Publications

2005
Other Unpublished Work

Venture Capital Investment Cycles: The Role of Experience and Specialization

By: P. Gompers, Anna R. Kovner, Josh Lerner and David S. Scharfstein

Keywords: Venture Capital

07 May 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Broadening Focus: Spillovers and the Benefits of Specialization in the Hospital Industry

Keywords: by Jonathan R. Clark & Robert S. Huckman; Health

January 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

ZappRx

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Olivia Hull

In October 2015, ZappRx founder Zoe Barry is deciding between two business models for her health technology start-up. Her product, a software application that aims to expedite the prescription fulfillment process for patients with rare diseases, has attracted interest... View Details

Keywords: Speciality Drugs; Hub Services; Pivot; Speciality Prescriptions; Health Care and Treatment; Customization and Personalization; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Massachusetts

Educators

July 2024
Supplement

Hospital for Special Surgery: Returning to a New Normal? (B)

By: Robert S. Huckman, Michael Lingzhi Li and Camille Gregory

April 2017
Article

Introduction to Special Issue: The Consumer in a Connected World

By: John A. Deighton, Jacob Goldenberg and Andrew T. Stephen

Keywords: Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Consumer Research; Smartphones; Data; Technology

July 2003
Article

Community, Joining, and Specialization in Open Source Software Innovation: A Case Study

By: Georg von Krogh, Sebastian Spaeth and Karim R. Lakhani

Keywords: Civil Society or Community; Applications and Software; Information; Information Technology Industry

December 1980 (Revised November 1982)
Background Note

Rhythms of the Semester: Overall Preparation, Evolving Roles, and Special Classes

2021
Working Paper

Multi-location Workers in Multinational Firms? Tradeoffs in Contextual Specialization of Employees and Organizational Outcomes

By: Hise O. Gibson, Ryan W. Buell and Prithwiraj Choudhury

We study how “contextual specialization,” the act of focusing workers’ organizational tasks within a particular locational context, and “contextual non-specialization,” the practice of diversifying workers’ organizational tasks among multiple locational contexts,... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Performance; Experience and Expertise; Selection and Staffing; Strength and Weakness; Personal Development and Career

July 2000
Article

Competition and Human Capital Accumulation: A Theory of Interregional Specialization and Trade

By: Julio J. Rotemberg and G. Saloner

Keywords: Competition; Human Capital; Theory; Geography; Trade

September 2006
Article

A Model of Forum Shopping, with Special Reference to Standard Setting Organizations

By: Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole

Keywords: Standards; Organizations

July 30, 2020
Article

How to Build a Life: ‘Success Addicts’ Choose Being Special Over Being Happy

By: Arthur C. Brooks

July–August 2021
Article

SPACs: What You Need to Know

By: Max Bazerman and Paresh Patel

Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, have been around in various forms for decades, but during the past two years they’ve taken off in the United States. In 2019, 59 were created, with $13 billion invested; in 2020, 247 were created, with $80 billion... View Details

Keywords: Special Purpose Acquisition Companies; SPACs; Mergers and Acquisitions; Going Public; Investment

June 2021
Technical Note

SPAC Space

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In 2020, over half of all initial public offerings (IPOs) in the United States were special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), blank-check companies that typically had two years to find a business to take public, usually through a reverse merger. Together, 248... View Details

Keywords: Special Purpose Acquisition Companies; SPACs; Mergers and Acquisitions; Going Public; Initial Public Offering; Investment; Strategy

Educators

September–October 2021
Article

Internalization of Advertising Services: Testing a Theory of the Firm

By: Alvin J. Silk, Birger Wernerfelt and Shuyi Yu

In 1956, a group of trade associations representing publishers and independent advertising agencies signed a consent decree aimed at ending a set of trade practices that for half a century effectively precluded advertisers from owning and operating in-house agencies.... View Details

Keywords: Internationalization; Specialization; Theory Of The Firm; Advertising Agencies; Advertising; Organizational Structure; Theory

2012
Chapter

Lessons for the Financial Sector from 'Preventing Regulatory Capture: Special Interest Influence, and How to Limit It'

By: Daniel Carpenter, David Moss and Melanie Wachtell Stinnett

In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2007–09, regulatory capture has become at once a diagnosis and a source of discomfort. The word “capture” has been used by dozens upon dozens of authors—ranging from pundits and bloggers to journalists and leading... View Details

Keywords: Regulatory Capture; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Crisis

2025
Working Paper

Bringing Science to Market: Knowledge Foundations, Inventor-Founders, and Performance

By: Justine Boudou and Maria Roche

In this paper, we examine how a startup’s knowledge foundations—embedded in its core technology—influence its performance in the exit market. Using a dataset of 1,006 biomedicine startups founded between 2005 and 2015, we focus on two key factors: (1) the degree of... View Details

Keywords: Firm Performance; Knowledge Foundations; Exits; Academic Startups; Inventor-founder; Specialized Scientific Knowledge; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Research; Information Publishing; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship

2023
Working Paper

Segmented Going-Public Markets and the Demand for SPACs

By: Angela Ma, Miles Zheng and Jessica Bai

We provide a regulatory-arbitrage-based explanation for the origin and proliferation of the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). SPAC sponsors act as non-bank intermediaries, and the SPAC market structure appeals to yield-seeking investors and riskier,... View Details

Keywords: Special Purpose Acquisition Companies; Non-bank Intermediaries; Regulatory Arbitrage; Adverse Selection; Initial Public Offering

SSRN

July 31, 2009
Other Article

India's Pockets of Prosperity?: Special Economic Zones Are Attractive on Paper, But They Pose Thorny Political Problems

By: Laura Alfaro, Lakshmi Iyer and Semil Shah

2020
Working Paper

Iterative Coordination and Innovation

By: Sourobh Ghosh and Andy Wu

Agile management practices from the software industry continue to transform the way organizations innovate across industries, yet they remain understudied in the organizations literature. We investigate the widespread Agile practice of iterative coordination: frequent... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Goals; Specialization; Coordination; Field Experiment; Software Development; Organizations; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Goals and Objectives; Integration; Software