Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(933)
- Faculty Publications (165)
- Article
Five Ways to Bungle a Job Change
By: Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams
The article focuses on career development and job change. The challenges, transaction costs, and risks associated with job moves are discussed. The authors' research with executives is noted. The mistakes in career development that job hunters make are not doing enough... View Details
- Article
The Cost Structure, Customer Profitability, and Retention Implications of Self-Service Distribution Channels: Evidence from Customer Behavior in an Online Banking Channel
By: Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei
This paper uses the context of online banking to investigate the consequences of employing self-service distribution channels to alter customer interactions with the firm. Using a sample of retail banking customers observed over a 30-month period at a large U.S. bank,... View Details
- December 2009 (Revised March 2013)
- Case
Woolf Farming and Processing
By: David E. Bell, Laura Winig and Mary Louise Shelman
Woolf Farming Company, a privately owned family farming business in California's Central Valley, found its business threatened by a lack of water, brought on by a combination of drought, poor quality well water and unavailability of surface water due to federally... View Details
- April 2009
- Journal Article
Perspectives on the Productivity Dilemma
By: Paul S. Adler, Mary Benner, David James Brunner, John Paul MacDuffie, Emi Osono, Bradley R. Staats, Hirotaka Takeuchi, Michael Tushman and Sidney G. Winter
For more than a century, operations researchers have recognized that organizations can increase efficiency by adhering strictly to proven process templates, thereby rendering operations more stable and predictable. For several decades, researchers have also recognized... View Details
- Article
Debt Maturity: Is Long-Term Debt Optimal?
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
We model and calibrate the arguments in favor and against short-term and long-term debt. These arguments broadly include: maturity premium, sustainability, and service smoothing. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortions and government... View Details
- 2008
- Chapter
Corporate Honesty and Business Education: A Behavioral Model
By: Rakesh Khurana and Herbert Gintis
Since the mid-1970s neoclassical economic theory has dominated business school thinking and teaching in dealing with the nature of human motivation. However valuable in understanding competitive product and financial markets, neoclassical economic theory employs an... View Details
- Article
Can They Take It with Them? The Portability of Star Knowledge Workers' Performance: Myth or Reality
By: Boris Groysberg, Linda-Eling Lee and Ashish Nanda
This paper examines the portability of star security analysts' performance. Star analysts who switched employers experienced an immediate decline in performance that persisted for at least five years. This decline was most pronounced among star analysts who moved to... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Embracing Commitment and Performance: CEOs and Practices Used to Manage Paradox
By: Tobias Fredberg, Michael Beer, Russell Eisenstat, Nathaniel Foote and Flemming Norrgren
We tend to assume that great leaders must make difficult choices between two or more conflicting outcomes. In an interview study with 26 CEOs of top American and European companies (incl. IKEA, Campbell Soups, Nokia, H&M), we find that instead of choosing between... View Details
- January 2008
- Article
Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things
By: Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman and Willy C. Shih
Most companies aren't half as innovative as their senior executives want them to be (or as their marketing claims suggest they are). What's stifling innovation? There are plenty of usual suspects, but the authors finger three financial tools as key accomplices.... View Details
- November 2007
- Article
Innovation and Incentives: Evidence from Corporate R&D
By: Josh Lerner and Julie Wulf
Beginning in the late 1980s, American corporations began increasingly linking the compensation of central research personnel to the economic objectives of the corporation. This paper examines the impact of the shifting compensation of the heads of corporate research... View Details
- May 2007 (Revised September 2008)
- Case
Biocon Limited
By: Krishna G. Palepu and Ananth Chepuri
Biocon Limited was facing significant pricing pressure in their cash cow business, that primarily consisted of manufacturing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). To combat this commoditization, Biocon's leadership had chosen an innovation-led strategy. This new... View Details
- September 2006 (Revised March 2007)
- Case
Recruitment of a Star
By: Boris Groysberg, Stephen Balog and Jennifer Haimson
Details power dynamics that unfold in the firm when one of its best and brightest threatens to leave. It focuses on the dynamics of attracting, hiring, compensating, negotiating, and leveraging a star performer in a professional service firm. In particular, traces the... View Details
- February 2006 (Revised October 2006)
- Case
The Children's Investment Fund, 2005
By: Randolph B. Cohen and Joshua B. Sandbulte
TCI, The Children's Investment Fund, is a London-based hedge fund. The firm donates a significant fraction of the fees it earns to a charitable foundation. In 2005, TCI took a large stake in Deutsche Borse, the stock exchange in Frankfurt. Its battle with management... View Details
- June 2005
- Article
Inflation, Openness, and Exchange Rate Regimes: The Quest for Short-Term Commitment
By: Laura Alfaro
This paper further tests Romer's (1993) extension of Kydland and Prescott's (1977) predictions for dynamic-inconsistency problems in open economies. In a panel data set of developed and developing countries from 1973 to 1998, I find that openness does not play a role... View Details
- July 2004 (Revised March 2006)
- Case
RosettaNet and ebXML: Betting on the Right eBusiness Standard
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Veronika Belokhvostova
A major enterprise software company must select which technologies to support, based on their long-term and short-term viability and benefits. The protagonist is involved in the release of the B2B integration component of major enterprise software whose purpose is to... View Details
- November 2003
- Article
The Maturity of Debt Issues and Predictable Variation in Bond Returns
By: Malcolm Baker, Robin Greenwood and Jeffrey Wurgler
The maturity of new debt issues predicts excess bond returns. When the share of long-term debt issues in total debt issues is high, future excess bond returns are low. This predictive power comes in two parts. First, inflation, the real short-term rate, and the term... View Details
- 2003
- Chapter
Short-Term America Revisited? Boom and Bust in the Venture Capital Industry and the Impact on Innovation
By: Josh Lerner and Paul A. Gompers
This chapter seeks to understand the implications of the recent decline in venture activity for innovation. It argues that the situation may not be as grim as it initially appears. While there are many reasons for believing that on average venture capital has a... View Details
- December 2002
- Other Article
The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy
By: Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer
When it comes to philanthropy, executives increasingly see themselves as caught between critics demanding ever higher levels of "corporate social responsibility" and investors applying pressure to maximize short-term profits. Increasingly, philanthropy is used as a... View Details
Keywords: Strategy
- 2002
- Other Unpublished Work
The Maturity of Debt Issues and Predictable Variation in Bond Returns
By: Malcolm Baker, Robin Greenwood and Jeffrey Wurgler
The maturity of new debt issues predicts excess bond returns. When the share of long term debt issues in total debt issues is high, future excess bond returns are low. This predictive power comes in two parts. First, inflation, the real short-term rate, and the term... View Details
- November 2001
- Case
Gold Kist Inc.
By: Ray A. Goldberg and Stephanie Oestreich
An oversupply of poultry causes a major decrease in margins for the company and the industry. How does the only cooperative in the industry respond to short-term and long-term economic pressures? View Details