Publications

Research Summary

Risk Measurement

By: David E. Bell

David E. Bell has completed research on the measurement of financial risk. The concepts of risk and return are widely used, at least informally, in the appraisal of financial opportunities. Return is typically measured by the expected value of a project, risk by the... View Details

2011
Other Unpublished Work

Do Public and Private Firms Behave Differently? An Examination of Investment in the Chemical Industry

By: Albert W. Sheen

I compare the capacity expansion decisions of U.S. public and private producers of seven commodity chemicals from 1989-2006. I find that private firms invest differently, and more efficiently, than public firms. Specifically, private firms are more likely than public... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Chemicals; Investment; Public Ownership; Chemical Industry; United States

2011
Working Paper

The First Deal: The Division of Founder Equity in New Ventures

By: Thomas F. Hellmann and Noam Wasserman

This paper examines the division of founder shares in entrepreneurial ventures, focusing on the decision of whether or not to divide the shares equally among all founders. To motivate the empirical analysis we develop a simple theory of costly bargaining, where... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Fairness; Equity; Managerial Roles; Negotiation Deal; Ownership Stake; Value

2008
Working Paper

Rethinking the Role of History in Law & Economics: The Case of the Federal Radio Commission in 1927

By: David A. Moss and Jonathan B. Lackow

In the study of law and economics, there is a danger that historical inferences from theory may infect historical tests of theory. It is imperative, therefore, that historical tests always involve a vigorous search not only for confirming evidence, but for... View Details

Keywords: Economic History; Decision Choices and Conditions; Government Legislation; Law; Media and Broadcasting Industry

08 Dec 2022
HBS Case

The War in Ukraine and Nestlé’s Moral Dilemma: Stay or Leave Russia?

Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and other corporations to quit serving the country. Eventually, the hashtag #BoycottNestle began trending on social media, as activists supported a boycott of the company for delaying its exit. Nestlé’s critical View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Consumer Products

19 Apr 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Top Executive Background and Financial Reporting Choice: The Case of Goodwill Impairment

Keywords: by Francois Brochet & Kyle Welch; Accounting

April 1997
Case

Pricing for Profit: The UK Credit Card Industry in the Late 1980s (A)

Describes the United Kingdom credit card industry in the late 1980s, which was really three businesses: a cashless transaction business for merchants, a cashless transaction business for card holders, and a credit business for card holders. At the time of the case,... View Details

Keywords: Credit Cards; Price; Decision Making; Game Theory; United Kingdom

Educators

April 2014
Article

Botsourcing and Outsourcing: Robot, British, Chinese, and German Workers Are for Thinking—Not Feeling—Jobs

By: Adam Waytz and Michael I. Norton

Technological innovations have produced robots capable of jobs that, until recently, only humans could perform. The present research explores the psychology of "botsourcing"—the replacement of human jobs by robots—while examining how understanding botsourcing can... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Emotions; Cognition and Thinking

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

2024
Book

Deals: The Economic Structure of Business Transactions

By: Guhan Subramanian and Michael Klausner

Drawing on real-life cases from a wide range of industries, two acclaimed experts offer a sophisticated but accessible guide to business deals, designed to maximize value for your side.

Business transactions take widely varying forms—from multibillion-dollar... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Contracts

14 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

The Widening Rift Between Corporations and Society

individuals has emerged. There has been a psychological reformation as powerful and decisive as the religious reformation of the sixteenth century. Today's individuals seek psychological self-determination. They are the origins of their... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

April 2006
Module Note

Asset Allocation: A Half-Course Module Note

By: Luis M. Viceira

Provides an overview of the main ideas and structure of a 15-session module on long-term asset allocation designed for MBA graduate students and investment professionals. This module is taught as part of a full-length, 30-session elective class on investment management... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Investment; Decisions; Management; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Teaching; Theory

February 2024
Article

Diversification as an Adaptive Learning Process: An Empirical Study of General-Purpose and Market-Specific Technological Know-How in New Market Entry

By: Dominika Kinga Randle and Gary P. Pisano

An enduring trait of modern corporations is their propensity to diversify into multiple lines of business. Penrosian theories conceptualize diversification as a strategy to exploit a firm’s fungible, yet “untradeable”, resources and point to redeployment of... View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Market Entry and Exit; Assets

March 1993
Background Note

Stages Theory, The: A Framework for IT Adoption and Organizational Learning

By: Richard L. Nolan, David Croson and Katherine Seger

Describes Professor Richard Nolan's Stages Theory of Information Technology adoption by organizations. View Details

Keywords: Information; Body of Literature; Information Management; Information Publishing; Adoption; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Decision Making; Information Technology Industry