Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,649)
- Faculty Publications (680)
- 2007
- Working Paper
Interpersonal Authority in a Theory of the Firm
This paper develops a theory of the firm in which a firm's centralized asset ownership and low-powered incentives give a manager 'interpersonal authority' over employees (in a world with differing priors). The paper derives such interpersonal authority as... View Details
- June 2007
- Article
Does Employment Protection Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States
By: David H Autor, William R. Kerr and Adriana D. Kugler
Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distorting production choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiring below efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affect... View Details
Keywords: Theory; Production; Selection and Staffing; Cost; Employment; Capital; Performance Productivity; United States
- June 2007
- Article
Which Levers Boost ROI?
By: Margeaux Cvar and John A. Quelch
The article refers to ROI, or return on investment, and focuses on a rational strategy for financial markets that uses outside industry comparisons. The first step is to identify parallel businesses that have similar characteristics such as growth, capital, and market... View Details
- May 2007
- Article
Location Strategies and Knowledge Spillovers
By: Juan Alcacer and Wilbur Chung
Given the importance of proximity for knowledge spillovers, we examine firms' location choices expecting differences in firms' strategies. Firms will locate to maximize their net spillovers as a function of locations' knowledge activity, their own capabilities, and... View Details
- April 2007 (Revised October 2007)
- Background Note
An Overview of Project Finance & Infrastructure Finance - 2006 Update
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Aldo Sesia
Provides an introduction to the fields of project finance and infrastructure finance, and gives a statistical overview of project-financed investments over the years from 2002 to 2006. Examples of project-financed investments include the $4 billion Chad-Cameroon... View Details
- March 2007 (Revised June 2007)
- Case
Wal-Mart, 2007
By: David B. Yoffie and Michael Slind
In 2007, Wal-Mart faced challenges to its historically high growth rate. Lagging same-store sales and setbacks overseas led the company to consider strategic shifts. Wal-Mart was the world's largest retailer, but competition had become particularly acute as the company... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Retail Market Structure and Dynamics: A Three Country Comparison of Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.
By: Jonathan Haskel, Ron S. Jarmin, Kazuyuki Motohashi and Raffaella Sadun
This paper compares structure and dynamics of the Retail Trade Sectors in Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. This is done using confidential establishment and firm level data for each country. By using micro data we are able to perform much more detailed comparisons than... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
The Value of a 'Free' Customer
By: Sunil Gupta, Carl F. Mela and Jose M. Vidal-Sanz
Central to a firm's growth and marketing policy is the revenus and profit potential of its customer assets. As a result, there has been a recent proliferation of work regarding customer lifetime value. However, extant research in this area is silent regarding how to... View Details
- October 2006 (Revised August 2023)
- Background Note
Note on Student Outcomes in U.S. Public Education
By: Stacey M. Childress, Stig Leschly and John J-H Kim
Surveys educational outcomes among public school students in the United States. Educational outcomes are categorized as achievement outcomes (measured primarily by students' performance on standardized test results) and attainment outcomes (measured primarily by... View Details
- 2006
- Other Unpublished Work
Does Competition Increase Patent Litigation? Empirical Evidence of Strategic Patenting in the Telecom Equipment Industry
By: Juan Alcacer and Rachelle C. Sampson
Anecdotal evidence suggests that patent litigation has increased in the last 20 years as firms in knowledge intensive industries use patents more frequently to protect their knowledge stocks and managers focus on extracting new revenue streams from existing patent... View Details
- July 2006
- Article
Bringing History (Back) into International Business
By: G. Jones and Tarun Khanna
We argue that the field of international business should evolve its rhetoric from the relatively uncontroversial idea that 'history matters' to exploring how it matters. We discuss four conceptual channels through which history matters, illustrating each with a major... View Details
- March 2006
- Module Note
Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World
Describes the second module of the 30-session Harvard Business School elective course Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World. The course helps students understand the challenges that uncertainty implies for innovation and how to overcome these challenges. The course... View Details
- March 2006
- Background Note
Influencing Customer Behavior in Service Operations
By: Frances X. Frei and Amy C. Edmondson
Explores ways in which service firms can influence the behavior of their customers. Drawing from research on employee motivation and applying it to customer motivation, the note describes two levels of managerial control: instrumental control, which shapes behavior... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
The Limits of Authority: Motivation versus Coordination
This paper studies the effects of open disagreement on motivation and coordination. It shows how, in the presence of differing priors, motivation and coordination impose conflicting demands on the allocation of authority, leading to a trade-off between the... View Details
- 2005
- Working Paper
Silent Saboteurs: How Implicit Theories of Voice Inhibit the Upward Flow of Knowledge in Organizations
By: James R. Detert and Amy C. Edmondson
This article examines, in a series of three studies, how people working in organizational hierarchies wrestle with the challenge of upward voice. We first undertook in-depth exploratory research in a knowledge-intensive multinational corporation in which employee input... View Details
- August 2005 (Revised December 2006)
- Case
Procter & Gamble: Electronic Data Capture and Clinical Trial Management
By: Robert S. Huckman and Mark J. Cotteleer
Considers whether the management of Procter & Gamble (P&G) Pharmaceuticals should adopt Web-based electronic data capture (EDC) as the default standard for the management of its clinical drug trials. Provides a detailed description of the existing paper-based process... View Details
- July 2005 (Revised April 2006)
- Case
Carnival Cruise Lines
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Robert Kwortnik and Gabriele Piccoli
Highlights the potential value of customer data and the choices and challenges the firm faces when attempting to capture this value. Carnival collects a significant amount of individual-level behavioral and demographic customer data. Senior management must now decide... View Details
- April 2005
- Article
Partisan Social Happiness
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
We use a new approach to study questions in political economy that relies on data on the subjective well-being of a large sample of people living in the OECD over the period 1975-1992. Controlling for the personal characteristics of the respondents, year and country... View Details
- March 2005 (Revised August 2007)
- Case
Brocade: Launching the Multiprotocol Router
By: Elie Ofek and Mamoon Hamid
Brocade management is preparing for the launch of a new technology for data storage. The multiprotocol router improves on existing technology and has the potential to change the way firms design their data storage networks. Students must determine the target market for... View Details
- March 2005 (Revised August 2006)
- Case
Siebel Systems: The Role of the CFO
By: Malcolm P. Baker and Lauren Barley
Mike Lawrie, the newly appointed CEO of Siebel Systems, considers a combination of growth and spending cuts to turn around the struggling software company. Focuses on the role of the chief financial officer, Ken Goldman, in corporate governance and compliance under... View Details