Publications

July 2009 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Risk Management at Wellfleet Bank: All That Glitters Is Not Gold

By: Anette Mikes

This case motivates a debate on the role of staff functions, such as risk management: what does it mean for them to be independent, and at the same time, to partner the business lines? The case describes the risk assessment process in the corporate banking arm of... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Credit; Banks and Banking; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Mathematical Methods

17 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

What the Stockdale Paradox Tells Us About Crisis Leadership

situations where the threat to survival rolls on monotonously day after day. This is because planning automatically implies a future, and this future is frequently in doubt.” Crisis leaders must motivate people past that doubt—not by... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

Article

Valuing Time Over Money Predicts Happiness After a Major Life Transition: A Preregistered Longitudinal Study of Graduating Students

By: A.V. Whillans, Lucia Macchia and Elizabeth Dunn

How does prioritizing time or money shape major life decisions and subsequent well-being? In a preregistered longitudinal study of approximately 1000 graduating university students, respondents who valued time over money chose more intrinsically rewarding activities... View Details

Keywords: Time Use; Trade-offs; Career Decisions; Time Management; Money; Happiness; Values and Beliefs; Personal Development and Career

November 2017
Article

Overcoming Institutional Voids: A Reputation-Based View of Long Run Survival

By: Cheng Gao, Tiona Zuzul, Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna

Emerging markets are characterized by underdeveloped institutions and frequent environmental shifts. Yet they also contain many firms that have survived over generations. How are firms in weak institutional environments able to persist over time? Motivated by 69... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Voids; Intangible Resources; Emerging Markets; Reputation; Business History

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2016
Working Paper

Overcoming Institutional Voids: A Reputation-Based View of Long Run Survival

By: Cheng Gao, Tiona Zuzul, Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna

Emerging markets are characterized by underdeveloped institutions and frequent environmental shifts. Yet they also contain many firms that have survived over generations. How are firms in weak institutional environments able to persist over time? Motivated by 69... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Voids; Intangible Resources; Business Ventures; Business or Company Management; Business History; Reputation; Emerging Markets

SSRN

December 4, 2012
Article

Business Leaders Are More Than Profiteers, as They Deliver Growth in an Efficient, Fair Manner

By: Karthik Ramanna

The legitimacy of market capitalism rests on its ability to deliver freedom, prosperity, and growth in a manner that is efficient and fair. The pursuit of profit is a central but not the only element of capitalism. There are many circumstances, such as when lobbying... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Leadership; India

June 2007 (Revised July 2007)
Case

USG Corporation (A)

Deals with CEO Bill Foote's decision of how to deal with USG's exposure to asbestos liability. USG was the largest building materials company in the United States, with 14,000 employees and gross revenues of $3.8 billion. Although USG used asbestos in a small subset of... View Details

Keywords: Legal Liability; Construction Industry

Now a Wall Street Journal Best-seller! Over a decade ago, the best-selling business fable Who Moved My Cheese? offered its answer to the question: accept that change is inevitable and beyond your control, don't waste your time wondering why things are the... View Details

September 2024
Case

Leadership for Stretch Goals: Inspiring Employees to Achieve the Impossible at Charter Next Generation

By: Ethan Rouen and Elisabeth Powell

In 2023, Kathy Bolhous, CEO of Charter Next Generation (CNG), set out to achieve an ambitious "Moonshot"—increasing profits by $100 million within three years, purely through internal innovations and efficiency gains, without layoffs or new revenue streams. After years... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Growth Management; Mission and Purpose; Employee Ownership; Motivation and Incentives

April 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Unleashing Human Magic at Best Buy

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger, Sunil Gupta and Amram Migdal

The case examines the transformation of Best Buy under CEO Hubert Joly's leadership from 2012. Facing significant business challenges, including competition from online and physical retailers, Joly implemented the "Renew Blue" turnaround strategy, which focused on... View Details

2010
Working Paper

Agency Revisited

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Daniel F. Spulber

The article presents a comprehensive overview of the principal-agent model that emphasizes the role of trust in the agency relationship. The analysis demonstrates that the legal remedy for breach of duty can result in a full-information efficient outcome eliminating... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Contracts; Agency Theory; Mathematical Methods; Behavior; Trust

Research Summary

Current Research

Ian studies extrinsic rewards -- monetary incentives from formal compensation systems, as well as other formal and informal external rewards-- in order to help businesses understand the tensions and tradeoffs inherent in motivating employees. His research takes a... View Details

12 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 12, 2006

differences in motives and activities of not-for-profit organizations, and the need to develop additional theories to address those differences in explaining interorganizational arrangements between them. The Structural Determinants of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 1993 (Revised December 1997)
Case

General Dynamics: Compensation and Strategy (A)

William Anders became CEO of defense giant General Dynamics in 1991 as the Cold War was ending and as the industry became saddled with excess capacity. Observing that the company was underserving shareholders and required a massive change in its culture, Anders brought... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Strategy; Executive Compensation; Manufacturing Industry; United States

Winter 2024
Article

Is Pay Transparency Good?

By: Zoë B. Cullen

Countries around the world are enacting pay transparency policies to combat pay discrimination. Since 2000, 71 percent of OECD countries have done so. Most are enacting transparency horizontally, revealing pay between coworkers doing similar work within a firm. While... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Wages; Knowledge Sharing; Job Design and Levels; Negotiation; Performance Productivity; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives

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20 Apr 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Why Every Company Needs a CSR Strategy and How to Build It

Keywords: by Kash Rangan, Lisa A. Chase & Sohel Karim

Teaching Interest

Overview

By: Gerald C. Chertavian

I am currently teaching Social Entrepreneurship and Systems Change (SESC) as a 2nd year Elective Course. The premise of the course is that social entrepreneurs don’t just build organizations, they change systems. The course explores the frameworks, tools, mindsets,... View Details

Keywords: Social Impact; Systems Change; Social Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Housing; Climate Change; Entrepreneurship; Food; Governance; Leadership; Measurement and Metrics; Social Enterprise; System; Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America; South America

2022
Working Paper

The Lifesaving Benefits of Convenient Infrastructure: Quantifying the Mortality Impact of Abandoning Shallow Tubewells Contaminated by Arsenic in Bangladesh

By: Nina Buchmann, Erica Field, Rachel Glennerster and Reshmaan Hussam

We document the consequences of a public health campaign which led to the sudden abandonment of local water infrastructure by one-fifth of Bangladesh’s population. Households who experienced quasi-randomly distributed arsenic contamination, and thus were likely to... View Details

Keywords: Child Mortality; Arsenic; Unintended Consequences; Health Disorders; Safety; Outcome or Result; Bangladesh

2008
Working Paper

Signaling Firm Performance Through Financial Statement Presentation: An Analysis Using Special Items

By: Edward J. Riedl and Suraj Srinivasan

This paper investigates whether managers' presentation of special items within the financial statements reflects economic performance or opportunism. Specifically, we assess special items presented as a separate line item on the income statement (income statement... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Decision Choices and Conditions; Corporate Disclosure; Performance

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