Publications

October 2018 (Revised September 2020)
Case

Testing Autonomy in Pittsburgh

By: Mitchell Weiss and Brittany Urick

Pittsburgh’s mayor had been among the first to welcome self-driving vehicles but was now one of many needing to react after a pedestrian fatality involving an autonomous Uber in Arizona. He had originally preferred to roll out “the red carpet” instead of the “red... View Details

October 2013 (Revised June 2014)
Case

Demarketing Soda in New York City

By: John A. Quelch, Margaret L. Rodriguez, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Christine Snively

In 2013, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried and failed to institute a ban on serving sizes of large sugary beverages. Obesity posed a large public health risk to the city. Mayor Bloomberg's proposed ban was one of many attempts to combat the rising threat of... View Details

Keywords: Soda; Public Health; Business And Public Policy; Obesity; Business and Government Relations; Public Sector; Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Marketing; Health; City; Food and Beverage Industry; New York (city, NY)

12 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

Global Poverty Needs a Global Answer

sector financial help a joint venture was set up with POEMA, a modern high-tech factory built, and coca plantations developed. Some 5,000 people were employed. Literacy levels soared. Political participation increased. Change had been... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell

February 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Case

Doing Business in Santiago, Chile

By: Willis Emmons, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Ruth Costas

The case uses the example of the opening of the first IKEA furniture store in Chile – which is operated by Chilean group Falabella – to discuss the opportunities and challenges of doing business in the country. It gives readers an overview of Chile’s economic... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Development Economics; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Economic Sectors; Economy; Macroeconomics; Business History; Chile; Latin America

22 Dec 2016
Op-Ed

The Small Business Administration is a Model for How to Drive Economic Growth

A recent Washington Post editorial suggested that the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) is, in many ways, a remnant of days gone by. The arguments implied that small businesses that make up our nation’s “Main Street” View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills

13 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

Making Biotech Work as a Business

expressed the frustration that many people in the biotech industry feel as he clicked through the depressing data in gloomy graphs on a big screen. "It's not a very profitable sector of the economy" based on the performance of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Biotechnology; Health; Technology

April 2025
Case

The CHIPS Program Office (Abridged)

By: Mitch Weiss and Sebastian Negron-Reichard

In February 2023, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo weighed signing off on a Notice of Funding Opportunity (“NOFO”) with at least one unconventional provision: a pre-application (“pre-app”) to the actual application for parts of $39 billion in direct semiconductor... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Public Sector; Government Administration; Government Legislation; Motivation and Incentives; Semiconductor Industry; Public Administration Industry; United States

17 Feb 2003
Research & Ideas

Tales of the Newly-minted MBA

Bridgeport. "It's not a perfect fit with our family's life plan," said Horton, alluding to the financial downside of a public sector salary, "but now is the time to follow my passion." What about the so-called... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

January 2001 (Revised May 2001)
Background Note

State, The

By: Rawi E. Abdelal

Surveys approaches to understanding the state; highlights the relationships between the state, order, and property; and offers an analytical framework for how states vary from place to place and over time. View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Governance Compliance; Framework; Economic Sectors; Policy; Private Ownership; Public Ownership; Entrepreneurship; Development Economics; Equality and Inequality

15 Feb 2011
First Look

First Look: Feb. 15

experiments offer evidence that debates about the relative costs and benefits of self-deception are informed by adopting a temporal view that assesses the cumulative impact of self-deception over time. Download the paper:... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2011 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Sarvajal: Water for All

By: John D. Macomber and Mona Sinha

Entrepreneur wrestles with business model using SMS and RFID technology, franchising, and leasing to rapidly grow off-the-grid water purification business without subsidies. The company seeks to provide potable water services to rural and urban India where the public... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Business Model; Communication Technology; Private Sector; Social Entrepreneurship; Cost Management; Rural Scope; Emerging Markets; Infrastructure; Problems and Challenges; Information Infrastructure; India

20 May 2013
Op-Ed

Making America an Industrial Powerhouse Again

commercial R&D efforts by pharmaceutical, biotechnology, diagnostics, and agricultural companies. The latter was a very specific commercial bet. Placing these commercial bets requires a depth of understanding of markets and customers that only the private View Details

Keywords: by Gary Pisano; Manufacturing

07 Dec 2015
Research & Ideas

Why Immigrant Workers Cluster in Particular Industries

could be clustering in certain sectors because they have a competitive advantage over native-born citizens, either by possessing special skills or by having supportive social networks in their ethnic groups that can help them navigate... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Transportation; Beauty & Cosmetics; Retail

1986
Chapter

Promise Them Anything: The Incentive Structures of Local Public Pension Plans

By: Dutch Leonard

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Public Sector; Government and Politics; Local Range; Motivation and Incentives

Find at Harvard

24 Jun 2008
First Look

First Look: June 24, 2008

comparisons with EU15 and the U.S. economy. Design/methodology/approach—Industrial specialization and clusters are measured as employment in the intersection between a sector (three-digit NACE data) and a particular region (NUTS 2 level),... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

22 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

The Immigrant Technologist: Studying Technology Transfer with China

transfer increases labor productivity and wages directly. The interesting thing about China and also India is that about half of their populations are still employed in the agricultural sector. In this scenario, technology transfer may lead to faster View Details

Keywords: Re: William R. Kerr; Technology; Computer

February 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Can Families Conquer Private Equity? Pritzker Private Capital

By: Lauren Cohen and Sophia Pan

Anthony (Tony) Pritkzer, Paul Carbone, and the Pritzker Private Capital (PPC) team wondered how to approach the firm’s next phase of growth. PPC was a private equity firm that offered a differentiated approach to the family capital market. Back in 2016, the partners... View Details

02 Mar 2018
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Trump’s Tariffs Could Harm Allies as Much as Opponents

increased for consumers, and there were more jobs lost in those sectors suffering from higher steel prices than steel jobs created. After Trump’s announcement, the Dow Jones industrial average greeted the news with a drop of more than 1.5... View Details

Keywords: by Dante Roscini; Steel; Manufacturing

January 2025
Case

AI Meets VC: The Data-Driven Revolution at Quantum Light Capital

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Sophia Pan

Ilya Kondrashov, CEO of Quantum Light Capital, was driven to harness AI for identifying high-potential scale-ups. Collaborating with Nik Storonsky, founder of Revolut, the duo observed that most venture capital (VC) decisions were heavily influenced by emotion, with... View Details