Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,353)
- Faculty Publications (506)
- 2013
- Working Paper
What Do We Know About Corporate Headquarters? A Review, Integration, and Research Agenda
By: Markus Menz, Sven Kunisch and David J. Collis
During the past five decades, scholars have studied the corporate headquarters (CHQ)—the multidivisional firm's central organizational unit. The purpose of this article is to review the diverse and fragmented literature on the CHQ and to identify the variables of... View Details
- 2013
- Chapter
Multinational Enterprises and Incomplete Institutions: The Demandingness of Minimum Moral Standards
By: Nien-he Hsieh
Multinational enterprises (MNEs) operate across countries that vary widely in their legal, political, and regulatory institutions. One question that arises is whether there are certain minimum standards that ought to guide managers in their decision making... View Details
- July 2013
- Article
Ethnic Innovation and U.S. Multinational Firm Activity
By: C. Fritz Foley and William R. Kerr
This paper studies the impact that immigrant innovators have on the global activities of U.S. firms by analyzing detailed data on patent applications and on the operations of the foreign affiliates of U.S. multinational firms. The results indicate that increases in the... View Details
- June 2013 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Governance and Sustainability at Nike (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine, Nien-hê Hsieh and Lara Adamsons
Two members of Nike's executive team must decide what sustainability targets to propose to Nike's CEO and to the corporate responsibility committee of Nike's board of directors. Set in 2012, the case traces the evolution of Nike's approach to environmental and social... View Details
Keywords: Nike; Hannah Jones; Mark Parker; Phil Knight; Philip Knight; Eric Sprunk; Jill Ker Conway; Phyllis Wise; Don Blair; Sustainable Business And Innovation; SB＆I; Flyknit; DyeCoo; Footwear; Athletic Footwear; Apparel; Athletic Apparel; Sustainability; Greenpeace; Detox Campaign; Dirty Laundry; Water; Water Use; Water Pollution; Water Resources; Corporate Responsibility Committee; Judgment; Board Of Directors; Board Committees; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Footwear Industry; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Ethics; Fairness; Globalized Firms and Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Alignment; Supply Chain; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Judgments; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Asia; China; United States; Oregon; Portland
- June 2013 (Revised September 2016)
- Supplement
Governance and Sustainability at Nike (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine, Nien-he Hsieh and Lara Adamsons
Two members of Nike's executive team must decide what sustainability targets to propose to Nike's CEO and to the corporate responsibility committee of Nike's board of directors. Set in 2012, the case traces the evolution of Nike's approach to environmental and social... View Details
Keywords: Nike; Hannah Jones; Mark Parker; Phil Knight; Philip Knight; Eric Sprunk; Jill Ker Conway; Phyllis Wise; Don Blair; Sustainable Business And Innovation; SB＆I; Flyknit; DyeCoo; Footwear; Athletic Footwear; Apparel; Athletic Apparel; Sustainability; Greenpeace; Detox Campaign; Dirty Laundry; Water; Water Use; Water Pollution; Water Resources; Corporate Responsibility Committee; Judgment; Board Of Directors; Board Committees; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Footwear Industry; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Ethics; Fairness; Globalized Firms and Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Alignment; Supply Chain; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Judgments; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Asia; China; United States; Oregon; Portland
- June–July 2013
- Article
Firm Rivalry, Knowledge Accumulation, and MNE Location Choices
By: Juan Alcacer, Cristian Deszo and Minyuan Zhao
The international business (IB) literature has mostly emphasized the impact of location and firm characteristics on location choices. However, industries with a significant presence of multinational enterprises (MNEs) are oligopolistic in nature, which suggests that... View Details
- May 2013 (Revised October 2014)
- Case
Novartis: Leading a Global Enterprise
By: William W. George, Krishna G. Palepu and Carin-Isabel Knoop
Novartis, the world's leading healthcare company, was formed in 1996 out of a merger of two very different, mid-tier Switzerland-based pharma companies. The case traces the company's evolution over the past 17 years, as it transformed into a truly global enterprise... View Details
Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Talent and Talent Management; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Success; Globalized Markets and Industries; Management Teams; Change Management; Business History; Mergers and Acquisitions; Global Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry; Switzerland
- May–June 2013
- Article
Can Global Brands Create Just Supply Chains? Response: Promoting Political Mobilization
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Codes of conduct indicate that working conditions are improving overall at the factories being monitored by multinational corporations, and that these codes of conduct also create possibilities for political mobilization that can improve labor conditions more broadly. View Details
Keywords: Regulation; Auditing; Labor Relations; Occupational Safety; Environmental Operations; Environmental Regulation; Employees; Labor; Labor and Management Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Manufacturing Industry; China; Bangladesh; India; Honduras; Nicaragua; Pakistan; Guatemala; Malaysia; Viet Nam
