Publications

March 2013
Article

Punctuated Generosity: How Mega-events and Natural Disasters Affect Corporate Philanthropy in U.S. Communities

By: Andras Tilcsik and Christopher Marquis

Geographic communities have been shown to affect organizations through their enduring features, but less attention has been given to communities as sites of human-made and natural events that occasionally disrupt the lives of organizations. We develop a... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Communities; Punctuated Equilibrium; Corporate Social Responsibility; Institutional Theory; Natural Disasters; Situation or Environment; Balance and Stability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Community Relations; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; United States

Article

Hurry or Wait: The Pros and Cons of Going Fast or Slow on Climate Change

By: Eleanor Denny and Jurgen Weiss

Climate change risk will likely force the de-carbonization of our electricity sector and thus involve massive investments in long-lived assets using many new and emerging technologies. Since technological progress (independent or dependent on deployment) will likely... View Details

Keywords: Electricity Sector; Environmental Risks; Fat Tails; Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Climate Change; Information Technology; Investment; Technological Innovation; Cost vs Benefits

14 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 14

knowledge and value creation are distributed across many actors. We propose a theory of IP modularity based on value maximization net of transaction and agency costs. We then use case examples to extend the theory into practical settings... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

29 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

Why Do Outlet Stores Exist?

Why do outlet stores exist? The answer may seem obvious to most shoppers—they are places where companies get rid of factory seconds or outdated merchandise at fire-sale prices. Read: bargains, bargains, bargains. And indeed, that may have been the case when the stores... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion; Retail

23 Nov 2021
Book

What It Takes to Build an Organizational Culture That Wins

produce desired behaviors. That slows down decision making and execution. Employees (and, as we will see) customers are loyal only to a point. This is a culture designed to support one strategy. It may be a strategy built around a highly successful product, an... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

January 2022
Case

SpartanNash Company: The Amazon Warrants (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

As of 12/31/21, Amazon held $22 billion of equity and warrants in related companies. In fact, it often requests a free grant of warrants when it enters into a new commercial agreement with a supplier. Over the past 20 years, Amazon has gotten warrants in almost 20... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Negotiation; Distribution; Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Equity; Distribution Industry; Distribution Industry; United States

01 Jul 2009
Working Paper Summaries

File-Sharing and Copyright

Keywords: by Felix Oberholzer-Gee & Koleman Strumpf; Technology; Entertainment & Recreation

December 2019
Case

Noiler

By: José B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

In 2019, Nigerian entrepreneur Dr. Ayoola (Ayo) Oduntan is accelerating distribution of Noiler, a genetically optimized breed of poultry, to smallholder farmers across Nigeria. The bird was bred to be productive as a source of both meat and eggs and to thrive in the... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Poverty; Health; Growth and Development Strategy; Nigeria

August 2007 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Grand Central Publishing

By: Anita Elberse

In April 2007, Grand Central's publisher Jamie Raab and editor Karen Kosztolnyik were involved in a frantic bidding war for a proposed book on the life of cat Dewey, billed as the feline answer to the best-selling "Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Product Launch; Bids and Bidding; Product Development; Publishing Industry

18 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

How Eliminating Non-Competes Could Reshape Tech

a global soft drink manufacturing and distribution network; that knowledge is spread out among many people at Coca-Cola. He would need access to years of data on marketing efforts, consumption patterns, etc. He would need to walk out with... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Technology

07 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

its leaders distribute authority and delegate decision-making. Too often, leaders only communicate how digital transformation will improve the company’s performance. Instead, they must develop a narrative—a human-centric story—for how... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

February 2023
Supplement

Astyanax Kanakakis at norbloc: A Founder's Experience with the DIFC Fintech Hive

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

norbloc was founded in 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden, by Astyanax Kanakakis and his co-founders, Vitalii Demianets and Sam Saatchi. Kanakakis and Demianets got to work to address a key gap in the industry: Know Your Customer (KYC) data sharing. As the first distributed KYC... View Details

December 2021 (Revised September 2022)
Case

Moleskine: Daniela Riccardi Turns the Page

By: Ryan Raffaelli and Sarah Gulick

Newly appointed CEO Daniela Riccardi needed to develop and present an action plan to the board of the company that owned Moleskine. Riccardi was hired because Moleskine had recently overextended its reach and needed more focus and discipline. Having previously served... View Details

Keywords: Rebranding; Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Operations; Planning; Retail Industry; Italy

September 2021
Case

Worldreader: Helping Readers Build a Better World

By: Marco Bertini, Elie Ofek and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2010, Worldreader was an international nonprofit organization that promoted reading to children around the world. For many years, Worldreader distributed e-readers to under-resourced communities and funded its operations primarily through philanthropic... View Details

2020
Working Paper

The Cost of Banking Deserts: Racial Disparities in Access to PPP Lenders and their Equilibrium Implications

By: Jeffrey Wang and David Hao Zhang

Many government support programs for small businesses are designed to pass through banks and credit unions. However, this poses barriers for minority communities that are less connected to financial institutions for obtaining this support. Using the latest program for... View Details

Keywords: Banking Deserts; Minority Communities; Paycheck Protection Program; Banks and Banking; Small Business; Demographics; Race; Government and Politics; Programs

September 2020
Article

The Rise of the Investor State: State Capital in the Chinese Economy

By: Meg Rithmire and Hao Chen

The nature and extent of the role of the Chinese state in the economy is fundamental to many empirical and theoretical debates about that country’s political economy. We document and explain the rise of a novel form of intervention on the part of the Chinese state: the... View Details

Keywords: China's Political Economy; State Shareholding; State-business Relations; State Capitalism; China's Financial System; Economy; Business and Government Relations; Finance; System; China

September 2020
Article

Dignity, Inequality, and the Populist Backlash: Lessons from America and Europe for a Sustainable Globalization

By: Rawi Abdelal

The greatest challenge to the sustainability of our current era of globalization comes from within the United States. Most Americans have come to reject globalization. We must discern the lessons from the parts of the developed world where the backlash is also... View Details

Keywords: Populism; Backlash; Dignity; Globalization; Economic Systems; Equality and Inequality; Policy; Values and Beliefs; United States; Europe