Publications

30 Jul 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Fluid Teams and Fluid Tasks: The Impact of Team Familiarity and Variation in Experience

Keywords: by Robert S. Huckman & Bradley R. Staats; Video Game; Web Services

August 2017 (Revised December 2018)
Case

Tamarin App: Natural Language Processing

By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler

In this case, students explore the challenges of using sentiment analysis to monitor and understand public perception around a software application, Tamarin SEO App. Technical topics include building a filtering classifier using naive Bayes and sentiment analysis This... View Details

Keywords: Data Science; Branding; Data Analytics; Analytics and Data Science; Brands and Branding; Analysis; Perception; Planning

Educators

September 2007 (Revised November 2008)
Case

Sinopec: Refining its Strategy

By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Julia Galef

China's oil industry, with majority ownership vested in the government, had engaged in an "equity oil" strategy for the past few years-acquiring equity interests in oil producing nations including Sudan, Angola, and Iran. Outside critics, however, suggested that the... View Details

Keywords: Non-Renewable Energy; Equity; Foreign Direct Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; State Ownership; Energy Industry; China

Educators

August 2018
Article

Creative Sparks or Paralysis Traps? The Effects of Contradictions on Creative Processing and Creative Products

By: Goran Calic and Sébastien Hélie

Paradoxes are an unavoidable part of work life. The unusualness of attempting to simultaneously satisfy contradictory imperatives can result in creative outcomes that simultaneously satisfy both imperatives by inducing search for, and selection of, novel and useful... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Cognition and Thinking; Business or Company Management; Performance

Register to Read

2019
Article

Creativity from Paradoxical Experience: A Theory of How Individuals Achieve Creativity while Adopting Paradoxical Frames

By: Goran Calic, Sébastien Hélie, Nick Bontis and Elaine Mosakowski

Purpose: Extant paradox theory suggests that adopting paradoxical frames, which are mental templates adopted by individuals in order to embrace contradictions, will result in superior firm performance. Superior performance is achieved through learning and creativity,... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Creativity; Learning

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

Article

How to (Inadvertently) Sabotage Your Organization

By: Stefan Thomke

Some of the biggest threats to organizational performance can and do come from within. In an age when companies are told to be agile, to learn from experiments, and to be entrepreneurial, we are still vulnerable to actions — deliberate or unintentional — that stem from... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices; Effective Managers; Self-awareness; CIA,; Organizational Behavior; Management Practices and Processes; Organizations; Behavior; Performance

Research Summary

Sovereign Debt as a Contingent Claim: A Quantitative Approach (joint with Fabio Kanczuk)

By: Laura Alfaro

We construct a dynamic equilibrium model with contingent service and adverse selection to quantitatively study sovereign debt. In the model, benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. For a wide parameter, the only equilibrium is one in which... View Details

September 2008
Article

Let Disruption Fix Education

By: Henry Eyring and Renee Hopkins Callahan

Eyring and Hopkins Callahan apply Clayton Christensen's theory of Disruptive Innovation to Higher Education. The Spellings' Commission's 2006 report cited rising costs, lack of access, and a rift between output and the average stakeholder's needs in U.S. Higher... View Details

Keywords: Education; Disruptive Innovation; Higher Education; Education Industry

2007
Working Paper

Optimal Reserve Management and Sovereign Debt

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

Most models currently used to determine optimal foreign reserve holdings take the level of international debt as given. However, given the sovereign's willingness-to-pay incentive problems, reserve accumulation may reduce sustainable debt levels. In addition, assuming... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Liquidity; International Finance; Emerging Markets; Mathematical Methods

Article

Spatial Determinants of Entrepreneurship in India

By: Ejaz Ghani, William R. Kerr and Stephen O'Connell

We analyze the spatial determinants of entrepreneurship in India in the manufacturing and services sectors. Among general district traits, quality of physical infrastructure and workforce education are the strongest predictors of entry, with labor laws and household... View Details

Keywords: Agglomeration; Development; Entrepreneurship; Manufacturing Industry; Service Industry; India; South Asia

2011
Working Paper

Spatial Determinants of Entrepreneurship in India

By: Ejaz Ghani, William R. Kerr and Stephen O'Connell

We analyze the spatial determinants of entrepreneurship in India in the manufacturing and services sectors. Among general district traits, quality of physical infrastructure and workforce education are the strongest predictors of entry, with labor laws and household... View Details

Keywords: Education; Entrepreneurship; Industry Structures; Infrastructure; Manufacturing Industry; Service Industry; India

July 2002 (Revised March 2003)
Case

Restructuring Bulong's Project Debt

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

Preston Resources, a small Australian gold mining company, bought the Bulong nickel mine for A$319 million in November 1998 and financed the acquisition by issuing a US$185 million (A$294 million) project bond. At the time, mining had been underway for several months,... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Projects; Restructuring; Bonds; Borrowing and Debt; Business Startups; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Valuation; Mining Industry; Australia

Educators

February 2021 (Revised March 2023)
Supplement

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic and the Global Economy (B)

By: Alberto Cavallo and Christian Godwin

By December 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had swept across the globe, creating widespread disruption in all aspects of everyday life. Almost 90 million people had been infected and nearly two million had died from the disease. By this point in the pandemic—a year since... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Economy; Health Pandemics; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Global Range; Crisis Management; Disruption

December 1996 (Revised December 1997)
Case

NAPOCOR Privatization: Power in the Philippines

In the summer of 1993, brownouts reached 10 hours a day in Metro Manila, the center of the Philippine economy. Solving the electricity crisis was central to recently elected President Fidel Ramos's plan to transform the Philippines from the "sick man of Asia" to the... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Privatization; Energy Industry; Philippines