Publications

SSRN

16 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

The Cost of Friendship

Keywords: by Paul Gompers, Vladimir Mukharlyamov & Yuhai Xuan

24 Aug 2012
News

Something for the weekend

June 2017
Case

Maggie Wilderotter: The Evolution of an Executive

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott and Robin Abrahams

In a career that spanned over 30 years, Maggie Wilderotter served as CEO of two publicly traded companies and served on 32 corporate and 9 association and nonprofit boards of directors. As CEO of Frontier Communications, a U.S. telecom company with over $25 billion in... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Managing People; Networks; Strategy And Leadership; Personal Development and Career; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Social and Collaborative Networks; Gender; Power and Influence; Telecommunications Industry; United States

Educators

Purchase

March 1995 (Revised January 1996)
Background Note

Managerial Networks

Describes a managerial network as a set of relationships critical to a manager's ability to get things done, get ahead, and develop personally and professionally. "Networking" refers to the activities associated with developing and managing such relationships.... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Management Practices and Processes

Educators

Purchase

17 Jul 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Why Do We Redistribute So Much but Tag So Little? The Principle of Equal Sacrifice and Optimal Taxation

Keywords: by Matthew Weinzierl

August 2014
Article

Friends in High Places

By: Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy

We demonstrate that personal connections amongst U.S. politicians have a significant impact on Senate voting behavior. Networks based on alumni connections between politicians are consistent predictors of voting behavior. We estimate sharp measures that control for... View Details

Keywords: Vote Trading; Networks; Legislation; Logrolling; Earmarks; Voting; Government Legislation; Social and Collaborative Networks; United States

November 2003 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Beverly Stern: Retail Executive

By: H. Kent Bowen and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Beverly Stern has been a successful operating manager in three prominent retail chains: GAP, Pottery Barn, and Williams-Sonoma. Stern's last job at a start-up did not meet her expectations, and she must now decide what to do next. She has an offer to start a new retail... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Experience and Expertise; Personal Characteristics; Jobs and Positions; Decisions; Retail Industry

19 Mar 2013
News

3 Traits That Can Make or Break a Businessperson

March 2016
Article

The Cost of Friendship

By: Paul A. Gompers, Vladimir Mukharlyamov and Yuhai Xuan

We investigate how personal characteristics affect people's desire to collaborate and whether this attraction enhances or detracts from performance in venture capital. We find that venture capitalists who share the same ethnic, educational, or career background are... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Partners and Partnerships; Entrepreneurship; Personal Characteristics

February 2014
Article

'Last-place Aversion': Evidence and Redistributive Implications

By: Ilyana Kuziemko, Ryan W. Buell, Taly Reich and Michael Norton

We present evidence from laboratory experiments showing that individuals are "last-place averse." Participants choose gambles with the potential to move them out of last place that they reject when randomly placed in other parts of the distribution. In... View Details

Keywords: Income; Rank and Position; Attitudes

2014
Working Paper

The Cost of Friendship

By: Paul A. Gompers, Vladimir Mukharlyamov and Yuhai Xuan

We investigate how personal characteristics affect people's desire to collaborate and whether this attraction enhances or detracts from performance in venture capital. We find that venture capitalists who share the same ethnic, educational, or career background are... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Partners and Partnerships; Decision Making; Identity

June 2017
Article

Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol

By: Silvia Bellezza, Neeru Paharia and Anat Keinan

While research on conspicuous consumption has typically analyzed how people spend money on products that signal status, we investigate conspicuous consumption in relation to time. We argue that a busy and overworked lifestyle, rather than a leisurely lifestyle, has... View Details

Keywords: Status and Position; Perspective; North America; Europe

22 Apr 2002
Research & Ideas

Does Spirituality Drive Success?

spirituality in business. Can Spirituality Drive Success? Should It? In a session exploring how spirituality can lead to business success, panelist Tony Schwartz confessed to one distinction: he was perhaps the only person in the world... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace, Sean Silverthorne & Wendy Guild

October 2021
Article

Fintech Borrowers: Lax Screening or Cream-Skimming?

By: Marco Di Maggio and Vincent Yao

Personal credit is the fastest-growing segment of the consumer credit market, mainly driven by fintech lenders' staggering expansion. We study this market using a unique individual-level data, which covers most of the top fintech and traditional lenders, and provides... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Lending; Consumer Finance; Credit History; Self-control; Present Bias; Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Credit; Behavior

29 Apr 2025
HBS Seminar

Magie Cheng & David Huang

2008
Working Paper

Cost of External Finance and Selection into Entrepreneurship

By: Ramana Nanda

This paper examines the extent to which the positive relationship between personal wealth and entry into entrepreneurship is due to financing constraints. I exploit a tax reform and use unique micro-data from Denmark to study how exogenous changes in the cost of... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Cost; Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Human Capital; Wealth; Denmark

26 Apr 2020
Other Presentation

Towards Modeling the Variability of Human Attention

By: Kuno Kim, Megumi Sano, Julian De Freitas, Daniel Yamins and Nick Haber

Children exhibit extraordinary exploratory behaviors hypothesized to contribute to the building of models of their world. Harnessing this capacity in artificial systems promises not only more flexible technology but also cognitive models of the developmental processes... View Details

Keywords: Exploratory Learning Behaviors; Modeling; Artificial Intelligence; AI and Machine Learning

February 2011
Case

Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership

By: Boris Groysberg and Deborah Bell

Reviews Rebecca Halstead's career history, detailing how, through her personal attributes, skills, experiences, challenges, and organizational practices she developed into a successful leader and commander in the U.S. Army. The case profiles her leadership style and... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Groups and Teams; Competitive Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Organizational Culture; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Gender; Power and Influence