Publications

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September 2018
Case

Verisk: Trailblazing in the Big Data Jungle

By: Andrew Wasynczuk, Francesca Gino and Karim Sameh

This case revolves around Verisk Analytics' initiatives to drive innovation throughout the firm's many business verticals. Verisk, originally named ISO, started life as an insurance rating agency in the early 1970s, acting as an intermediary between insurance companies... View Details

Article

Competition and Social Identity in the Workplace: Evidence from a Chinese Textile Firm

By: Takao Kato and Pian Shu

We study the impact of social identity on worker competition by exploiting the well-documented social divide between urban resident workers and rural migrant workers in urban Chinese firms. We analyze data on weekly output, individual characteristics, and coworker... View Details

Keywords: Social Identity; Coworker Effect; Productivity; Relative Performance Incentive; Intergroup Competition; Competition; Groups and Teams; Performance Productivity; Identity

Find at Harvard

23 Jun 2023
HBS Case

This Company Lets Employees Take Charge—Even with Life and Death Decisions

patients as they see fit. A new Harvard Business School case study explores Buurtzorg’s decentralized model in depth, with lessons for institutions struggling with morale and productivity. Buurtzorg’s approach has yielded patient satisfaction View Details

Keywords: by Annelena Lobb; Health

Article

Physician–patient Racial Concordance and Disparities in Birthing Mortality for Newborns

By: Brad N. Greenwood, Rachel R. Hardeman, Laura Huang and Aaron Sojourner

Recent work has emphasized the benefits of patient–physician concordance on clinical care outcomes for underrepresented minorities, arguing it can ameliorate outgroup biases, boost communication, and increase trust. We explore concordance in a setting where racial... View Details

Keywords: Racial Bias; Birthing Outcomes; Concordance; Mortality; Health Care and Treatment; Race

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January 2021 (Revised January 2021)
Case

Thomas Keller Restaurant Group: Leadership Through a Pandemic

By: Lena G. Goldberg and Michael S. Kaufman

Thomas Keller, the first and only American-born chef to hold multiple three-star ratings from the prestigious Michelin Guide, and Joe Essa, the immediate past Board Chair of the National Restaurant Association and the CEO of Keller’s restaurant group, were class guests... View Details

Keywords: Restaurants; Restaurant Industry; COVID-19; Health Pandemics; Leadership; Business and Community Relations

April 2020 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Race and Mass Incarceration in the United States

By: Reshmaan N. Hussam and Holly Fetter

The late 20th century saw a dramatic shift in the criminal justice system of the United States. While incarceration rates had remained stable through the 1960s, they quintupled by the 2000s to 707 per 100,000, far exceeding that of all other nations in the world. By... View Details

Keywords: Criminal Justice System; Incarceration; Race; Prejudice and Bias; United States

December 2003
Case

Fox Bids for the NFL-1993

By: Bharat N. Anand and Catherine M. Conneely

The Fox television network, launched in 1987 by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was in a precarious position in 1993. Although it had met its business plan targets, its ratings in the recently concluded November "sweeps" were indifferent, several of its newly launched... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Competitive Strategy; Financial Reporting; Bids and Bidding; Revenue; Television Entertainment; Media and Broadcasting Industry

February 2018
Case

Infrastructure in Nigeria: Unlocking Pension Fund Investments

By: John Macomber and Pippa Tubman Armerding

The so-called “infrastructure finance gap” was a problem in Nigeria as in many parts of the world. Infrastructure projects like power plants and dams were very large capital investments that could generate long-term consistent cash flows, but their financing and... View Details

Keywords: Pension Fund Investing; Infrastucture; Power/Energy; Credit Enhancement; Infrastructure; Project Finance; Investment Funds; Emerging Markets; Nigeria; Africa

14 Sep 2023
Research & Ideas

Working Moms Are Mostly Thriving Again. Can We Finally Achieve Gender Parity?

at work and at home: For a while, many mothers and fathers brought their jobs home because they had no choice. First, the good news: While much has been written about how the pandemic was enormously taxing on moms—and how they fled the workforce at a much higher View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

16 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Kids of Working Moms Grow into Happy Adults

didn’t work outside the home. The research uncovered other interesting findings: Both sons and daughters of employed mothers have significantly more education than children of mothers who are not employed. The employment rates of adult... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

19 Aug 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice

Keywords: by N. Gregory Mankiw, Matthew Weinzierl & Danny Yagan

2014
Case

Microfinance Services in Rural Areas--Farmers' Self-reliance Branch of CFPA Microfinance in Shangyi County

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Siqun Yang and Meihua Shen

Microfinance is introduced into China in the 1990s. It had gone through 3 phases since the beginning, namely the pilot phase when all Microfinance practices are sponsored by charity funds based on projects, the promotion phase when the government subsidized some... View Details

Keywords: Rural Entrepreneurship; Value Added; China; Risk Management; Microfinance; China

2013
Dissertation

Designing Freemium: A Model of Consumer Usage, Upgrade, and Referral Dynamics

By: Clarence Lee, Vineet Kumar and Sunil Gupta

Abstract. Over the past decade "freemium" (free + premium) has become the dominant business model among internet start-ups for its ability to acquire and monetize a large install-base with limited marketing resources. Freemium is a hybrid strategy where a firm offers... View Details

Keywords: Discrete-Continuous Choice Dynamic Structural Models; Bayesian Estimation; Word-of-Mouth; Digital Services; Freemium; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Motivation and Incentives; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Reference Programs; Business Startups

Web

Global Impact of the Collapse | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

default swap contracts. As confidence in the banks eroded, borrowing rates rose and home foreclosures continued to spike. Lawrence McDonald, author and a former vice-president at Lehman Brothers, reflects back on the devastating cost... View Details

05 Sep 2023
Book

Thriving After Failing: How to Turn Your Setbacks Into Triumphs

that the more people in a team agreed with that statement, the higher the team’s rate of medical errors. Could it be that the teams that worked well together didn’t necessarily make more errors, but rather reported more errors because... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

11 Jun 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Measurement Errors of Expected Returns Proxies and the Implied Cost of Capital

Keywords: by Charles C.Y. Wang

January 2, 2020
Article

Changes in Quality of Care After Hospital Mergers and Acquisitions

By: Nancy Dean Beaulieu, Leemore S. Dafny, B. E. Landon, Jesse Dalton, Ifedayo Kuye and J. Michael McWilliams

Background: The hospital industry has consolidated substantially during the past two decades and at an accelerated pace since 2010. Multiple studies have shown that hospital mergers have led to higher prices for commercially insured patients, but research about effects... View Details

Keywords: Hospitals; Mergers and Acquisitions; Health Care and Treatment; Quality