Publications

Summer 2014
Article

Delegation in Multi‐Establishment Firms: Adaptation vs. Coordination in I.T. Purchasing Authority

By: Kristina Steffenson McElheran

This paper conducts one of the first large-scale, establishment-level empirical studies of delegation within firms. Recent contributions to a rapidly growing theory literature have focused on the tradeoff between adaptation and coordination in determining... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Leadership; Management Practices and Processes; Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Adaptation

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2020
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 5 Ecosystems and Complementarities

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce two new building blocks to the theory of how technology shapes organizations. The first is a new layer of organization structure: a business “ecosystem.” The second is the economic concept of “complementarity.” Ecosystems are... View Details

Keywords: Business Ecosystems; Complementarity; Modularity; Information Technology; Organizations

23 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Lessons on Life, Graffiti, and Value: 'It's in That Darkness That You Can Actually Develop and Evolve'

James W. Riley has been confronted with questions of identity and alienation since he was a teenage graffiti artist navigating 1990s Los Angeles. “I’ve always had this notion of going places and being in spaces that maybe subtly said, ‘You don’t belong here,’” said... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

March 1993 (Revised March 1994)
Case

Sierra On-Line, Inc. (A)

Sierra On-Line, a fast growing software developer, is criticized by a Forbes journalist for excessively capitalizing software development costs. In contrast to most other software developers that typically capitalize about 20% of R&D costs, Sierra capitalizes 80%.... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Financial Statements; Corporate Finance; Information Technology Industry

October 2016 (Revised February 2019)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 5: Building a Profit Plan

By: Robert Simons

This module reading describes how to build a profit plan to reflect the strategy of a business in economic terms. After introducing the profit wheel, cash wheel, and ROE wheel, the module illustrates how to use a profit plan to assess the viability of different... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Profit Planning; Cash Flow Analysis; Asset Utilization; Return On Equity; Business Planning; Testing Strategy; Analyzing Strategic Alternative; Strategy; Asset Management; Cash Flow; Investment Return; Management Systems; Profit

March 2011
Article

Accounting Scholarship That Advances Professional Knowledge and Practice

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Recent accounting scholarship has used statistical analysis on asset prices, financial reports and disclosures, laboratory experiments, and surveys of practice. The research has studied the interface among accounting information, capital markets, standard setters, and... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Asset Pricing; Risk Management; Surveys; Capital Markets; Measurement and Metrics; Valuation; Fair Value Accounting; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Financial Reporting

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2013
Working Paper

Return Predictability in the Treasury Market: Real Rates, Inflation, and Liquidity

By: Carolin E. Pflueger and Luis M. Viceira

Estimating the liquidity differential between inflation-indexed and nominal bond yields, we separately test for time-varying real rate risk premia, inflation risk premia, and liquidity premia in U.S. and U.K. bond markets. We find strong, model independent evidence... View Details

Keywords: Expectations Hypothesis; Term Structure; Real Interest Rate Risk; Inflation Risk; Inflation-Indexed Bonds; Financial Crisis; Inflation and Deflation; Financial Liquidity; Bonds; Investment Return; Risk and Uncertainty; United Kingdom; United States

2011
Working Paper

The First Deal: The Division of Founder Equity in New Ventures

By: Thomas F. Hellmann and Noam Wasserman

This paper examines the division of founder shares in entrepreneurial ventures, focusing on the decision of whether or not to divide the shares equally among all founders. To motivate the empirical analysis we develop a simple theory of costly bargaining, where... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Fairness; Equity; Managerial Roles; Negotiation Deal; Ownership Stake; Value

23 Nov 2020
Research & Ideas

COVID Was Supposed to Increase Bankruptcies. Instead, They've Gone Down.

Bankruptcy filings in the United States were expected to soar during this year’s economic recession, induced by COVID-19. Instead, they dropped 27 percent year-over-year through August, driven by an unexpected drop in consumer and small... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

February 2010
Case

Shurgard Self-Storage: Expansion to Europe (Abridged)

By: Richard G. Hamermesh

Shurgard, a U.S.-based firm that rents storage facilities to consumers and small businesses, is considering financing options for rapid expansion of its European operations. Five years after entering Europe, Shurgard Europe has opened 17 facilities in Belgium, France,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Growth and Maturation; Multinational Firms and Management; Logistics; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Trade; Equity; Corporate Finance; United States; Europe

2018
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 5 Complementarity

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to relate the theory of task networks and technology set forth in previous chapters to theories of firm boundaries from economics and management. Complementary goods have more value when used together than separately. Complementarity may... View Details

Keywords: Complementarity

Carolyn Fu is an assistant professor of business administration in the Strategy Unit. She studies innovation strategy—specifically, how firms can uncover new sources of value through their interactions with the wider innovation ecosystem. Her research explores... View Details

2012
Discussion Paper

Labor Productivity and Quality Change in Singapore: Achievements in 1974-2011 and Prospects for the Next Two Decades

By: Koji Nomura and Tomomichi Amano

Labor productivity growth in Singapore that has grown at a rate of over 3.0 percent per year since 1970s considerably slowed down to 0.5 percent on average per annum in the latter half of the 2000s. The purpose of this paper is to ask, first, to what extent Singapore’s... View Details

Keywords: Labor; Performance Productivity; Quality; Economic Growth; Singapore

March 2004 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Shurgard Self-Storage: Expansion to Europe

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Indra Reinbergs

Shurgard, a U.S.-based firm that rents storage facilities to consumers and small businesses, is considering financing options for rapid expansion of its European operations. Five years after entering Europe, Shurgard Europe has opened 17 facilities in Belgium, France,... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Valuation; Business Model; Governing and Advisory Boards; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Service Industry; Belgium; France; Sweden; United States; Europe

21 Apr 2008
Research & Ideas

The New Math of Customer Relationships

seek economic ways of making both employees and targeted customers know that you value their loyalty—this doesn't require a lot of money; and fourth, work even harder at creating "owners" by... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

November 2015 (Revised August 2016)
Case

Unilever's New Global Strategy: Competing through Sustainability

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

In January 2009, when Paul Polman was appointed CEO of Unilever, he inherited a company in long-term decline at the beginning of a major global financial crisis. As the first outsider ever recruited to lead the company, Polman lost little time in challenging the... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Competitive Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Consumer Products Industry

December 2000
Background Note

Online Retailers

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alastair Brown

Describes online retailers, companies that use the Internet to sell physical goods. Defines online retailers and describes different ways to categorize them. Explores their economic model and value proposition for consumers in comparison with offline retailers. Next,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Internet; Retail Industry