Publications

Research Summary

India Transformed? Insights from the Firm Level 1988-2005 (with Anusha Chari)

By: Laura Alfaro

Using firm-level data this paper analyzes, the transformation of India’s economic structure following the implementation of economic reforms. The focus of the study is on publicly-listed and unlisted firms from across a wide spectrum of manufacturing and services... View Details

2009
Working Paper

India Transformed: Insights from the Firm Level 1988-2005

By: Laura Alfaro and Anusha Chari

Using firm-level data this paper analyzes, the transformation of India's economic structure following the implementation of economic reforms. The focus of the study is on publicly-listed and unlisted firms from across a wide spectrum of manufacturing and services... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Economic Sectors; Economy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Growth and Development Strategy; India

June 2010 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Tennant Company: Innovating Within and Beyond the Core

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Toby E. Stuart and James Weber

Tennant, a leading producer of floor cleaning equipment, must determine the business model to use for its new chemical-free cleaning technology. In 2005, Tennant Company had developed an innovative, environmentally friendly cleaning technology that could potentially... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Consumer Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry

February 2005
Article

European Integration and Corporate Restructuring: The Strategy of Unilever c1957-c1990

By: Geoffrey Jones and Peter Miskell

This article examines the role of the large Anglo-Dutch consumer products company in promoting European integration. It shows that Unilever contributed financially to campaigns to support the creation of the European Union, and its subsequent expansion, despite a... View Details

Keywords: Horizontal Integration; Organizations; Policy; Expansion; Market Transactions; Geographic Location; Restructuring; Competition; Brands and Branding; Production; Capital Structure; Value; Consumer Products Industry; European Union; United States

26 Apr 2023
In Practice

Is AI Coming for Your Job?

but it did change what mathematical skills became important to organizations and, importantly, how we taught math in schools. It became less important for engineers building rockets at NASA, for example, to solve complex math problems in their heads. The ability to... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Technology

December 2024
Article

Are Bankruptcy Professional Fees Excessively High?

By: Samuel Antill

Chapter 7 is the most popular bankruptcy system for U.S. firms and individuals. Chapter 7 professional fees are substantial. Theoretically, high fees might be an unavoidable cost of incentivizing professionals. I test this empirically. I study trustees, the most... View Details

Keywords: Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Motivation and Incentives; Policy

Article

Dynamic Silos: Modularity in Intra-organizational Communication Networks during the Covid-19 Pandemic

By: Jonathan Larson, Tiona Zuzul, Emily Cox Pahnke, Neha Parikh Shah, Patrick Bourke, Nicholas Caurvina, Fereshteh Amini, Youngser Park, Joshua Vogelstein, Jeffrey Weston, Christopher White and Carey E. Priebe

Workplace communications around the world were drastically altered by Covid-19, work-from-home orders, and the rise of remote work. We analyze aggregated, anonymized metadata from over 360 billion emails within over 4000 organizations worldwide to examine changes in... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Remote Work; Organizational Silos; Health Pandemics; Organizations; Communication; Networks

May 2020
Article

Measuring Collaboration in Modern Organizations

By: Stephen Michael Impink, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun

Internal communication has been a central theme in organizational economics, as employee collaboration provides insight into the structure of firms. Use of electronic communications data can be transformational for organizational economics, as these data provide a... View Details

Keywords: Collaboration; Employees; Interactive Communication; Measurement and Metrics; Organizations; Performance

2014
Chapter

Remapping the Flow of Funds

By: Juliane Begenau, Monika Piazzesi and Martin Schneider

This article argues that quantitative analysis of credit market positions would benefit tremendously if the additional information about the structure of payment streams were more readily available. Most available data on credit market positions, such as the Flow of... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Credit

2015
Working Paper

Banks' Risk Exposures

By: Juliane Begenau, Monika Piazzesi and Martin Schneider

This paper studies U.S. banks' exposure to interest rate and credit risk. We exploit the factor structure in interest rates to represent many bank positions in terms of simple factor portfolios. This approach delivers time varying measures of exposure that are... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Interest Rates; Credit; Banks and Banking; United States

March 2005
Case

Tribune Company: The PHONES Proposal

The Tribune Co. is considering issuing a structured note to monetize its investment in another company, America Online (AOL). Tribune originally invested in AOL in 1991 and currently has approximately 10 million shares left of that investment. However, these shares are... View Details

Keywords: Financial Instruments; Taxation; Investment; Media and Broadcasting Industry

February 1997
Case

RPG Enterprises--1995

By: Tarun Khanna

As in most emerging markets, a significant portion of the Indian private sector is dominated by extensively diversified, often family-owned or controlled, business groups. This case examines the strategy and structure of one of the largest business groups in India, at... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Restructuring; Corporate Strategy; Alignment; Policy; Problems and Challenges; India

In knowledge-based environments, teams must develop a systematic approach to integrating knowledge resources throughout the course of projects in order to perform effectively. Yet, many teams fail to do so. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we examine... View Details

Silvan Baier

Silvan Baier is a doctoral student in Organizational Behavior at HBS and the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. He studies how social structures shape and are shaped by the organization, spread, and evaluation of ideas and people. In his research, he... View Details

May 2022 (Revised June 2024)
Case

LOOP: Driving Change in Auto Insurance Pricing

By: Elie Ofek and Alicia Dadlani

John Henry and Carey Anne Nadeau, co-founders and co-CEOs of LOOP, an insurtech startup based in Austin, Texas, were on a mission to modernize the archaic $250 billion automobile insurance market. They sought to create equitably priced insurance by eliminating pricing... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Equality and Inequality; Prejudice and Bias; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Relationship Management; Price; Insurance Industry; Financial Services Industry

2019
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 14 Introducing Open Platforms and Ecosystems

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive theoretical investigation of open platform systems. To do this, we must first recognize that, although there is a strong family resemblance among all platform systems, there are different types of... View Details

Keywords: Open Platforms; Business Ecosystems; Information Technology; Organizational Design; Industry Structures; Digital Platforms

SSRN

14 Dec 2021
Op-Ed

To Change Your Company's Culture, Don't Start by Trying to Change the Culture

CEOs who had led successful corporate transformations and came to the same conclusion in a Harvard Business Review article: “[These leaders] say that culture isn’t something you 'fix.' Rather, in their experience, cultural change is what you get after you’ve put new... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer

Victoria Ivashina

Victoria Ivashina is the Lovett-Learned Professor of Finance and Head of the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School. She also serves as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy... View Details

Keywords: banking; federal government; financial services; investment banking industry; private equity (LBO funds); private equity (other)

January 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Roush Performance: How to Design a Sales Force Compensation Plan

By: Doug J. Chung

Roush Performance manufactured and marketed factory-modified performance vehicles and high-end aftermarket automotive performance parts. Since its inception, Roush Performance had focused on building its engineering technology competency and diversifying its product... View Details

Keywords: Sales Force Management; Motivation; Compensation; Salary; Commissions; Bonuses; Quotas; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives