Publications

Read Now

January 2005 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Gobi Partners: October 2004

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

The general partners of Gobi Partners, a venture fund located in Shanghai, are trying to decide the best way to raise money for their first fund. Their strategy of investing in early-stage digital media companies in China was well-received by strategic investors--IBM... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Investment; Goals and Objectives; Emerging Markets; Problems and Challenges; Conflict Management; Shanghai

Educators

13 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Science Business: What Happened to Biotech?

Thirty years ago it appeared as if biotech would not only revolutionize healthcare, but also radically improve the very process of R&D itself. This hasn't happened. Though some firms such as Amgen have created dramatic breakthroughs, the overall industry track... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Biotechnology

Article

Do Citizens’ Preferences Matter? Shaping Legislator Attitudes Towards Peace Agreements

By: Miguel García-Sánchez, Aila M. Matanock and Natalia Garbiras-Díaz

To what extent are legislators, responsible for the implementation of many peace agreements, responsive to citizens’ preferences? Examining the 2016 Colombian peace agreement, we embed an experiment in the 2019 wave of a survey of all the members of Congress. We inform... View Details

Keywords: Legislation; Legislators; Peace Process; Agreements; Govenment; Voters' Interests; Governance; Government and Politics; Voting; Policy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Latin America; Colombia

Read Now

January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Into the Raging Sea: Final Voyage of the SS El Faro

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Mel Martin

Captain Michael Davidson of the container ship SS El Faro was determined to make his planned shipping trip on time—but a hurricane was approaching his intended path. To succeed, Davidson and his fellow officers must plot a course to avoid the storm in the face of... View Details

Keywords: Power Dynamics; Management; Leadership Style; Crisis Management; Failure; Groups and Teams; Rank and Position; Decision Choices and Conditions; Shipping Industry; United States

Educators

September 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Transcape Systems: Creating a Market

Entrepreneurial companies must overcome substantial barriers to create markets for innovative products in industries reluctant to embrace change. Transcape Systems faces this callenge as it attempts to create a market for interactive multimedia software in the... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Product Marketing; Information Technology Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Health Industry

08 Apr 2016
News

What Donald Trump Doesn’t Understand About Negotiation

The Reference Wars: Encyclopedia Britannica's Decline and Encarta's Emergence

The experience of Encyclopædia Britannica provides the canonical example of the decline of an established firm at the outset of the digital age. Competition from Microsoft's Encarta in 1993 led to sharp declines in the sales of books, which led to the distressed... View Details

Teaching Interest

Negotiation

By: Alison Wood Brooks

Negotiation is an Elective Curriculum course for HBS MBA students. Success at work and at home requires the ability to negotiate. Whether you are forging an agreement with your suppliers, trying to ink a deal with potential customers, raising money from investors,... View Details

Research Summary

Wall Street Research

By: Paul M. Healy

Wall Street research helps to support a well-functioning capital market by providing investors with information about investment opportunities, and corporate issuers with liquidity for their stocks. Yet surprisingly little is known about how Wall Street research... View Details

Keywords: Sell-side Analysts; Brokerage; Investment Banking; Buy-side Analysts; Compensation; Financial Services Industry

24 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 24, 2006

political conflict and individual and group biases occasioned by organizational differentiation. We categorize the sources of functional bias into intentional, driven by misalignment of incentives, and unintentional resulting from... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Program

High Potentials Leadership Program

contribution through stronger leadership Build high-performance teams that are more than the sum of their parts Lead effectively through situations involving conflict Receive feedback with an open mind and deliver it with tact Build... View Details

2014
Working Paper

Friends with Close Ties: Asset or Liability? Evidence from the Investment Decisions of Mutual Funds in China

By: Xinzi Gao, T.J. Wong, Lijun Xia and Gwen Yu

When fund managers have close ties to their investees, it can facilitate efficient information sharing but can also increase the possibility of favoritism. Using the investment choices of mutual funds in China, we test whether funds with close ties to their investees... View Details

Keywords: Social Ties; Conflict of Interests; Asset Management; Investment Portfolio; Networks; Financial Services Industry; China

2013
Article

Non-Audit Services and Financial Reporting Quality: Evidence from 1978–1980

By: Kevin Koh, Shiva Rajgopal and Suraj Srinivasan

We provide evidence for the long-standing concern on auditor conflicts of interest from providing non-audit services (NAS) to audit clients by using rarely explored NAS fee data from 1978 to 1980. Using this earlier setting, we find cross-sectional evidence of improved... View Details

Keywords: Conflict of Interests; Financial Reporting; Accounting Audits; Knowledge Dissemination; Quality; Corporate Disclosure; Motivation and Incentives

SSRN

10 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Unobserved State Fragility and the Political Transfer Problem

Keywords: by Faisal Z. Ahmed & Eric Werker

28 Jul 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Disagreement about the Team’s Status Hierarchy: An Insidious Obstacle to Coordination and Performance

Keywords: by Heidi K. Gardner

Web

Organizational Behavior - Doctoral

Alexandra C. Feldberg Summer R. Jackson Shirley Lu Jeffrey T. Polzer Lakshmi Ramarajan Letian Zhang Conflict management Amit Goldenberg Kathleen L. McGinn Lakshmi Ramarajan Economic sociology Summer R. Jackson James W. Riley Letian Zhang... View Details

May 2017
Article

The Reference Wars: Encyclopædia Britannica's Decline and Encarta's Emergence

By: Shane Greenstein

The experience of Encyclopædia Britannica provides the canonical example of the decline of an established firm at the outset of the digital age. Competition from Microsoft’s Encarta in 1993 led to sharp declines in the sales of books, which led to the distressed sale... View Details

Keywords: Digital; Britannica; Diseconomies; Encyclopedias; Applications and Software; Books; Competition; Publishing Industry

October 2014 (Revised July 2015)
Case

Indus Towers: From Infancy to Maturity

By: Ranjay Gulati, Maxim Sytch and Rachna Tahilyani

Indus Towers, the world's largest telecom tower company, is a joint venture between three telecom rivals in India. These rivals—Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, and Idea Cellular—combined their telecom towers to provide "shared telecom infrastructure" to wireless telecom... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Judgments; Customer Focus and Relationships; Management; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Information Infrastructure; Telecommunications Industry; India

Educators

September 2013 (Revised April 2014)
Teaching Note

Transitions Asia: Managing Across Cultures

By: Roy Y.J. Chua, Sharon Mozgai and Dawn Lau

The director of an interim executive research firm, Chee Lung Tham, faced a clash of culture and management styles when his mainland China client threatened to fire the American interim manager that Tham had assigned. The client, Wong Lung, ran a family-owned garment... View Details

Keywords: China; Cross-cultural Management; Family Business; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Management Style; Service Industry; China