive punctuated change can be effectively managed through an... View Details

Spring 2013
Article

The Growth of Finance

By: Robin Greenwood and David S. Scharfstein

The U.S. financial services industry grew from 4.9% of GDP in 1980 to 7.9% of GDP in 2007. A sizeable portion of the growth can be explained by rising asset management fees, which in turn were driven by increases in the valuation of tradable assets, particularly... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Asset Management; Research; Mortgages; Financial Services Industry

2011
Working Paper

Organizations in the Shadow of Communities

By: Siobhan O'Mahony and Karim R. Lakhani

The concept of a community form is drawn upon in many subfields of organizational theory. Although there is not much convergence on a level of analysis, there is convergence on a mode of action that is increasingly relevant to a knowledge-based economy marked by porous... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Organizational Culture; Civil Society or Community; Boundaries; Information Technology; Theory; Value Creation

September 2009
Module Note

Leading Teams Note

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer

This note, which describes the architecture and processes that characterize effective teams, begins by detailing the steps involved in designing a team, from diagnosing the complexity, interdependence, and objectives of the task to harnessing the key resources teams... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Experience and Expertise; Decision Choices and Conditions; Knowledge Sharing; Leadership; Business Processes; Groups and Teams