- January 2013
- Case
Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture (MM)
By: Frances X. Frei and Robin J. Ely
On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately-held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft-line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its Board of Directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details
- January–February 2013
- Article
When the Crowd Fights Corruption
By: Paul M. Healy and Karthik Ramanna
Corruption is the greatest impediment to conducting business in Russia, according to leaders recently surveyed by the World Economic Forum. Indeed, it's a problem in many emerging markets, and businesses have a role to play in combating it, according to Healy and... View Details
- August 2012
- Article
Surviving the Global Financial Crisis: Foreign Ownership and Establishment Performance
By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Chen
We examine the differential response of establishments to the recent global financial crisis with particular emphasis on the role of foreign ownership. Using a worldwide establishment panel dataset, we investigate how multinational subsidiaries around the world... View Details
- November 2012
- Article
The Organization of Firms Across Countries
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We argue that social capital as proxied by trust increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. To do this we collect new data on the decentralization of investment, hiring, production, and sales decisions from Corporate Headquarters to local... View Details
Keywords: Decentralization; Social Capital; Theory Of The Firm; Firm Objectives, Organization, And Behavior; Business Economics; Management Of Technological Innovation And R＆D; Technological Change: Choices And Consequences; Diffusion Processes; Organizational Structure; Performance Productivity; Trust; Technology Adoption; Multinational Firms and Management
- October 2012 (Revised September 2014)
- Case
Doing Business in Vietnam
By: Alan MacCormack, Michael Shih-ta Chen and Dawn H. Lau
This case gives an overview of the current business environment in Vietnam as of 2012. The first part of the case introduces the main economic, political and cultural aspects of the country of which anyone who has business interest in the country ought to be aware.... View Details
- September 2012
- Article
The Size and Composition of Corporate Headquarters in Multinational Companies: Empirical Evidence
By: David J. Collis, David Young and Michael Goold
Based on a six-country survey of nearly 250 multinationals (MNCs), this paper is the first empirical analysis to describe the size and composition of MNC headquarters and to account for differences among them. Findings are as follows: MNC corporate headquarters are... View Details
- July 2012
- Case
Johannes Linden: Managing the Global Executive Committee
By: Linda A. Hill and Mark Rennella
Johannes Linden is the Director of the Washer and Dryer division of Fluss, a large Swiss appliance manufacturer. Soon after the company completes its revenue projections and bonus targets for the upcoming year, Linden shares some good news with his leadership team, the... View Details
- 2012
- Book
Banks as Multinationals
By: G. Jones
This is a revised edition of a comparative, international study which looks at the history of multinational banks. Researchers from the United States, Japan, Europe, and Australia survey the evolution of multinational banks over time and suggest a conceptual framework... View Details
- April 2012
- Article
Local R&D Strategies and Multi-location Firms: The Role of Internal Linkages
By: Juan Alcacer and Minyuan Zhao
This study looks at the role of firms' internal linkages in highly competitive technology clusters, where much of the world's R&D takes place. The leading players in these clusters are multilocation firms that organize and integrate knowledge across sites worldwide.... View Details
- 2012
- Other Unpublished Work
Selection, Reallocation, and Knowledge Spillover: Identifying the Sources of Productivity Gains from Multinational Activity
By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie X. Chen
The impact of multinational activity on host-country productivity has been a major topic of economic research. A positive impact can be attributed to knowledge spillovers from foreign multinational to domestic firms or a less stressed, alternative explanation—firm... View Details
- 2012
- Chapter
The Confederacy of Heterogeneous Software Organizations and Heterogeneous Developers: Field Experimental Evidence on Sorting and Worker Effort
By: Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani
Software development occurs in a patchwork or "confederacy" of different types of institutions (universities, small start-ups, multinational enterprises, government agencies, etc.) utilizing varied work approaches. Here we speculate on one possible explanation for this... View Details
- February 2012
- Case
Kent Chemical: Organizing for International Growth
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Laura Winig
In July 2008, Luis Morales, president of Kent Chemical International, is proposing a third reorganization effort after two failed attempts to better align his business with its U.S.-based parent company. With a global expansion strategy placing increasing demands on... View Details
Keywords: International Business; Organizational Change; Multinational Corporations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Design; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Structure; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Culture; Global Strategy; Chemical Industry; United States