Publications

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Article

The Art of Balancing Autonomy and Control: What Managers Can Learn from Hackathon Organizers about Spurring Innovation.

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf, Sarah Lebovitz and Lior Zalmanson

Today, managers recognize that innovation requires a high level of work autonomy for their employees. This encourages curiosity, enables independent thinking, and provides an environment in which employees can experiment and test new problem-solving approaches with... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Hackathon; Autonomy; Control; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management

Find at Harvard

May 2007
Article

Corporate Financing Decisions When Investors Take the Path of Least Resistance

By: Malcolm Baker, Joshua Coval and Jeremy Stein

We explore the consequences for corporate financial policy that arise when investors exhibit inertial behavior. One implication of investor inertia is that, all else equal, a firm pursuing a strategy of equity-financed growth will prefer a stock-for-stock merger to... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Investment; Policy; Corporate Finance

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2005
Other Unpublished Work

Corporate Financing Decisions When Investors Take the Path of Least Resistance

By: Malcolm Baker, Joshua Coval and Jeremy Stein

We explore the consequences for corporate financial policy that arise when investors exhibit inertial behavior. One implication of investor inertia is that, all else equal, a firm pursuing a strategy of equity-financed growth will prefer a stock-for-stock merger to... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Behavior; Stocks; Mergers and Acquisitions; Policy; Investment; Financial Institutions; Equity; Corporate Finance

February 2011 (Revised September 2016)
Case

Investcorp and the Moneybookers Bid

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Nori Gerardo Lietz

In January 2007, Hazem Ben-Gacem, managing director and co-head of Investcorp Technology Partners (ITP), needs to decide what to bid at an auction for Moneybookers Limited, one of the top three e-payment solution providers in Europe. However, approximately 70% of... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Private Equity; Investment; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Valuation; Europe; United States

Educators

25 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 25

pressure than for equally favorable recommendations from business-related analysts. In addition, we find that subsequent to announcements of bad news from the covered firms, analysts are significantly less likely to downgrade a stock held... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2009
Report

State of the Region Report 2009: Boosting the Top of Europe

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

The 2009 State of the Region Report, the sixth in this series of annual evaluations of competitiveness and cooperation across the Baltic Sea Region, provides a perspective on the radical change in the economic climate of the Region over the last year. The Report puts... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Macroeconomics; Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; Baltic Countries; European Union

31 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

When Not to Trust Your Gut

article explores why we often think irrationally—and why, even when the stakes are high and mistakes are costly, we sometimes are unable to overcome our psychological biases. We begin with an overview of intuition and rationality in... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman & Deepak Malhotra

2014
Working Paper

Lobbying Behavior of Governmental Entities: Evidence from Public Pension Accounting Rules

By: Abigail Allen and Reining Petacchi

We examine the lobbying behavior of state governments in the development of recently issued public pension accounting standards GASB 67 and 68. Consistent with opportunistic motivations, we find that states' opposition to the liability increasing provisions embedded in... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Accounting Industry; United States

SSRN

March 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Perplexity: Redefining Search

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Michelle Hu, Sriraghav Srinivasan and Radhika Kak

By early 2025, Perplexity had rapidly evolved from a modest startup into a popular "answer engine" valued at $9 billion. The company had boldly positioned itself as the disruptor to Google aiming to redefine search for the AI age. Through novel AI... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Venture Capital; Innovation Leadership; Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Business Startups; Competitive Strategy; Technology Industry; United States

Educators

13 Feb 2025
HBS Seminar

Kamalini Ramdas, London School of Business

30 Sep 2014
First Look

First Look: September 30

and high levels of press freedom. We further demonstrate that suppliers perform better when they serve buyers located in countries where consumers are wealthy and socially conscious. Taken together, these findings suggest the importance... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

20 Dec 2004
Research & Ideas

The U.S. Patent Game: How to Change It

worldwide. Many offices have had to grapple with an influx of patents, and many nations are strengthening patents—often in response to pressure by American politicians. So this is not a uniquely American problem. Nonetheless, to the... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

03 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

Everyone Knows Innovation is Essential to Business Success—Except Board Directors

Open the Wall Street Journal on any given day, and you are likely to find at least one story about how technology is disrupting yet another industry, and the pressures companies face to innovate. And yet, for board members of companies... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
Case

STARZPLAY: Shooting for the Stars

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini and Alpana Thapar

In mid-2021, Maaz Sheikh, cofounder and CEO of STARZPLAY, a Dubai-based subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider that catered to the Middle East and North Africa region, was wrestling with how to find the right balance between continued subscriber growth and... View Details

Educators