Publications

February 2003 (Revised April 2003)
Background Note

Note on Staffing in Professional Service Firms

By: Ashish Nanda

This case discusses the problem of balancing demand and supply of professionals within a professional services firm (PSF). It emphasizes how human resources management policies impact supply conditions and how market opportunities determine demand conditions. The case... View Details

Keywords: Demand and Consumers; Balance and Stability; Supply and Industry; Employees; Service Industry

A regulator’s ability to incentivize environmental improvement among firms is a vital lever in achieving long-term sustainability. How a firm will respond to such regulation depends, in part, on the expected cost of noncompliance, which is a product of the stated... View Details

14 Apr 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Facts and Figuring: An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces

Keywords: by Jesse Shore, Ethan Bernstein & David Lazer

2013
Working Paper

FIN Around the World: The Contribution of Financing Activity to Profitability

By: Russell Lundholm, George Serafeim and Gwen Yu

We study how the availability of domestic credit influences the contribution that financing activities make to a firm's return on equity (ROE). Using a sample of 51,866 firms from 69 countries, we find that financing activities contribute more to a firm's ROE in... View Details

Keywords: Domestic Credit; Return Of Equity; Corporate Performance; Financial Statement Analysis; Financial Statements; Valuation; Cost of Capital; Asset Pricing; Economic Growth

27 Dec 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Team Learning Capabilities: A Meso Model of Sustained Innovation and Superior Firm Performance

Keywords: by Jean-François Harvey, Henrik Bresman, and Amy C. Edmondson

December 2011
Article

Globalization and Beauty: A Historical and Firm Perspective

By: G. Jones

This paper uses the beauty industry to explore the impact of globalization over the very long run. As the first wave of modern globalization started in the nineteenth century, there began a massive homogenization of beauty ideals around the world that has, to some... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Business Ventures; Trends; Societal Protocols; Value; Brands and Branding; Perception; Entrepreneurship; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

Article

Team Scaffolds: How Mesolevel Structures Enable Role-based Coordination in Temporary Groups

By: M. Valentine and A. C. Edmondson

This paper shows how meso-level structures support effective coordination in temporary groups. Prior research on coordination in temporary groups describes how roles encode individual responsibilities so that coordination between relative strangers is possible. We... View Details

Keywords: Fluid Personnel; Team Scaffolds; Team Effectiveness; Role-based Coordination; Multi-method; Service Delivery; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Performance Efficiency

2004
Article

Do Firms Change Capabilities by Hiring New People? A Study of the Adoption of Science-based Drug Discovery

By: Rebecca M. Henderson, Nicola Lacetera and Iain Cockburn

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Change; Science; Health; Information

2020
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 6 The Value Structure of Technologies, Part 1: Mapping Functional Relationships

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

Organizations are formed in a free economy because an individual or group perceives value in carrying out a technical recipe that is beyond the capacity of a single person. Technology specifies what must be done, what resources must be assembled, what actions taken in... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Information Technology; Organizations; Value Creation

March 2003 (Revised April 2006)
Background Note

Scale and Scope in Professional Service Firms

By: Ashish Nanda

This case discusses why economies (and diseconomies) of scale and scope exist in professional service firms (PSFs) and how they influence the amount and range of services that PSFs offer. It is distributed with a case that focuses on determining the optimal scale/scope... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Operations; Microeconomics; Service Industry

Educators

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Winter 2009
Article

Is Private Equity Out of Control in Latin America?: The Impact of Structures on Private Equity Transactions in Latin America 1988-2007

By: Roberto Charvel

This article explores the private equity industries in 25 Latin American countries from 1988 to 2007. View Details

Keywords: Latin America; Entrepreneurial Finance; Business Startups; Business Cycles; Development Economics; Economic Systems; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Assets; Capital Markets; Venture Capital; Capital Structure; Private Equity; Latin America; North and Central America

9 May 2011 - 11 May 2011
Conference Presentation

How Firms Respond to Mandatory Information Disclosure

By: Anil Doshi, Michael Toffel and Glen W. S. Dowell

When new institutional pressures arise, which organizations are particularly likely to resist or acquiesce? When subjected to new information disclosure mandates, an increasingly popular form of market-based government regulation, which types of organizations are... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Environmental Regulation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Change and Adaptation

02 Jun 2017
News

Venture capital’s gender gap is costly for firms and the economy

1995
Conference Presentation

What Is the Optimum Amount of Organizational Slack?: A Study of the Relationship Between Slack and Innovation in Multinational Firms

By: Ranjay Gulati

June 2018 (Revised February 2019)
Teaching Note

Home Nursing of North Carolina

By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld

In 2011, immediately after graduating HBS, Ari Medoff began a self-funded search for a small firm to buy and run as its CEO. After just three month of searching, he identified Home Nursing of North Carolina (HNNC), a home care agency based in Greensboro, NC, as a... View Details

Keywords: Small Firms Management; Acquisition; Negotiation Process; Investment; Small Business; Management; Personal Development and Career

Purchase

October 2004 (Revised February 2006)
Case

Staffing in Professional Service Firms

By: Ashish Nanda

This case discusses the problem of balancing demand and supply of professionals over time using a fictional scenario. View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Service Industry

Educators

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2014
Working Paper

Team Scaffolds: How Meso-Level Structures Support Role-based Coordination in Temporary Groups

By: Melissa A. Valentine and Amy C. Edmondson

This paper shows how meso-level structures support effective coordination in temporary groups. Prior research on coordination in temporary groups describes how roles encode individual responsibilities so that coordination between relative strangers is possible. We... View Details

Keywords: Fluid Personnel; Team Scaffolds; Team Effectiveness; Role-based Coordination; Multi-method; Health Care and Treatment; Analytics and Data Science; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Organizational Structure; Outcome or Result; Performance Effectiveness; Groups and Teams; Networks; Behavior; Balance and Stability; Health Industry