Publications

30 Nov 2017
News

Law, Management, and Strategy: Collapsing Boundaries and Managing the Interstices

November 2015
Article

Modularity and Intellectual Property Protection

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Joachim Henkel

Modularity is a means of partitioning technical knowledge about a product or process. When state-sanctioned intellectual property (IP) rights are ineffective or costly to enforce, modularity can be used to hide information and thus protect IP. We investigate the impact... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Value Appropriation; Relational Contracts; Clans; Intellectual Property

Modularity is a means of partitioning technical knowledge about a product or process. When state-sanctioned intellectual property (IP) rights are ineffective or costly to enforce, modularity can be used to hide information and thus protect IP. We investigate the impact... View Details

02 Nov 2016
HBS Seminar

Gillian Hadfield, University of California, Gould School of Law

Spring–Fall 2015
Article

Whither Uber? Competitive Dynamics in Transportation Networks

By: Benjamin Edelman

Transportation Network Companies offer notable service advances—but do they comply with the law? I offer evidence of some important shortfalls, then consider how the legal system might appropriately respond. Though it is tempting to forgive many violations in light of... View Details

Keywords: Transportation Network Company; Uber; Lyft; Regulation; Lawfulness; Transportation Networks; Laws and Statutes; Law Enforcement; Transportation Industry; Information Technology Industry

2000
Chapter

Anticipating Greener Supply Chain Demands: One Singapore Company's Journey to ISO 14001

By: Michael W. Toffel

One major benefit of Jebsen & Jessen Packaging Pte Ltd (JJPS’s) implementation of ISO 14001 is that it acquired a third-party 'seal of approval' that will be used in its marketing efforts to meet the growing environmental concern of its customers within the electronics... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Standards; Environmental Sustainability; Singapore

December 2006 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Restructuring Navigator Gas Transport Plc

By: C. Fritz Foley

How should creditors pursue their claims in a multi-jurisdiction bankruptcy? David Butters, Managing Director at Lehman Brothers, negotiates a restructuring of Navigator Gas Transport, a shipping company that is headquartered in Switzerland, incorporated in the Isle of... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Complexity; Capital Structure; Restructuring; International Finance; Law; Ship Transportation; Shipping Industry; Switzerland; Isle of Man

February 2015 (Revised August 2016)
Case

Nokia's Bridge Program: Redesigning Layoffs (A)

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Susan J. Winterberg

"Not another Bochum." Nokia Board Chairman Jorma Ollila was clear in the goals he set for the 2011 restructuring that Nokia's new CEO, Stephen Elop, had decided was necessary to address the dramatically changed competitive environment the company faced in smartphones... View Details

Keywords: Layoffs; Plant Closure; Outplacement; Shared Value; Business or Company Management; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Restructuring; Employee Relationship Management; Telecommunications Industry

2014
Chapter

Promoting Corporate Sustainability through Integrated Reporting: The Role of Investment Fiduciaries and the Responsibilities of the Corporate Board

By: Robert G. Eccles, J. Herron and George Serafeim

This book is a comprehensive reference work exploring recent changes and future trends in the principles that govern institutional investors and fiduciaries. A wide range of contributors offer new perspectives on dynamics that drive the current emphasis on short-term... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Institutional Investing; Financial Services Industry

Research Summary

Overview

Having grown up in a developing country, Professor Sikochi’s research focus is driven by a desire to understand how capital flows to firms and entrepreneurs with the ultimate goal to help build capital markets in the developing economies. To this end, he conducts... View Details

26 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

Keywords: by Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

natural gas that were burdened with highly inefficient delivery systems. In time, the company supported his basic concept with EnronOnline, a Web-based trading platform that instantly became the world's largest e-commerce system in 1999.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

March 16, 2021
Article

From Driverless Dilemmas to More Practical Commonsense Tests for Automated Vehicles

By: Julian De Freitas, Andrea Censi, Bryant Walker Smith, Luigi Di Lillo, Sam E. Anthony and Emilio Frazzoli

For the first time in history, automated vehicles (AVs) are being deployed in populated environments. This unprecedented transformation of our everyday lives demands a significant undertaking: endowing complex autonomous systems with ethically acceptable behavior. We... View Details

Keywords: Automated Driving; Public Health; Artificial Intelligence; Transportation; Health; Ethics; Policy; AI and Machine Learning

September 2022
Article

Regulatory Spillover and Workplace Racial Inequality

By: Letian Zhang

This paper suggests that affirmative action bans in the U.S. public sector may influence racial inequality in the private sector. Since the 1990s, nine states have banned affirmative action practice in public universities and state governments. Though these bans have... View Details

Keywords: Inequality; Regulation; Law; Organizational Norm; CEO; Affirmative Action; Organizations; Private Sector; Equality and Inequality; Diversity; Race; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

December 2007 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Wall Street's First Panic (A)

By: David A. Moss and Cole Bolton

In the early 1790s, a flood of newly issued public and private securities sparked an investment boom in the nascent United States. In New York, the bustling commercial district along Wall Street emerged as the center of the city's securities trade. One of the many... View Details

Keywords: History; Financial Instruments; Auctions; Financial Crisis; Business and Government Relations; Financial Services Industry

February 1990 (Revised March 1990)
Case

Quantum Semiconductor, Inc.

By: Janice H. Hammond and Roy D. Shapiro

Quantum is faced with a difficult ethical dilemma--industry studies provide evidence that chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing may cause women working in fabrication cleanrooms to suffer a higher likelihood of spontaneous abortions. The possibility of other... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Prejudice and Bias; Law; Equality and Inequality; Cost; Production; Ethics; Health; Gender; Semiconductor Industry

24 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Why Do We Tax?

fixing this gap. For 40 years, economists have drawn from the well of Utilitarian theory—which has the goal of maximizing overall well-being in society—to help design tax systems in the United States and around the world. Although the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Legal Services

2009
Other Unpublished Work

The Pecora Hearings

By: David Moss, Cole Bolton and Eugene Kintgen

In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, the Senate Banking Committee began a much-publicized investigation of the nation's financial sector. The hearings, which came to be known as the Pecora hearings after the Banking Committee's lead counsel Ferdinand... View Details

Keywords: Financial History; Financial Crisis; Financial Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Legislation; Laws and Statutes; Business and Government Relations; Financial Services Industry

January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Equal Justice Initiative: Mercy, Truth and Dignity

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Gerald Chertavian and Brittany Logan

In 1989, the Equal Justice Initiative was established as a non-profit, public interest law firm by Harvard Law School graduate, Bryan Stevenson.

EJI provides legal assistance to condemned prisoners, people wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced, children in... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Nonprofit Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Growth and Development Strategy; Social Issues; Race