Publications

SSRN

Consumers have always had relationships with brands, but sophisticated tools for analyzing customer data are finally allowing marketing organizations to personalize and manage those relationships. With this new power comes a new challenge: People now expect companies... View Details

2022
Working Paper

Distributional Consequences of Monetary Policy Across Races: Evidence from the U.S. Credit Register

By: Laura Alfaro, Ester Faia and Camelia Minoiu

We examine the consequences of monetary policy on racial disparities, focusing on the role of bank lending to firms through collateral and selection channels. Leveraging comprehensive loan-level data from the U.S. credit register (Y-14Q) of the Federal Reserve, we show... View Details

Keywords: Monetary Policy Transmission; Inequity; Credit Registry; Wealth; Collateral Channel; Selection; Racial Disparity; Racial Inequality; Equality and Inequality; Banks and Banking; Credit; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Banking Industry; United States

26 May 2022
HBS Case

Apple vs. Feds: Is iPhone Privacy a Basic Human Right?

Apple CEO Tim Cook didn’t come to his post with an activist agenda, yet when law enforcement officials began pressuring the company to hand over iPhone users’ data without their permission, Cook took what he believed was a moral stance to... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

2016
Working Paper

PathBreakers? Women's Electoral Success and Future Political Participation

By: Sonia Bhalotra, Irma Clots-Figueras and Lakshmi Iyer

We investigate whether the event of a woman being competitively elected as a state legislator encourages the subsequent political participation of women, using a regression discontinuity design on constituency level data from India. We find that female incumbents are... View Details

Keywords: Political Participation; Women; Candidates; Gender Bias; Backlash; Minority Representation; Regression Discontinuity; India; Prejudice and Bias; Political Elections; Gender; Public Administration Industry; India

SSRN

Article

Why, When, and How Much to Entertain Consumers in Advertisements?: A Web-based Facial Tracking Field Study

By: Thales Teixeira, Rosalind Picard and Rana el Kaliouby

The presence of positive entertainment (e.g., visual imagery, upbeat music, humor) in TV advertisements can make them more attractive and persuasive. However, little is known about the downsides of using too much entertainment. This research focuses on why, when, and... View Details

Keywords: Face-tracking; Entertainment; Television; Purchase Intent; Commercials; Facial Expressions; Marketing Communication; Advertising; Television Entertainment; Marketing; Advertising Industry

January 2009
Article

Spatial Diversity in Invention: Evidence from the Early R&D Labs

By: Tom Nicholas

This article uses historical data on inventor and firm R&D lab locations to examine the technological and geographic structure of corporate knowledge capital accumulation during a formative period in the organization of US innovation. Despite the localization of... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Geographic Location; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Knowledge Acquisition; Research and Development; United States

03 Nov 2016
HBS Seminar

Olav Sorenson, Yale University

July 1993 (Revised April 1999)
Case

ABB's Relays Business: Building and Managing a Global Matrix

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Describes the development and management of the relays business area (BA) in ABB's global matrix organization. Focuses on three levels of management--corporate, BA, and operating company. Highlights the roles and responsibilities of individuals at each level as ABB... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Business or Company Management; Business Strategy; Organizational Structure; Managerial Roles; Management Practices and Processes; Employees; Organizational Culture; Success; Manufacturing Industry

Educators

Purchase

November 2012
Case

Ahold versus Tesco—Analyzing Performance

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Penelope Rossano

The case relates to understanding and comparing the performance of two leading retail companies—Ahold and Tesco. The case introduces the tools of Dupont and Modified Dupont Decomposition. While performance as measured by return on equity has been similar for the two... View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Retail Industry

Educators

Purchase

2023
Working Paper

Corporate Website-based Measures of Firms' Value Drivers

By: Wei Cai, Dennis Campbell and Patrick Ferguson

We develop and validate new text-based measures of firms’ financial and non-financial value drivers. Using the Wayback Machine to access public US firms’ archived websites from 1995-2020, we scrape text from corporate homepages. We use Kaplan and Norton’s (1992)... View Details

Keywords: Value; Corporate Strategy; Accounting; Analytics and Data Science

Research Summary

Wage Policies and Incentives to Invest in Firm-Specific Human Capital (joint with George Baker and Nancy Dean Beaulieu)

The accumulation of firm-specific knowledge improves firm productivity and employee reten-tion, by creating a wedge between what the employee is worth inside and outside the firm. How does the firm create incentives for investment in firm-specific human capital when... View Details

08 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team

there were layoffs in sales (and other functions) throughout the recession starting in 2008. As firms seek to grow, putting more "feet on the street" (or in inside sales positions) increases hiring. And the math, as Jim Dickie... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

15 Jul 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Poultry in Motion: A Study of International Trade Finance Practices

Keywords: by Pol Antras & C. Fritz Foley; Agriculture & Agribusiness

2019
Chapter

Pathways to Leadership: Black Graduates of Harvard Business School

By: Anthony J. Mayo and Laura Morgan Roberts

In chapter 3, “Pathways to Leadership,” Anthony J. Mayo and Laura Morgan Roberts present a portrait of the backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives of black alumni of the HBS MBA program. With this study, HBS has allowed itself to be exposed in a way that other... View Details

Keywords: Race And Ethnicity; Inclusion; Race; Diversity; Leadership

Article

Local Industrial Conditions and Entrepreneurship: How Much of the Spatial Distribution Can We Explain?

By: Edward L. Glaeser and William R. Kerr

Why are some places more entrepreneurial than others? We use Census Bureau data to study local determinants of manufacturing startups across cities and industries. Demographics have limited explanatory power. Overall levels of local customers and suppliers are only... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Geographic Location; Employment; Market Entry and Exit; Supply Chain; Manufacturing Industry

July–August 2014
Article

Unlock the Mysteries of Your Customer Relationships

By: Jill Avery, Susan Fournier and John Wittenbraker

Consumers have always had relationships with brands, but sophisticated tools for analyzing customer data are finally allowing marketing organizations to personalize and manage those relationships. With this new power comes a new challenge: people now expect companies... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; CRM; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; United States

June 2014
Article

Acquirer-Target Social Ties and Merger Outcomes

By: Joy Ishii and Yuhai Xuan

This paper investigates the effect of social ties between acquirers and targets on merger performance. Using data on educational background and past employment, we construct a measure of the extent of cross-firm social connection between directors and senior executives... View Details

Keywords: Mergers; Acquisitions; Social Ties; Social Connections; Mergers and Acquisitions; Relationships; Outcome or Result

January 2017 (Revised January 2019)
Case

The Rise and Fall of Lehman Brothers

By: Stuart C. Gilson, Kristin Mugford and Sarah L. Abbott

With nearly $700 billion in assets, Lehman was the largest U.S. bankruptcy in history. In 2007, Lehman achieved record earnings of over $4 billion on revenues of $60 billion. By September 2008 the fourth largest investment bank in the world was bankrupt. How had a... View Details