Publications

Article

Health as a Way of Doing Business

By: Howard Koh, Sara J. Singer and Amy C. Edmondson

For too long, the worlds of business and health have been mired in a checkered, sometimes contentious, history. Millions of deaths worldwide can be attributed to risk factors including tobacco use, alcohol and drug misuse, and suboptimal dietary intake linked to... View Details

Keywords: Health; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Public Opinion

Find at Harvard

10 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 10

Publications February 2015 Academy of Management Review Reflections on the 2013 Decade Award: "Exploitation, Exploration, and Process Management: The Productivity Dilemma Revisited" Ten Years Later By: Benner, Mary, and... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

2022
Working Paper

The Limits of Decentralized Administrative Data Collection: Experimental Evidence from Colombia

By: Natalia Garbiras-Diaz and Tara Slough

States collect vast amounts of data for use in policymaking and public administration. To do so, central governments frequently solicit data from decentralized bureaucrats. Because central governments use these data in policymaking, decentralized bureaucrats may face... View Details

Keywords: Decentralization; Policy-making; Policy/economics; Policy Evaluation; Governance; Government Administration; Government and Politics; Government Legislation; Policy; Public Opinion; Analytics and Data Science; Latin America; South America; Colombia

Read Now

15 Jan 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Promise of Positive Optimal Taxation: A Generalized Theory Calibrated to Survey Evidence on Normative Preferences Explains Puzzling Features of Policy

Keywords: by Matthew Weinzierl

April 2017 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity

By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu

Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying to political activism. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must... View Details

Research Summary

Profitable Souls: Foreign Investment and the Fate of Human Rights

By: Debora L. Spar

This is a project about foreign investment, about what happens when big multinational firms invest in small, poor, and often nasty places. Typically, most observers assume that this is a largely negative relationship: that multinationals exploit the local population,... View Details

24 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 24, 2007

Student Outcomes in U.S. Public Education Harvard Business School Note 307-068 Surveys educational outcomes among public school students in the United States. Educational outcomes are categorized as... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2012
Book

Restoring Trust in Organizations and Leaders: Enduring Challenges and Emerging Answers

By: Roderick Kramer and Todd Lowell Pittinsky

Recent events around the world, especially in the financial sector and with respect to government performance, have severely undermined people’s trust in both private organizations and public institutions. In no small measure, these substantial and enduring declines in... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Leadership; Public Opinion; Social Psychology; Public Administration Industry; Public Administration Industry

Find at Harvard

October 2020 (Revised April 2022)
Case

When Institutions Fail: HIV/AIDS in the 1980s

By: Tom Nicholas and Christian Godwin

During the early 1980s, young gay men in urban centers such as San Francisco and New York City began contracting a mysterious illness that would come to be known as HIV/AIDS. A diagnosis meant almost certain death, with a less than 1% survival rate. Conflicting... View Details

September 2010 (Revised April 2012)
Case

Better World Books

By: Michael I. Norton, Fiona Wilson, Jill Avery and Thomas J. Steenburgh

Better World Books, a young start-up, provides a socially conscious alternative to Amazon, collecting and selling used books to keep them out of the waste stream, while donating a portion of their profits to support global literacy efforts. The case presents an... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Online Technology; Retail Industry

20 Jun 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover: Lessons in Strategic Change

Keywords: Re: Andy Wu; Technology

2012
Article

Do Voters Demand Responsive Governments? Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief

By: Shawn Cole, Andrew Healy and Eric Werker

Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, fewer voters... View Details

Keywords: Political Elections; System Shocks; Natural Disasters; Policy; Motivation and Incentives; Public Opinion; India

Find at Harvard

Read Now

February 2023 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk

By: Andy Wu and Goran Calic

Late afternoon on Friday, October 27th, 2022, Elon Musk was the center of attention at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. The night before, Musk officially took the company private and became Twitter’s majority shareholder, finally ending a months-long acquisition... View Details

Keywords: Elon Musk; Twitter; Acquisition; Revenue; Advertising; Social Media; Business or Company Management; Public Opinion; Job Cuts and Outsourcing

October 1999
Case

Royal Dutch/Shell in Transition (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine

After the Brent Spar episode and the 1995 events in Nigeria, Shell undertakes an intensive review of its values and business principles. At the same time, it conducts the largest multi-stakeholder consultation in its history in an effort to better understand society's... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Public Opinion; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Transformation; Environmental Accounting; Energy Industry

July 2021
Case

Amazon HQ2

By: James K. Sebenius and Ben Cook

Amazon’s failed bid for a second headquarters location (“HQ2”) in Long Island City, New York offers many lessons for negotiators looking to avoid similar high-profile defeats in strategically important deals. The company’s project – which promised to bring billions of... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Negotiation; Public Opinion; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Problems and Challenges

31 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Where Can Digital Transformation Take You? Insights from 1,700 Leaders

Customers demand more value and innovation than ever before, but they’re not always willing to pay more for that product or service. In fact, thanks to social media, dissatisfied customers can amplify their opinions about a company’s long... View Details

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

19 Sep 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, September 19

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53204 December 2017 Current Opinion in Psychology Gender, Social Class, and Women's Employment By: McGinn, Kathleen L., and Eunsil Oh Abstract—People in low-power positions, whether due to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2010
Chapter

The Paranoid Style in the Study of American Politics

By: David Moss and Mary Oey

What drives policy making in a democracy? The conventional view is that political actors, like economic actors, pursue their self interest, and that special interest groups dominate the policy making process by satisfying policy makers' need for money and other forms... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Government Legislation; Media; Interests; Power and Influence; Public Opinion; United States