Publications

June 2015
Case

1996 Welfare Reform in the United States

By: Matthew Weinzierl, Katrina Flanagan and Alastair Su

On August 22, 1996, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)—a dramatic reform of the American system of economic assistance for the poor that, as its title suggested, attempted to... View Details

Keywords: Welfare State; Public Goods; Moral Hazard; Median Voter Theorem; Poverty; Welfare; Public Administration Industry; United States

02 May 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Profits and Economic Development

Keywords: by Dan Schwab & Eric Werker

28 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

Billions of Entrepreneurs in China and India

often provided in a top-down manner. The second difference is the nature and extent of openness to outside influence and foreigners. Foreign direct investment pours into China. India has embraced foreign... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2019
Chapter

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Tiona Zuzul

Selecting the appropriate method for a given research question is an essential skill for organizational researchers. High-quality research involves a good fit between the methods used and the nature of the contribution to the literature. This article describes a... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Organizations

16 Jan 2019
News

Apple in China, and Payday Lending

December 2019 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Mãe Terra and Unilever (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Ruth Costas and Priscilla Zogbi

The case concerns the sale of Mãe Terra, one of Brazil's leading brands for packaged organic foods, to the consumer goods giant Unilever in 2017. Working with Unilever management, Mãe Terra’s CEO Alexandre Borges must determine whether and how to keep Mãe Terra's B... View Details

Keywords: Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Brand Management; Sustainability; Mergers and Acquisitions; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Environmental Sustainability; Organizational Culture; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Brazil; Latin America

Summer, 2018
Article

Innovation, Reallocation and Growth

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, Harun Alp, Nicholas Bloom and William R. Kerr

We build a model of firm-level innovation, productivity growth, and reallocation featuring endogenous entry and exit. A new and central economic force is the selection between high- and low-type firms, which differ in terms of their innovative capacity. We estimate the... View Details

Keywords: Entry; Growth; Industrial Policy; Innovation; R＆D; Reallocation; Selection; Market Entry and Exit; Growth and Development; Innovation and Invention; Research and Development; Performance Productivity

2017
Working Paper

Innovation, Reallocation and Growth

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, Harun Alp, Nicholas Bloom and William R. Kerr

We build a model of firm-level innovation, productivity growth, and reallocation featuring endogenous entry and exit. A new and central economic force is the selection between high- and low-type firms, which differ in terms of their innovative capacity. We estimate the... View Details

Keywords: Entry; Growth; Industrial Policy; Innovation; R＆D; Reallocation; Selection; Business Ventures; Resource Allocation; Performance Productivity; Policy; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development; United States

June 2023
Teaching Note

Komatsu and Smart Construction

By: David J. Collis

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 521-042. The case describes the introduction by Komatsu, the Japanese earth moving equipment manufacturer, of a new business model—Smart Construction. This replaces the one-time sale of a capital good with a software platform that... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Technology Adoption; Construction Industry

April 2000 (Revised October 2002)
Background Note

Career Strategies and Tactics in Professional Service Firms

By: Ashish Nanda, Thomas J. DeLong and Scot H. Landry

Presents suggestions for ensuring a good start in a professional services career. View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Performance Expectations; Performance Effectiveness; Customization and Personalization; Practice; Valuation; Performance Evaluation; Business Startups; Competency and Skills; Learning; Talent and Talent Management; Management Skills; Consulting Industry

October 2019 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Fixing Facebook: Fake News, Privacy, and Platform Governance

By: David Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook based on the idea that connecting people was a fundamentally good thing—and a way to turn a handsome profit. But from the beginning, Facebook received criticism both for how it handled user privacy and how it curated user-generated... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Governance; Privacy; Internet and the Web; Corporate Governance; Ethics; Business and Government Relations; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Web Services Industry

Article

Statistical Physics of Human Cooperation

By: Matjaž Perc, Jillian J. Jordan, David G. Rand, Zhen Wang, Stefano Boccaletti and Attila Szolnoki

Extensive cooperation among unrelated individuals is unique to humans, who often sacrifice personal benefits for the common good and work together to achieve what they are unable to execute alone. The evolutionary success of our species is indeed due, to a large... View Details

Keywords: Human Cooperation; Evolutionary Game Theory; Public Goods; Reward; Punishment; Tolerance; Self-organization; Pattern Formation; Cooperation; Behavior; Game Theory

12 Jul 2016
News

Tesla’s Strategy Is Risky and Aggressive, but It Has Worked

2014
Working Paper

Profits and Economic Development

By: Dan Schwab and Eric Werker

Are rents, or excess profits, good for development? Using industry-level manufacturing data, this paper demonstrates a negative effect of rents, measured by the mark-up ratio, on productivity growth. The negative effect is strongest in poor countries, suggesting that... View Details

Keywords: Firm Performance; Rent; Mark-up; Competition; Manufacturing; Development Economics; Profit; Economic Growth; Renting or Rental

SSRN

May 1994
Article

The Work Preference Inventory: Assessing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations

By: T. M. Amabile, K. G. Hill, B. A. Hennessey and E. M. Tighe

The Work Preference Inventory (WPI) is designed to assess individual differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Both the college student and the working adult versions aim to capture the major elements of intrinsic motivation (self-determination,... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Measurement and Metrics; Higher Education; Employees; Personal Characteristics

16 Jul 2016
News

There's a multitrillion-dollar issue US politicians actually agree on, and it’s making gas, food, and travel more expensive

March 2013 (Revised January 2015)
Technical Note

Business and Government: Campaign Contributions and Lobbying in the United States

By: Karthik Ramanna, Sandra J. Sucher and Ian McKown Cornell

This note on business-government relations introduces students to the state of campaign contributions and lobbying by corporations in the United States. The note develops two hypotheses as to the impact of corporate political engagement: (i) a vehicle to facilitate... View Details

Keywords: Political Economy; Business and Government Relations; Government and Politics; Public Administration Industry; United States