Publications

December 2007 (Revised December 2021)
Case

The South Sea Company (A)

By: David A. Moss, Eugene Kintgen, Agnieszka Rafalska and Kimberly Hagan

In early 1720, the South Sea Company and the Bank of England were cometing for the right to issue new shares and to exchange those shares for government bons that were then in the hands of the public. The British government had already executed two such debt conversion... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Debt Securities; Stock Shares; Financial Strategy; Bids and Bidding; Business and Government Relations; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Great Britain

Educators

02 Sep 2020
News

The Secret to Reallocating Resources in a Recession

15 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 15

http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20sommers.pdf Working PapersSustainable Cities: Oxymoron or the Shape of the Future? Authors:Annissa Alusi, Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson, and Tiona Zuzul Abstract Two trends are likely to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

we are willing to contribute ideas in the workplace or try to compete for a promotion,” Coffman says. “If talented women in STEM aren’t confident, they might not even look at those fields in the first place. It’s all about how good we... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Research Summary

Innovating in Energy: Learning from High-Potential Ventures

By: Joseph B. Lassiter

My work at HBS has always focused on high-potential ventures. Most recently, these have been professionally financed start-ups and buyouts in newly emerging energy and cleantech businesses. These ventures tend to be based on innovative insights into technology and... View Details

May–June 2021
Article

Capturing Value in Platform Business Models that Rely on User-Generated Content

By: Hemang Subramanian, Sabyasachi Mitra and Sam Ransbotham

Business models increasingly depend on inputs from outside traditional organizational boundaries. For example, platforms that generate revenue from advertising, subscription, or referral fees often rely on user-generated content (UGC). But there is considerable... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Network Effects; Mergers and Acquisitions; Valuation; Risk and Uncertainty

2018
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 5 Complementarity

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to relate the theory of task networks and technology set forth in previous chapters to theories of firm boundaries from economics and management. Complementary goods have more value when used together than separately. Complementarity may... View Details

Keywords: Complementarity

SSRN

2022
Working Paper

Racial Diversity in Private Capital Fundraising

By: Johan Cassel, Josh Lerner and Emmanuel Yimfor

Black- and Hispanic-owned funds control a very modest share of assets in the private capital industry. We find that the sensitivity of follow-on fundraising to fund performance is greater for minority-owned groups, particularly for underperforming groups. We... View Details

Keywords: Buyouts; Capital Formation; Minorities; Venture Capital; Minority-owned Businesses; Race; Diversity; Investment Funds; Financial Services Industry

2011
Working Paper

The 'IKEA Effect': When Labor Leads to Love

By: Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely

In a series of studies in which consumers assembled IKEA boxes, folded origami, and built sets of Legos, we demonstrate and investigate the boundary conditions for what we term the "IKEA effect&"—the increase in valuation of self-made products. Participants saw their... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Labor; Resource Allocation; Valuation

17 May 2017
Research & Ideas

Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews

United States. Some of the resumes included information that clearly pointed out the applicants’ minority status, while others were whitened, or scrubbed of racial clues. The researchers then created email accounts and phone numbers for... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2022
Book

From Strength to Strength: Finding Meaning, Success, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

By: Arthur C. Brooks

Many of us assume that the more successful we are, the less susceptible we become to the sense of professional and social irrelevance that often accompanies aging. But the truth is, the greater our achievements and our attachment to them, the more we notice our... View Details

Keywords: Aging; Meaning In Life; Purpose; Personal Development and Career; Success; Happiness; Satisfaction

08 Feb 2000
Research & Ideas

Building Effective R&D Capabilities Abroad

knowledge emerge across the globe, companies must establish a presence at an increasing number of locations to access new knowledge and to absorb new research results from foreign universities and competitors into their own organizations.... View Details

Keywords: by Walter Kuemmerle

Article

No Evidence for an Effect of Testosterone Administration on Delay Discounting in Male University Students

By: Georgia Rada Ortner, Matthias Wibral, Anke Becker, Thomas Dohmen, Dietrich Klingmüller, Armin Falk and Bernd Weber

Intertemporal choices between a smaller sooner and a larger delayed reward are one of the most important types of decisions humans face in their everyday life. The degree to which individuals discount delayed rewards correlates with impulsiveness. Steep delay... View Details

Keywords: Delay Discounting; Impulsiveness; Intertemporal Choice; Testosterone; Decision Making; Behavior; Personal Characteristics

September 2017
Editorial

Helping Patients with Cancer Navigate Narrow Networks

By: Stephen M. Schleicher, Emeline M. Aviki and Thomas W. Feeley

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) was designed primarily to improve patient access to affordable health care. The access-expanding provisions of the ACA included federal- and state-based health insurance exchanges with minimum coverage requirements and preexisting... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Problems and Challenges; United States

Register to Read

November 2023
Article

Brokerage House Initial Public Offerings and Analyst Forecast Quality

By: Mark Bradshaw, Michael Drake, Joseph Pacelli and Brady Twedt

We examine how brokerage firm initial public offerings (IPOs) influence the research quality of sell-side analysts employed by the brokerage. Our main results focus on earnings forecast bias and absolute forecast errors as proxies for research quality. Using a... View Details

Keywords: IPOs; Research Analysts; ＂Brokerage Industry; Initial Public Offering; Employees; Behavior; Outcome or Result

May 29, 2019
Article

A Study of More Than 250 Platforms Reveals Why Most Fail

By: David B. Yoffie, Annabelle Gawer and Michael A. Cusumano

This piece explores why digital platforms fail. We collected data on 250 failures over the last 20 years, analyzed the most common causes for a platform to disappear or morph into an alternative business. View Details

Keywords: Platform; Digital Platforms; Strategy; Failure; Analysis

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2022
Conference Presentation

Organizational Competition: A Catalyst for Workplace Diversity and Desires for Uniqueness

By: Samantha N. Smith, Edward H. Chang, Erika L. Kirgios and Katherine L. Milkman

Competition is prevalent in organizations. For example, people often compete against their colleagues for status and recognition in the workplace or for opportunities for advancement. Workers also compete against others to get hired into organizations in the first... View Details

Keywords: Status and Position; Organizational Culture; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior

2009
Chapter

The Effects of a Central Clearinghouse on Job Placement, Wages, and Hiring Practices

By: Muriel Niederle and Alvin E. Roth

New gastroenterologists participated in a labor market clearinghouse (a "match") from 1986 through the late 1990s, after which the match was abandoned. This provides an opportunity to study the effects of a match by observing the differences in the outcomes and... View Details

Keywords: Labor; Market Timing; Marketplace Matching; Failure