Problems and Challenges - Publications - Faculty & Research

20 Jan 2017
Research & Ideas

Here’s How Businessman Trump Is Likely to Approach the Presidency

parlayed his fame as a celebrity real estate developer into a winning pitch to voters as a Washington outsider. Emphasizing his decades of experience as a wheeler-dealer building luxury hotels, casinos, and golf courses around the world,... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese

07 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Obama’s Clean Power Plan: Can Nuclear Power Beat the Global Threat of Coal?

This week, President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency released the final version of the Clean Power Plan, a major set of rules and incentives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from America's power plants. The plan requires each state to meet a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities

05 Apr 2021
What Do You Think?

Why Can’t More Leaders Teach?

leaders who are considered for teaching appointments actually qualify. He attributes this mainly to issues with “status and ego.” In my experience, the problem often was the inability to listen to what MBA... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

17 Jul 2000
What Do You Think?

Where Is the Microsoft Board?

influence and pointing to the success of the company, Bruce Lowenthal said "...I would rather address the problem of board inaction when things are not going well even with a high percentage of outside... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

12 Feb 2001
Research & Ideas

Creating Value Across Borders

example, while Korea has a great education system, its industry structure is still rather inefficient. The Asian financial crisis induced a healthy shakeout, and now private equity firms are very active there. The more View Details

Keywords: by Staff

06 Apr 2007
What Do You Think?

Will Market Forces Stop Global Warming?

Summing Up Debate on this month's questions occurred on at least three levels. Is global warming occurring? Do humans (primarily through CO2 emissions) have much to do with it? Should we rely on market forces to provide appropriate responses, or will this require... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Energy; Utilities

09 Dec 2015
Research Event

When Hosts Attack: The Competitive Threat of Online Platforms

are building their services around these platforms,” said Harvard Business School assistant professor Feng Zhu, during a presentation at Future Assembly, an event at Harvard Business School where business leaders and academics discussed... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Technology; Web Services

16 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Can Applied Economics Save Homeless Puppies?

One economic problem is search costs—the time, money, and effort spent on researching which dog to adopt. Another is information asymmetry—in which one person involved in an economic transaction has more... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

10 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

Breakthrough Negotiation: Don’t Leave It On the Table

explained: You can do things that help you to progress in relationship to your external partner. . .but they would have created problems for you on the home front. The gap between those who are leading the negotiations View Details

Keywords: by Michael Watkins

13 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

Corporate Venturing: Entrepreneurship on the Inside

Can big companies ride the entrepreneurial tiger to transformation and renewal? Yes, said participants in the panel discussion "Corporate Venturing: Entrepreneurship on the Inside" at the HBS Entrepreneurship Conference. But... View Details

Keywords: by Kenneth Liss

02 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Explaining China's Crash

percent. As the world’s second-largest economy, China’s crash ripped through world markets, including Japan, Hong Kong, Europe, and the United States, as uneasy investors instigated historic single-day sell-offs. Early this week, the... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese; Financial Services

13 Apr 2016
Research Event

What Does 'Diversity' Really Mean?

Many male business leaders have the right intentions when it comes to tackling the sticky issue of gender inequality in the workplace. But try as they might to be more sensitive and inclusive with their language, men are quite simply... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

19 Nov 2014
HBS Case

Marketing Marijuana

them pot in a cookie, they have no problem with it." The potentially high price of retail marijuana, however, leaves frequent recreational users in a bind. To escape price inflation, they could grow their own pot at home, but that's... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage

28 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

How to Harness Auction Fever

organizations diagnose and solve the various types of trust problems that they face internally and externally. I also study issues related to international View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls; Web Services; Technology

07 Mar 2005
Research & Ideas

The Rise of Innovation in Asia

Although Asian countries have been able to use cost advantages and software coding prowess to attract outsource business from around the world, the region is quickly moving up the value chain to challenge... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

05 Dec 2007
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Marketing

can be low growth and declining margins. The key challenge in aligning marketing activities with corporate strategy is to develop a set of metrics to be used by top executives View Details

14 Sep 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Google Engineer Deserved to be Fired by the CEO

Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Credit: Steven Zimmerman/Wikipedia Commons Google software engineer James Damore’s ten-page manifesto excoriating his employer for its diversity initiatives incited a major controversy in August about affirmative action View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

19 Aug 2013
Research & Ideas

Studying How Income Inequality Shapes Behavior

explains. "And the same may be true about inequality and our inability at this point to say much about its effects. The problem may be that we don't yet know enough about mechanism." Moss followed... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

11 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Building a Better Board

meaningfully to strategy development. Making It Safe To Be Critical Chief among the responsibilities of a corporate board member is to develop and share an honest assessment of the company's performance, including the performance of the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

17 Nov 2014
Lessons from the Classroom

Managing the Family Business: Are Optimists or Pessimists Better Leaders?

solve problems cooperatively, and are more likely to seek help in difficult situations. They make good spouses. People with optimistic spouses were healthier in a 2014 study by researchers at the University... View Details

Publications