Publications

Educators

2017
Working Paper

Lessons Unlearned? Corporate Debt in Emerging Markets

By: Laura Alfaro, Gonzalo Asis, Anusha Chari and Ugo Panizza

This paper documents a set of new stylized facts about leverage and financial fragility for emerging market firms following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Corporate debt vulnerability indicators during the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) attributed to corporate... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Debt; Financial Fragility; Firm-level Data; Large Firms; Emerging Markets; Borrowing and Debt; Corporate Finance; Financial Condition

24 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Why Do We Tax?

fixing this gap. For 40 years, economists have drawn from the well of Utilitarian theory—which has the goal of maximizing overall well-being in society—to help design tax systems in the United States and around the world. Although the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Legal Services

25 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Politics is Failing America, and What Business Can Do To Help

continues to serve the needs of its preferred customers: the small number of hardcore primary voters, big-pocketed donors, and special-interest groups, the study says. That closed loop is no accident, the authors believe. Democrats and... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

May 2023
Article

Decarbonizing Health Care: Engaging Leaders in Change

By: Vivian S. Lee, Kathy Gerwig, Emily Hough, Kedar Mate, Robert Biggio and Robert S. Kaplan

Health care leaders are often surprised to learn that their operations contribute significantly to a warming climate. In addition to their roles as responders to and victims of extreme weather events, health care organizations have an obligation to reduce... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Decarbonization; Carbon Emissions; Net-zero Emissions; Climate Change; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

03 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

The Tricky Business of Managing Web Advertising Affiliates

When the FBI charged Shawn Hogan and two others with defrauding eBay of about $21 million in affiliate marketing sales, Benjamin G. Edelman was watching closely behind the scenes. Edelman's name rarely came up at the time of the 2010... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Advertising; Publishing

31 Oct 2006
HBS Case

Governing Sumida Corporation

traditional governance system and the U.S.-inspired committee system. Believing that Sumida's future was limited if it followed the status quo, Yawata presses ahead with his decision to adopt the U.S. model. The case details the... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Electronics

11 May 2015
Research & Ideas

A Road Map to Fix America’s Transportation Infrastructure

Any highway commuter who has wasted hours stuck in traffic can see the cracks in the United States' transportation system, as can any airline passenger who has been stranded overnight in an airport. Yet while many agree that the need for infrastructure change is... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Transportation

February 2024
Article

Representation and Extrapolation: Evidence from Clinical Trials

By: Marcella Alsan, Maya Durvasula, Harsh Gupta, Joshua Schwartzstein and Heidi L. Williams

This article examines the consequences and causes of low enrollment of Black patients in clinical trials. We develop a simple model of similarity-based extrapolation that predicts that evidence is more relevant for decision-making by physicians and patients when it... View Details

Keywords: Representation; Racial Disparity; Health Testing and Trials; Race; Equality and Inequality; Innovation and Invention; Pharmaceutical Industry

August 2013 (Revised November 2013)
Supplement

Ford vs. GM: The Evolution of Mass Production (B)

By: Willy Shih

This case explores the very different paths taken by the Ford Motor Company and the General Motors Corporation in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Henry Ford's Model T was a car for the masses. After considerable experimentation, Ford Motor... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Exploration; Dominant Design; Business Growth and Maturation; Business History; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Positioning; Product Design; Product Development; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Vertical Integration; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Michigan

20 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 20

PublicationsCapitalism: Its Origins and Evolution as a System of Governance Author:Bruce R. Scott Publication:Springer-Verlag, 2011 Abstract Two systems of governance, capitalism and democracy, prevail in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 21, 2023
Article

When Scenario Planning Fails

By: Kalle Heikkinen, William R. Kerr, Mika Malin, Panu Routila and Eemil Rupponen

How can organizations perform scenario planning when they are hit by shocks outside of leaders’ field of vision? Interviews with Nordic executives, who experienced both the Covid-19 pandemic and were in close proximity to Russia as the country invaded Ukraine, can... View Details

Keywords: Planning; Crisis Management; Organizational Structure; Forecasting and Prediction; System Shocks; Organizational Change and Adaptation

2012
Article

Open Innovation and Organization Design

By: Michael Tushman, Karim Lakhani and Hila Lifshitz - Assaf

This paper calls the organization design community to reconcile the divergent scholarly perspectives on the relationship between firm boundaries and the locus of innovation by moving beyond debates between open vs. closed boundaries and instead embracing the notion of... View Details

Keywords: Organization Design; Open Innovation; Innovation; Locus Of Innovation; Organizational Boundaries; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Innovation and Invention; Alliances; Vertical Integration; Boundaries

SSRN

March 2025
Article

Novice Risk Work: How Juniors Coaching Seniors on Emerging Technologies Such as Generative AI Can Lead to Learning Failures

By: Katherine C. Kellogg, Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, Steven Randazzo, Ethan Mollick, Fabrizio Dell'Acqua, Edward McFowland III, François Candelon and Karim R. Lakhani

The literature on communities of practice demonstrates that a proven way for senior professionals to upskill themselves in the use of new technologies that undermine existing expertise is to learn from junior professionals. It notes that juniors may be better able... View Details

Keywords: Rank and Position; Competency and Skills; Technology Adoption; Experience and Expertise; AI and Machine Learning

October 2003 (Revised April 2006)
Background Note

Moral Reasoning: A Practical Guide for Leaders

By: Sandra J. Sucher

We encounter moral or ethical challenges in our professional lives, in our close relationships, and as members of the broader communities that we are part of. This methodology demonstrates how moral reasoning works and how it can be integrated into a problem-solving... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Moral Sensibility; Management Systems; Problems and Challenges; Civil Society or Community

Educators

October 2009
Supplement

Merger of Equals: The Integration of Mellon Financial and The Bank of New York (C)

By: Ryan D. Taliaferro, Clayton S. Rose and David Lane

[Continuation of "A" and "B" cases.] Less than a month after the close of the merger between The Bank of New York and Mellon Financial, managers at the two firms realized that plans for combining their asset servicing businesses – and realizing the $180 million of... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Horizontal Integration; Financial Institutions; Business Processes; Risk Management; Strategy; Market Transactions; Assets; System; Saving; Banking Industry; New York (state, US)

28 Nov 2011
Research & Ideas

Rethinking the Fairness of Organ Transplants

A proposal out of Harvard and MIT to rethink how kidney transplants are allocated could result in a fairer system giving patients longer lives. The new empirical model, which is intensely data driven, would provide a flexible framework to... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Health

2007
Working Paper

Competition in Modular Clusters

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and C. Jason Woodard

The last twenty years have witnessed the rise of disaggregated "clusters," "networks," or "ecosystems" of firms. In these clusters the activities of R&D, product design, production, distribution, and system integration may be split up among hundreds or even thousands... View Details

Keywords: Price; Profit; Digital Platforms; Industry Clusters; Competition; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration