Publications

March 1994 (Revised October 1994)
Case

Reading Energy

By: Forest L. Reinhardt

Reading Energy builds facilities that produce energy from nontraditional fuels. A privately held, entrepreneurial organization, it has spent six years developing a plan to build a waste-to-energy plant in the town of Robbins, Illinois. The plant would burn municipal... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Wastes and Waste Processing; Business and Community Relations; Business Plan; Agreements and Arrangements; Contracts; Risk and Uncertainty; Government and Politics; Environmental Sustainability; Business Strategy; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; Illinois

15 Mar 2010
HBS Case

Developing Asia’s Largest Slum

unregistered businesses that would quickly turn public opinion against the project. "Government is not one person, obviously; it's many people with many agendas, particularly in India," says Iyer. "That's why this View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Construction; Real Estate

10 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

High Commitment, High Performance Management

firms are able to avoid defensiveness and resulting blindness. HCHP firms institutionalize what I call Learning and Governance Systems, a means for having honest, collective, and public conversations with... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

December 2005 (Revised September 2007)
Case

Canyon Johnson Urban Fund

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Alexa Arena

Basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson and K. Robert Turner, managing partner of Canyon Johnson Urban Fund (CJUF), raised $271.7 million for investments in urban real estate. The fund considered two projects, both located in Hollywood, CA. The first was located on... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Projects; Business and Government Relations; Public Opinion; Urban Development; Real Estate Industry; Los Angeles

November 2023
Supplement

'Care in Every Drop': Ayala Corporation and Manila Water (B)

By: Debora L. Spar, Paul Healy, Tricia Peralta and Julia Comeau

Since 1834, eight generations of the Ayala family have used their conglomerate to fund nation-building projects in the Philippines, including investments in tramcars, telecommunications, hospitals, and schools. In 1997, Ayala’s subsidiary, Manila Water, took control of... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Economic Growth; Social Entrepreneurship; Climate Change; Natural Resources; Crisis Management; Failure; Privatization; Social Issues; Urban Development; Adaptation; Infrastructure; Utilities Industry; Philippines

Summer 2021
Article

The World Management Survey at 18: lessons and the way forward

By: Daniela Scur, Raffaella Sadun, John Van Reenen, Renata Lemos and Nicholas Bloom

Understanding how differences in management ‘best practices’ affect organizational outcomes has been a focus of both theoretical and empirical work in the fields of management, sociology, economics, and public policy. The World Management Survey (WMS) project was born... View Details

Keywords: Firm Objectives, Organization, And Behavior; Business Economics; Choice Of Technology; Management Of Technological Innovation And R＆D; Technological Change: Choices And Consequences; Management Practices and Processes

Register to Read

2022
White Paper

The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement

By: Matt Sigelman, Joseph Fuller, Nik Dawson and Gad Levanon

The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement is a new effort to give companies and other stakeholders a set of robust tools that measure how well major employers are doing in fostering economic mobility for workers and how they could do... View Details

Keywords: Upward Mobility; Career Advancement; Personal Development and Career; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Wages; Human Capital; Recruitment

Read Now

08 Nov 2024
Op-Ed

How Private Investors Can Help Solve Africa's Climate Crisis

fixed-income securities, mostly earning near-zero real yields. How can this capital find bankable projects that allow for private sector development and investment—at huge scale—to help solve these challenges while at the same time... View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber; Green Technology; Energy

March 2024
Article

Medicare Price Negotiation and Pharmaceutical Innovation Following the Inflation Reduction Act

By: Matthew Vogel, Pragya Kakani, Amitabh Chandra and Rena M. Conti

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) requires Medicare to negotiate lower prices for some medicines with high Medicare spending. Using historical data from public and proprietary sources to apply the IRA's negotiation criteria retrospectively, we identify all drugs that... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Government Legislation; Health Care and Treatment; Negotiation; Price; Pharmaceutical Industry

January 2019 (Revised January 2021)
Case

The Louvre

By: Rohit Deshpandé, Francois-Lucien Vulliermet and Daniela Beyersdorfer

Once a royal residence and today one of the most photographed Parisian landmarks, the Louvre, home of iconic masterpieces, was the world’s largest and most visited museum in 2017. Its President Director Jean-Luc Martinez had since 2013 spearheaded its development and... View Details

Keywords: Customer-centricity; Cultural Organizations; Museum; Brand; Customer Focus and Relationships; Mission and Purpose; Culture; Education; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Fine Arts Industry

Research Summary

Corporate transparency and information disclosure strategies

By: Michael W. Toffel

This research focuses on transparency and information disclosure strategies, a topic of growing importance in environmental sustainability, corporate strategy, stakeholder relations, and public policy. My prior research in this area explored why... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Disclosure Strategy; Disclosure; Environment; Environmental Performance; Regulation; Supply Chain; Environmental Sustainability; United States

29 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

The COVID Gender Gap: Why Fewer Women Are Dying

According to a survey of citizens in eight countries, women are much more likely than men to view COVID-19 as a severe health problem. They are also more willing to wear face masks and follow other public health recommendations to prevent... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health

27 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Employee-Suggestion Programs That Work

policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. Trained as an industrial engineer, Tucker is interested in the perspective of frontline workers in productivity and process improvement, including how internal supply chains and other... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Guttry

13 Dec 2016
First Look

December 13, 2016

Standards, Collusion, and Internal Trade in the 19th Century U.S. By: Gross, Daniel P. Abstract—Technology standards are pervasive in the modern economy, and a target for public and private investments, yet evidence on their economic... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

December 2018 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Creating the French Behavioral Insights Team

By: Michael Luca, Ariella Kristal and Emilie Billaud

This case explores how neuroscientist Mariam Chammat helped set up the first behavioral insights team at the center of the French government, and encouraged French administrations to innovate and create policy initiatives based on psychological theories of influence... View Details

Keywords: Choice Architecture; Behavioral Economics; Experiments; Negotiation; Decision Making; Economics; Taxation; Entrepreneurship; Consumer Behavior; Public Administration Industry; Europe; France; Paris

2015
Chapter

Government and the Minimalist Platform: Business at the Kumbh Mela

By: John D. Macomber and Tarun Khanna

India's Kumbh Mela, a religious festival occurring once every 12 years at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, attracts over 80 million pilgrims to a temporary "pop-up megacity" over the course of two months. A team of faculty and students from five Harvard... View Details