Publications

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31 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Checking Your Ethics: Would You Speak Up in These 3 Sticky Situations?

behavior by colleagues—shortcuts in analysis, intoxication on the job, inappropriate relationships. In general, the question you must ask is whether the issue ultimately affects the work delivered to clients and whether it harms the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Consulting

23 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

How to Keep Employees Productive: Support Caregivers

workers between the ages of 26 and 35 and about 30 percent between the ages of 36 and 45 say that caregiving negatively affected their career. Businesses in the United States incur more than $1 trillion in costs annually due to turnover.... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

Ray A. Goldberg

A native of North Dakota, Dr. Goldberg received his A.B. from Harvard University in 1948, his MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1950 and his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Minnesota in 1952.

... View Details

Keywords: agribusiness; agriculture; fast food; food; food processing; forest products; grocery; high technology; information; restaurant; retailing; soft drink; textiles; tobacco; transportation; wholesale; wine

Web

Curriculum - Case Method Project

economic dispute between two men in 1780s Rhode Island to offer a more concrete demonstration of how rapid inflation affected debtors and creditors during the Critical Period. It is meant as a supplement to the “James Madison” case above,... View Details

25 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

A Few Firms Have Outsized Influence in D.C.

question to economists," says Harvard Business School Associate Professor William R. Kerr. "It's uncharted territory." Kerr's interest in the topic came from studies he's done on immigration issues—in particular, looking at how the importation of highly... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

February 2022
Case

Toraya

By: Lauren Cohen and Akiko Kanno

Mitsuharu Kurokawa was the 18th generation leader of a family firm that produced and sold premium Japanese sweets, Toraya Confectionery Co., Ltd. He had succeeded the business from his father, Mitsuhiro Kurokawa who had led the firm for thirty years. Mitsuharu was... View Details

Keywords: Branding; Luxury Brand; Succession; Family Business; Management Succession; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Marketing; Expansion; Globalization; Innovation and Invention; Customer Satisfaction; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; Japan

Educators

30 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

Why Anger Makes a Wrongly Accused Person Look Guilty

whether an accused person has committed the offense, based on the emotions he or she expresses. Such an unfair judgment can have grave consequences, affecting the accused person’s career and even leading to job loss. "People who are... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

May 2023
Article

Where Sales Technology (Really) Helps

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Interest in Sales Enablement (SE), the catch-all term for attempts to increase sales productivity with AI and other technologies, is driven by multiple factors. One is the declining costs of the tools. Also, selling is now data-hungry work and not just in tech sectors.... View Details

2022
Working Paper

Confidence, Self-Selection and Bias in the Aggregate

By: Benjamin Enke, Thomas Graeber and Ryan Oprea

The influence of behavioral biases on aggregate outcomes like prices and allocations depends in part on self-selection: whether rational people opt more strongly into aggregate interactions than biased individuals. We conduct a series of betting market, auction and... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Cognition and Thinking; Markets; Price

March 2023
Article

Attracting the Sharks: Corporate Innovation and Securities Class Action Lawsuits

By: Elisabeth Kempf and Oliver Spalt

This paper provides novel evidence suggesting that securities class action lawsuits, a central pillar of the U.S. litigation and corporate governance system, can constitute an obstacle to valuable corporate innovation. We first establish that valuable innovation output... View Details

Keywords: Class-action Litigation; Turnover; Lawsuits and Litigation; Innovation and Invention; Risk and Uncertainty

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November 2019
Supplement

Gillette: Cutting Prices to Regain Share

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

After losing market share to low-priced competitors such as Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club for several years, Gillette decided to fight back by cutting prices on its razors and blades in April 2017. Bonnie Herzog, an equity analyst at Wells Fargo, must assess how the... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Business Strategy; Competition; Price; Public Equity; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

April–May 2019
Article

Disclosure Incentives When Competing Firms Have Common Ownership

By: Jihwon Park, Jalal Sani, Nemit Shroff and Hal D. White

This paper examines whether common ownership – i.e., instances where investors simultaneously own significant stakes in competing firms – affects voluntary disclosure. We argue that common ownership (i) reduces proprietary cost concerns of disclosure, and (ii)... View Details

Keywords: Voluntary Disclosure; Externalities; Corporate Disclosure; Ownership

February 2019 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Mexico: Shifting Left with AMLO

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

Andrés Manuel López Obrador became president of Mexico on December 1, 2018. His election, and the victory of his new Party, MORENA, represent a sharp shift to the left by Mexico’s political system. Previously, President Peña Nieto and his party, the PRI, had initiated... View Details

Keywords: Political Economy; Pacto; Institutional Reform; Nationalism; Energy Reform; Government and Politics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Economic Growth; International Relations; Mexico

Educators

March 2020
Article

Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior

By: Akash Chattopadhyay, Matthew D. Shaffer and Charles C.Y. Wang

After decades of deprioritizing shareholders' economic interests and low corporate profitability, Japan introduced the JPX-Nikkei400 in 2014. The index highlighted the country's "best-run" companies by annually selecting the 400 most profitable of its large and liquid... View Details

Keywords: JPX-Nikkei 400 Index; Status Incentives; Return On Equity; Capital Efficiency; Social Norms; Index Inclusion; Reputation Incentives; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Behavior; Investment Return; Status and Position; Japan

February 2018 (Revised February 2018)
Supplement

HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics (B)

By: William C. Kirby and Yuanzhuo Wang

This case provides a brief overview of the success and challenges of the HNA Group between 2015 and late 2017 when it grew rapidly through global acquisitions to become 170 on the 2017 Fortune 500 list. A firm that had begun as a provincial airline in China was now a... View Details

Keywords: Internationalization; Scrutiny; Growth; China; Philanthropy; One Belt One Road; Globalized Markets and Industries; Growth and Development; Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Air Transportation Industry; Financial Services Industry; Tourism Industry; China; United States; Europe; Asia; South America; Southeast Asia

June 2018
Article

Will a Five-Minute Discussion Change Your Mind? A Countrywide Experiment on Voter Choice in France

By: Vincent Pons

This paper provides the first estimate of the effect of door-to-door canvassing on actual electoral outcomes, via a countrywide experiment embedded in François Hollande's campaign in the 2012 French presidential election. While existing experiments randomized... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Political Elections; Interpersonal Communication; France

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December 2014
Article

Selecting the Best? Spillover and Shadows in Elimination Tournaments

By: Jennifer Brown and Dylan B. Minor

We consider how past, current, and future competition within an elimination tournament affect the probability that the stronger player wins. We present a two-stage model that yields the following main results: (1) a shadow effect—the stronger the expected future... View Details

Keywords: Elimination Tournament; Dynamic Contest; Contest Design; Effort Choice; Betting Markets; Competitive Advantage; Game Theory

2014
Working Paper

The Cost of Friendship

By: Paul A. Gompers, Vladimir Mukharlyamov and Yuhai Xuan

We investigate how personal characteristics affect people's desire to collaborate and whether this attraction enhances or detracts from performance in venture capital. We find that venture capitalists who share the same ethnic, educational, or career background are... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Partners and Partnerships; Decision Making; Identity