Publications

March 2008 (Revised March 2009)
Case

The Home Depot, Inc.

For its first 20 years, Home Depot was known for its entrepreneurial spirit and focus on customer service. Merchandising, purchasing, and store operations were all decentralized. When the company hit $45 billion in sales, many believed that a more disciplined approach... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Profit; Leading Change; Six Sigma; Service Operations; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Retail Industry

December 2004 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Managing a Public Image: Rob Thomas

By: Robin J. Ely and Ingrid Vargas

Rob Thomas describes some of the challenges he has faced as a white, middle-aged man who is managing director of a mid-size consulting firm where he is committed to increasing staff gender and racial diversity. Unwilling to risk the disapproval of any constituency,... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Age; Race; Identity; Failure; Gender; Consulting Industry

25 Aug 2009
News

An Ounce of Prevention

Program

Driving Digital Strategy

maximize the exchange of ideas, our Admissions Committee makes selections that balance each participant's experience, scope of current responsibilities, and type of organization. HBS seeks candidates who reflect a broad range of... View Details

Program

Building a Legacy

insights to build a professional family office Establish the right structure, governance, and organizational design for a family office Make savvier financial decisions based on a deeper understanding of family wealth management Set clear goals that View Details

Program

Families in Business

Individuals and family enterprises that reflect multiple generations and genders, along with executives from the family enterprise. Read More Teams might include: A chief executive officer or top family business leader and his or her... View Details

21 Jul 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Collaborating Across Cultures: Cultural Metacognition and Affect-Based Trust in Creative Collaboration

Keywords: by Roy Y.J. Chua, Michael W. Morris & Shira Mor

Forthcoming
Article

Variable Leases Under ASC 842: Evidence on Properties and Consequences

By: Jonas Heese, Albert Shin and Charles C.Y. Wang

The new lease standard (ASC 842) allows firms to keep variable leases off-balance-sheet, in part based on the assumption that future expenses are difficult to estimate reliably. We show that variable-lease expenses are both prevalent and substantial, exhibiting... View Details

Keywords: Financial Accounting; Financial Analysis; Accounting; Leasing; Financial Strategy

SSRN

Research Summary

Pay-What-You-Want

In pay-what-you-want settings, typical marketplace dynamics are inverted: buyers, not sellers, determine the price. According to classic economic theory, the rational response of consumers in such situations is to pay nothing, but that is not what happens in actual... View Details

January 2025
Article

Communication Within Firms: Evidence from CEO Turnovers

By: Stephen Michael Impink, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun

This paper uses novel, firm-level communication measures derived from communications metadata several months before and after a CEO transition for 102 firms to study whether and how this organizational event is reflected in employees’ communication flows. We find that... View Details

Keywords: Information; Communication; Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Alignment

Register to Read

September 2020
Case

Summit Partners: Independent Vetcare

By: Victoria Ivashina and Terrence Shu

This case follows Summit Partners, a leading growth equity firm, as it evaluates an investment opportunity in IVC, a veterinary care group in the U.K. market. The case allows students to articulate and evaluate the investment thesis of this transaction. Additionally,... View Details

Keywords: Growth Equity; Investment Evaluation; Private Equity; Investment; Decision Making; Valuation

2019
Article

Preferences for Experienced Versus Remembered Happiness

By: Cassie Mogilner and Michael I. Norton

Consider two types of happiness: one experienced on a moment-to-moment basis, the other a reflective evaluation where people feel happy looking back. Though researchers have measured and argued the merits of each, we inquired into which happiness people say they want.... View Details

Keywords: Well-being; Life Satisfaction; Experience; Retrospective; Time; Happiness; Satisfaction; Welfare; Perception

2021
Working Paper

Equity Concerns Are Narrowly Framed

By: Christine L Exley and Judd B. Kessler

Distributional decisions regularly involve multiple payoff components. In a series of experiments, we show that subjects frequently exhibit narrow equity concerns: individuals apply their fairness preferences narrowly, on a specific component of payoffs, rather... View Details

Keywords: Equity; Equality and Inequality; Fairness; Perception; Outcome or Result; Resource Allocation; Behavior

SSRN

September 2012
Other Article

An Interview with Michael Porter: Social Entrepreneurship and the Transformation of Capitalism

By: Michaela Driver and Michael E. Porter

In this interview Michael Porter explores social entrepreneurship in the context of a larger transformation of capitalism. He suggests that social entrepreneurship is an important transitional vehicle toward the creation of shared value and a capitalist system in which... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Economic Systems; Social Entrepreneurship; Transformation

2014
Article

Time, Money, and Morality

By: F. Gino and C. Mogilner

Money, a resource that absorbs much daily attention, seems to be present in much unethical behavior thereby suggesting that money itself may corrupt. This research examines a way to offset such potentially deleterious effects—by focusing on time, a resource that tends... View Details

Keywords: Money; Ethics

August 2008 (Revised June 2012)
Case

Martingale Asset Management LP in 2008, 130/30 Funds, and a Low-Volatility Strategy

By: Luis M. Viceira and Helen Tung

In early July of 2008, William (Bill) Jacques, Chief Investment Officer at Martingale Asset Management, a quantitative value-oriented investment manager in Boston, Massachusetts, was busy preparing for an upcoming meeting with the group that made new product decisions... View Details

Keywords: Volatility; Asset Management; Stocks; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Product Development

29 Jun 2022
News

As Prices Skyrocket, Coupons Are Harder to Find Than Ever

March 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

WallStreetBets: Democratizing Retail Investing

By: Joseph Pacelli and Alexis Lefort

In summer 2024, Jaime Rogozinski anticipated the launch of a day-trading eSports event, a vision he had nurtured for years. Rogozinski, the founder of the influential subreddit WallStreetBets (WSB), created the forum in 2012 as a space for retail traders to explore... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Emerging Markets; Market Participation; Financial Strategy; Lawsuits and Litigation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Financial Markets; Financial Services Industry; United States

September 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Sigfox: Building a Global IoT Network

By: Rajiv Lal, Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej and Emilie Billaud

In 2018, Ludovic Le Moan and Christophe Fourtet, co-founders of the French tech startup Sigfox, reflected on the evolution of their venture and the way forward. Founded in 2009, Sigfox was a company that provided a global connectivity network for devices connected to... View Details

Keywords: Internet Of Things; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Transition; Information Technology; Business Strategy; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; France; Europe