Publications

December 2013 (Revised April 2014)
Case

Seeding Growth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

By: Ray Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Djordjija Petkoski

By 2013, the agricultural sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had long suffered from war, political instability, and dilapidated infrastructure. A country with 75 million inhabitants and the second lowest GDP per capita in the world in 2011, the DRC's... View Details

Keywords: National Agricultural Investment Plan (PNIA); Developing Agriculture; World Bank; Poverty Reduction; Special Economic Zones (SEZs); Small-scale Farmers; Agricultural Business Parks; Agriculture Reform; Agribusiness; Economic Growth; Infrastructure; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa; Congo, Democratic Republic of the

16 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Report from China: The New Entrepreneurs

Travel Dates: June 11-18 Travel Party: Fifteen people, including nine faculty members. Locations: The cities of Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. Companies and institutions visited include Tsinghua Science Park, Microsoft, Li-Ning, Gome, Beijing Genomics, Zhejiang... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Women's Empowerment

"Female Empowerment: Further Evidence From a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines." (with Dean Karlan and Wesley Yin) April 2009, World Development 38, Issue 3, March... View Details

June 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Betting on Green Steel

By: George Serafeim and Sofoklis Melissovas

'Betting on Green Steel' traces the innovative journey embarked upon by a group of MBA students who have set out to conceive a novel steelmaker that pioneers the production of green steel. The ensemble is confronted with a series of critical choices that will shape the... View Details

Keywords: Decarbonization; Sustainability Management; Technology; Industrialization; Climate Risk; Energy; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Technology Adoption; Climate Change; Innovation and Invention; Business Strategy; Family Business; Steel Industry; Middle East; India

May 2020
Case

M-Lab: Enabling Innovation at Mitsubishi Corporation

By: Krishna Palepu and Allison M. Ciechanover

M-Lab’s founding goals were to infuse an innovation mindset into Mitsubishi Corporation; to catalyze new business opportunities; and to enable a dialogue between Japanese business and Silicon Valley. M-Lab housed representatives from each of Mitsubishi Corporation’s... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Disruption; Transformation; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Multinational Firms and Management; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Japan; United States

18 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

New at the Helm: A Talk with HBS Dean Light

Forty years ago, in September 1966, a young mission analyst named Jay Light left the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California and headed east to Harvard Business School. At JPL, Light used his undergraduate engineering physics training to lead a space-mission... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Education

Research Summary

Health

"Can Higher Prices Stimulate Product Use? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Zambia." (with James Berry and Jesse Shapiro) August 2008, American Economic Review, December 2010.View Details

2013
Other Unpublished Work

Household Bargaining and Excess Fertility: An Experimental Study in Zambia

By: Nava Ashraf, Erica Field and Jean Lee

We posit that household decision-making over fertility is characterized by moral hazard due to the fact that most contraception can only be perfectly observed by the woman. Using an experiment in Zambia that varied whether women were given access to contraceptives... View Details

Keywords: Family and Family Relationships; Negotiation; Developing Countries and Economies; Zambia

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September 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

ReMo Energy: Sizing Up Investors

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Tom Quinn

In 2023, executives with ReMo Energy (founded 2020) were deciding which size ammonia plant to build as their first project. Their innovative model produced ammonia—useful for making fertilizer and for energy storage—from renewable energy, and they had received funding... View Details

03 Apr 2014
HBS Seminar

Michael Kremer, Harvard University

Article

Household Bargaining and Excess Fertility: An Experimental Study in Zambia

By: Nava Ashraf, Erica Field and Jean Lee

We posit that household decision-making over fertility is characterized by moral hazard due to the fact that most contraception can only be perfectly observed by the woman. Using an experiment in Zambia that varied whether women were given access to contraceptives... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Health; Household; Gender; Zambia

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Person Page

Press / Media

By: Debora L. Spar

I'll have a girl, please

American Public Media [Marketplace], 12 September 2006

DR. DEBORAH SPAR: "The ability to choose gender is really only the first... View Details

23 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

Management’s Role in Reforming Health Care

individual patient. However, routine practice is itself a fertile source of innovations in care, in both what to do and how to do it. Medical knowledge and how to operationalize it can be learned through taking care of patients, and... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

Research Summary

Intra-Household Decision Making

Professor Ashraf's research in intra-household decision making examines how households make financial and health decisions, particularly in the presence of asymmetric information or benefits.

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2013
Book

Teaming to Innovate

By: Amy C. Edmondson

Innovation requires teaming. (Put another way, teaming is to innovation what assembly lines are to car production.) This book brings together key insights on teaming, as they pertain to innovation. How do you build a culture of innovation? What does that culture look... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Leadership; Groups and Teams; Organizational Culture

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2025
Working Paper

Using Satellites and Phones to Evaluate and Promote Agricultural Technology Adoption: Evidence from Smallholder Farms in India

By: Shawn Cole, Grady Killeen, Tomoko Harigaya and Aparna Krishna

This paper evaluates a low-cost, customized soil nutrient management advisory service in India. As a methodological contribution, we examine whether and in which settings satellite measurements may be effective at estimating both agricultural yields and treatment... View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Technology Adoption; Measurement and Metrics; Analytics and Data Science; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; India

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November 2024
Case

Polish Agro: Where Do We Grow From Here?

By: Willy C. Shih, Lena Duchene and Daniela Beyersdorfer

By July 2024, Polish Agro had grown into one of Poland’s fastest-growing agribusinesses, with €230 million in revenue, 82 employees, and operations across Northern Poland. The company supported farmers with essential agricultural inputs like fertilizers and seeds,... View Details

September 2014
Case

OvaScience

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Tom Nicholas, Toby Stuart and Noah Fisher

In early April 2012, Michelle Dipp, MD, Ph.D, CEO and co-founder of OvaScience, had just received a buyout offer from PG Ventures, a private equit's first promising fertility treatment, AUGMENT (Autologous Germ-line Mitochondrial Energy Transfer), had the potential to... View Details