Publications

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February 1990
Background Note

Information Technology in Organizations: Emerging Issues in Ethics and Policy

Introduces a framework for identifying and analyzing the ethical and policy issues triggered by the various capabilities of information technology (IT). Ten IT capabilities are defined (access, capture, speed, permanence/storage. duplication, tracking, monitoring, data... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Information Technology; Ethics; Organizations; Policy

October 1995
Article

Start-ups, Spin-offs, and Internal Projects

By: James J. Anton and Dennis Yao

We examine the incentive problem confronting a firm and employee when the employee privately discovers a significant invention and faces a choice between keeping the invention private and leaving the firm to form a new company (start-up), or transferring knowledge and... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Projects; Motivation and Incentives; Rights; Employees; Innovation and Invention; Compensation and Benefits; Knowledge Sharing; Capital; Profit

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11 Sep 2020
HBS Seminar

Janet Freilich, Fordham University, School of Law

2025
Working Paper

Transferability MATTRs: Towards Understanding Antecedents of Strategic Licensing

By: Dafna F. Bearson and Maria P. Roche

This paper examines the antecedents of firms’ decisions to license intellectual property (IP). We propose a conceptual framework emphasizing two critical factors: (1) transferability, which we define as the ease of moving knowledge embodied in inventions across firm... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Intellectual Property; Value Creation

June 2008
Article

How Are Preferences Revealed?

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

Revealed preferences are tastes that rationalize an economic agent's observed actions. Normative preferences represent the agent's actual interests. It sometimes makes sense to assume that revealed preferences are identical to normative preferences. But there are many... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Attitudes; Microeconomics

2008
Working Paper

On Best-Response Bidding in GSP Auctions

By: Matthew Cary, Aparna Das, Benjamin Edelman, Ioannis Giotis, Kurtis Heimerl, Anna R. Karlin, Claire Mathieu and Michael Schwarz

How should players bid in keyword auctions such as those used by Google, Yahoo! and MSN? We model ad auctions as a dynamic game of incomplete information, so we can study the convergence and robustness properties of various strategies. In particular, we consider... View Details

Keywords: Online Advertising; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Game Theory; Mathematical Methods; Competitive Strategy

21 Jul 2009
First Look

First Look: July 21

name was threatened by the intellectual property rights provided by GIs. The case focuses on what should be the legal outcome of the WTO dispute, as well as possible business strategies by Alexandra in the event of an adverse outcome to... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Howard H. Stevenson

Howard H. Stevenson is Sarofim-Rock Baker Foundation Professor emeritus, former Senior Associate Dean, Director of Publishing, and Chair of the Harvard Business Publishing Company board. The Sarofim-Rock Chair was established in 1982 to provide a continuing base for... View Details

Keywords: broadcasting; communications; computer; construction; financial services; forest products; health care; high technology; industrial goods; insurance industry; investment banking industry; manufacturing; paper; professional services; real estate; service industry; software; venture capital industry

March 2009
Case

Incept LLC and Confluent Surgical (A)

By: Bhaskar Chakravorti, Toby E. Stuart and James Weber

A venture capitalist must decide whether to invest in a medical technology company that licenses intellectual property from a privately held IP holding company based on a platform technology. Entrepreneurs Amar Sawhney and Fred Khosravi founded Incept LLC to... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Intellectual Property; Rights; Agreements and Arrangements; Partners and Partnerships; Trust; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

02 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

10 Trends to Watch in 2024

The lightning-fast ascent of generative AI isn’t the only sea change on the horizon for businesses in the new year. The global economy is in flux as war, climate change, trade issues, and infrastructure problems demand attention. Many companies continue to struggle to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

April 2020
Article

Collective Emotions

By: Amit Goldenberg, David Garcia, Eran Halperin and James J. Gross

When analyzing situations in which multiple people are experiencing emotions together—whether the emotions are positive or negative and whether the situations are online or offline—we are intuitively drawn to the emotions of each individual in the situation. However,... View Details

Keywords: Emotions; Social Psychology

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March 1988 (Revised September 1993)
Case

United Services Automobile Association (USAA)

Under the leadership of Robert F. McDermott, USAA has been transformed from a property and casualty insurance company with $200 million in assets in the late 1960s to a $11 billion financial services empire in 1988. The case illustrates the value of having a CEO drive... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Leadership; Information Technology; Financial Services Industry; Insurance Industry; United States

2015
Working Paper

Full Substitutability

By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers, Alexandru Nichifor, Michael Ostrovsky and Alexander Westkamp

Various forms of substitutability are essential for establishing the existence of equilibria and other useful properties in diverse settings such as matching, auctions, and exchange economies with indivisible goods. We extend earlier models' canonical definitions of... View Details

Keywords: Market Design; Balance and Stability

Article

Stakeholder Marketing 2.0

As more companies pursue "open innovation" and adopt social networking and Web 2.0 tools, there is an emerging opportunity for them to connect with a diverse body of stakeholders and incorporate their interests and ideas. However, this also introduces many new... View Details

Keywords: Social and Collaborative Networks; Business and Stakeholder Relations

March 2007 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Chiaphua Group Vietnam

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas and Michael Shih-ta Chen

As part of its expansion and diversification strategy, the Chiaphua Group explored real estate investments in emerging markets. The Group was one of the largest privately held company groups based in Hong Kong, with international investments in a variety of... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Laws and Statutes; Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Diversification; Hong Kong

19 Mar 2007
Research & Ideas

Handicapping the Best Countries for Business

changes, of political instability, of corruption, etc. Q: If you were to boil down the key ingredients needed by a country to create successful economic growth, what would they be? A: Key ingredients (also described in my book's conclusion) include sound fiscal and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

26 Feb 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Long-Run Stockholder Consumption Risk and Asset Returns

Keywords: by Christopher J. Malloy, Tobias J. Moskowitz & Annette Vissing-Jørgensen; Financial Services

2015
Working Paper

Measurement Errors of Expected-Return Proxies and the Implied Cost of Capital

By: Charles C.Y. Wang

Despite their popularity as proxies of expected returns, the implied cost of capital's (ICC) measurement error properties are relatively unknown. Through an in-depth analysis of a popular implementation of ICCs by Gebhardt, Lee, and Swaminathan (2001) (GLS), I show... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Cost of Capital; Investment Return

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