Publications

January–February 2025
Article

Location-Specificity and Relocation Incentive Programs for Remote Workers

By: Thomaz Teodorovicz, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Evan Starr

The precipitous growth of remote work has given rise to a new phenomenon: the emergence of relocation incentive programs that localities use to compete for the physical presence of remote workers. Remote workers with high general human capital may create value for... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Motivation and Incentives; Geographic Location; Talent and Talent Management; Human Capital; Tulsa

July 2024
Article

The Home State Effect: How Subnational Governments Shape Climate Coalitions

By: Jonas Meckling and Samuel Trachtman

Organized business interests often seek to block public interest regulations. But whether firms oppose regulation depends on institutional context. We argue that, in federal systems, sub-national policies and politics can have a home state effect on firms' national... View Details

Keywords: Local Range; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Government Relations

Register to Read

June 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Chipmaking in the Desert: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's Global Expansion

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

On December 6, 2022, in Phoenix, Arizona, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Executive Chairman Mark Liu outlined the company’s ambitious plans to invest $40 billion to build semiconductor manufacturing plants in Phoenix. The event also celebrated the... View Details

Keywords: Geopolitical Units; Government and Politics; Government Legislation; Expansion; Market Entry and Exit; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan; United States

Educators

2021
Chapter

Generating Social Entrepreneurship Knowledge: International Research Collaboration on a Hemispheric Level

By: James E. Austin, Gabriel Berger, Rosa Amelia González, Roberto Gutiérrez, Iván D. Lobo and Alfred Vernis

Provide insights on how social entrepreneurship (SE) knowledge can be more effectively generated by universities through the entrepreneurial creation and effective management of a knowledge network centered on international collaborative research; illuminate how one... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Knowledge; Networks; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Global Range

2018
Working Paper

Global Portfolio Diversification for Long-Horizon Investors

By: Luis M. Viceira and Zixuan (Kevin) Wang

This paper conducts a theoretical and empirical investigation of global portfolio diversification for long-horizon investors in the presence of permanent cash flow shocks and transitory discount rate shocks to asset prices and returns. An increase in the cross-country... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Risk and Uncertainty; Diversification; Capital Markets; Global Range

05 Jun 2012
First Look

First Look: June 5

agendas, whose strategies to build viable business models proved crucially dependent on two exogenous factors: the prices of alternative conventional fuels and public policy. Supportive public policies in various geographies facilitated... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

11 Jul 2006
First Look

First Look: July 11, 2006

century, ownership, location and geography still mattered enormously in international business. They may matter more than in the past. Paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/06-052.pdf Cases & Course MaterialsEdison Schools, Inc.:... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Oct 2021
Blog Post

Alumni Spotlight: Career Advice from Alums Working in Climate

Morgan Sheil (MBA 2021), Climate and Decarbonization at KKR & Co. "Climate change impacts every industry and every function in every geography globally so there are infinite opportunities for MBAs to work on addressing it. We are... View Details

Keywords: Energy / Cleantech

30 Apr 2024
Blog Post

IFC India: Urban Adaptation in a Changing World

reached 36°C and are expected to continue to rise significantly in the coming years. Likewise, due to Mumbai’s low-lying geography approximately 35% of the population is vulnerable to flood risks and low-lying areas will generally flood... View Details

March 2022
Background Note

Climate Challenges for Cities: Introduction to Issues and Actions in the United States

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Catarina Mia Martinez

This background Note introduces the implications of climate change (global warming) for American cities. In the U.S., partisan political divides and unaddressed economic and racial disparities in climate vulnerabilities can inhibit action. The two main fronts for... View Details

Educators

July 2020
Article

Who Should Select New Employees, Headquarters or the Unit Manager? Consequences of Centralizing Hiring at a Retail Chain

By: Carolyn Deller and Tatiana Sandino

We examine how changing the allocation of hiring decision rights in a multiunit organization affects employee-firm match quality, contingent on a unit’s circumstances. Our research site, a U.S. retail chain, switched from a decentralized hiring model (hiring by... View Details

Keywords: Control; Selection; Decentralization; Company Values; Retail Chains; Employees; Selection and Staffing; Local Range; Business Headquarters; Decision Making

March 2012
Article

Does America Really Need Manufacturing?

By: Gary P. Pisano and Willy C. Shih

Too many U.S. companies base decisions about where to locate production largely on narrow financial criteria. They don't consider whether keeping manufacturing at home makes more sense strategically or take into account the impact it might have on their ability to... View Details

Keywords: Production; Geographic Location; Innovation and Invention; Competitive Advantage; Product Design; Risk Management; Manufacturing Industry; United States

December 2012
Article

Reflected Knowledge and Trust in Global Collaboration

By: Mark Mortensen and Tsedal Neeley

Scholars argue that direct knowledge about distant colleagues is crucial for fostering trust in global collaboration. However, their arguments focus mainly on how trust accrues from knowledge about distant collaborators' personal characteristics, relationships, and... View Details

Keywords: Global Work; Organizational Studies; Knowledge; Trust; Cooperation; Global Range; Relationships; Behavior; Personal Characteristics

March 2009 (Revised July 2009)
Case

KiOR: Catalyzing Clean Energy

By: Ramana Nanda and Toby E. Stuart

Biofuels start-up KiOR was developing a proprietary technology that had the potential to dramatically impact the emerging renewable energy landscape: a process that converted cellulosic biomass into "bio-crude," a hydrocarbon mixture with properties to those of crude... View Details

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Decision Choices and Conditions; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Geographic Location

Educators

2008
Working Paper

The Decentering of the Global Firm

By: Mihir A. Desai

This paper describes recent changes in the relationship between firms and nation states. Firms are typically linked to the nation in which they began and are considered to have fixed national identities. While firms have reallocated various activities around the world... View Details

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Geographic Location; Globalized Firms and Management; Policy; Business and Government Relations

08 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

The Civic Benefits of Google Street View and Yelp

restaurants, not to tell cities where to go to inspect, but it could be used for that purpose,” says Luca. Similarly, Google searches in different geographies could give policymakers key insight into what their citizens care about.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Consumer Products

July 2020
Article

Intra-firm Geographic Mobility: Value Creation Mechanisms and Future Research Directions

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury

This paper argues that intra-firm geographic mobility is an understudied mechanism that can help mitigate coordination failures in a geographically distributed organization. The paper presents an organizing framework on how intra-firm geographic mobility creates value... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Employees; Geographic Location; Value Creation

Article

Positioning The Nation State

By: John A. Quelch and Katherine E. Jocz

Having a clear, differentiated positioning gives a country an advantage in attracting investment, business and tourism, and in building markets for its exports. Countries like Greece, Spain and Chile are successfully repositioning themselves using coordinated marketing... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Country; Product Positioning; Global Strategy; Government and Politics