Publications

2012
Working Paper

'Power from Sunshine': A Business History of Solar Energy

By: Geoffrey Jones and Loubna Bouamane

This working paper provides a longitudinal perspective on the business history of solar energy between the nineteenth century and the present day. It covers early attempts to develop solar energy, the use of passive solar in architecture before World War 2, and the... View Details

Keywords: Renewable Energy; Business History; Policy; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Business Model; Energy Industry

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29 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Risky Trust: How Multi-entity Teams Develop Trust in a High Risk Endeavor

Keywords: by Faaiza Rashid & Amy C. Edmondson

Fortune Tellers

The period leading up to the Great Depression witnessed the rise of economic forecasters, pioneers who sought to use the tools of science to predict the future, with the aim of profiting from their forecasts. This book chronicles the lives and careers of the men who... View Details

December 2013
Case

Bruce Allyn: Negotiating with the KGB (A)

By: James K. Sebenius

Isolated by the KGB in Moscow, Harvard graduate student Bruce Allyn faces high-pressure negotiation tactics to recruit him for the Soviet spy agency. At the tense height of the Cold War, with CIA agents systematically being exposed and executed in Russia, Allyn was... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Bargaining; Hard Bargaining; KGB; Espionage; Spying; War; National Security; Alliances; Ethics; Negotiation Tactics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation Participants; Negotiation Offer; Cambridge; Moscow; Soviet Union

February 2023
Module Note

Illiberalism and Interdependence

By: Meg Rithmire

This module note explains the themes of Illiberalism and Interdependence, the cases and readings used to teach these themes, and how the themes fit into the MITI course. After decades of international political economy scholarship focusing on the impact of rules, there... View Details

Keywords: International Relations; Globalized Economies and Regions; Business and Government Relations; National Security; Economic Systems

December 2015
Case

Negotiating the Path of Abraham, 2015 Progress and Challenges

By: James K. Sebenius

The Abraham Path board reviews the last five years and seeks to frame and act on its major strategic, negotiating, and operational challenges going forward. The Abraham Path Initiative seeks to revitalize a route of Middle East cultural tourism following Abraham's path... View Details

2013
Book

Fortune Tellers: The Story of America's First Economic Forecasters

By: Walter A. Friedman

The period leading up to the Great Depression witnessed the rise of the economic forecasters, pioneers who sought to use the tools of science to predict the future, with the aim of profiting from their forecasts. This book chronicles the lives and careers of the men... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting And Prediction; Economic History; Economics; History; Risk and Uncertainty; United States

July 2008 (Revised June 2012)
Case

Corruption in Germany

By: Rawi E. Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer

Why do managers become corrupt? Does corruption ever pay? When do friendly relations cross into bribery? How can CEOs manage and prevent outbreaks of corruption? These and other questions are raised by three short case studies of corruption in Germany: at the global... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Law; Managerial Roles; Practice; Conflict of Interests; Germany

15 Mar 2016
First Look

March 15, 2016

for market share. Faced with this daunting business environment, T-Mobile's new CEO declared war on the rest of the industry, decrying competitor pricing practices and upending the traditional contract-based business model. This case... View Details

2009
Book

Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Organization

By: Ranjay Gulati

In an era of raging commoditization and eroding profit margins, survival depends on resilience: staying one step ahead of your customers. Sure, most companies say they're "customer focused," but they don't deliver solutions to customers' thorniest problems. Why?... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Customer Focus and Relationships; Profit; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Cooperation

17 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

What the Stockdale Paradox Tells Us About Crisis Leadership

What is the Stockdale Paradox? Stockdale was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for seven-and-a-half years. Before meeting with the legendary soldier and statesman, Collins read Stockdale’s memoir and found its grim details hard to bear,... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

2021
Working Paper

Issue Salience and Political Stereotypes

By: Pedro Bordalo, Marco Tabellini and David Yang

U.S. voters exaggerate the differences in attitudes held by Republicans and Democrats on a range of socioeconomic and political issues, and higher perceived polarization is associated with greater political engagement and affective polarization. In this paper, we... View Details

Keywords: Politics; Stereotypes; Belief Distortions; Model; Government and Politics; Public Opinion; Values and Beliefs

SSRN

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December 2019
Case

CME Group in 2019

By: José B. Alvarez, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred

Chicago-based CME Group is the world’s largest futures and options marketplace, with annual trading volume of over 4.8 billion contracts in 2018. This case is set in late 2019, as heightened perceptions of risk stemming from the U.S.-China trade war are driving record... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Risk Management; Futures and Commodity Futures; Trade; Price; Competition; Risk and Uncertainty; Competitive Strategy; United States; China; Brazil

2012
Working Paper

Unobserved State Fragility and the Political Transfer Problem

By: Faisal Z. Ahmed and Eric Werker

Autocrats experiencing a windfall in unearned income may find it optimal to donate to other countries some of the windfall in order to make the state a less attractive prize to potential insurgents. We put forward a model that makes that prediction, as well as the... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Non-Renewable Energy; International Relations; Economics

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2004
Book

Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America

By: Walter A. Friedman

This book chronicles the remarkable metamorphosis of the American salesman from itinerant amateur to trained expert. From the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of World War II, the development of sales management transformed an economy populated by peddlers and... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Employees; Transformation; United States

19 Sep 2023
HBS Case

How Will the Tech Titans Behind ChatGPT, Bard, and LLaMA Make Money?

whether we should adopt AI—but rather, when and how to do so,” says Andy Wu, the Arjun and Minoo Melwani Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Wu’s recent case study and background note, AI Wars... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Technology; Information Technology

Web

Strategy - Faculty & Research

that Mitsui look like?” June 2025 Case AI Wars in 2025 By: Andy Wu and Anna Yang In June 2025, Google leaders in Mountain View, CA convened after its parent company Alphabet shed a quarter-trillion in market capitalization in a matter of... View Details

November 2008
Article

Winning the Race for Talent in Emerging Markets

By: Douglas A. Ready, Linda A. Hill and Jay A. Conger

"This war for talent is like nothing we've ever seen before," write the authors, who have spent decades studying talent management and leadership development. Recently they interviewed executives at more than 20 global companies to identify strategies for attracting... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Selection and Staffing; Talent and Talent Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Culture; Recruitment; Diversity; Developing Countries and Economies

January 2008
Case

The Deutsche Bank (A)

By: David A. Moss

Founded in 1870 to help finance surging German exports and imports, the Deutsche Bank soon moved into domestic banking. In fact, its founders aimed to create both a commercial bank and an investment bank under one roof—that is, a "universal bank." By the end of the... View Details

Keywords: History; Investment Banking; Commercial Banking; Banking Industry; Germany