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- July 2009
- Journal Article
Dirty Work, Clean Hands: The Moral Psychology of Indirect Agency
By: Neeru Paharia, Karim Kassam, Joshua Greene and Max Bazerman
When powerful people cause harm, they often do so indirectly through other people. Are harmful actions carried out through others evaluated less negatively than harmful actions carried out directly? Four experiments examine the moral psychology of indirect agency.... View Details
- 2009
- Other Unpublished Work
Steering Monetary Policy Through Unprecedented Crises
By: David Moss and Cole Bolton
In early April 2008, economic conditions in Europe appeared to be deteriorating on almost all fronts: sales figures were falling, business and consumer confidence were slumping, forecasts for European growth were being revised downward, and inflation was rising. In... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Resolving Information Asymmetries in Markets: The Role of Certified Management Programs
Firms and regulators are increasingly relying on voluntary mechanisms to signal and infer quality of difficult-to-observe management practices. Prior evaluations of voluntary management programs have focused on those that lack verification mechanisms and have found... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised January 2010)
- Case
Airbus A380—Turbulence Ahead
By: Ananth Raman, William Schmidt and Vishal Gaur
Multiple delays of the Airbus A380 have shocked analysts and investors alike. What are the causes of these delays and how should investors respond to the signals they may be sending about the company's outlook? View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Signaling Firm Performance Through Financial Statement Presentation: An Analysis Using Special Items
By: Edward J. Riedl and Suraj Srinivasan
This paper investigates whether managers' presentation of special items within the financial statements reflects economic performance or opportunism. Specifically, we assess special items presented as a separate line item on the income statement (income statement... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Dirty Work, Clean Hands: The Moral Psychology of Indirect Agency
By: Neeru Paharia, Karim S. Kassam, Joshua D. Greene and Max H. Bazerman
When powerful people cause harm, they often do so indirectly through other people. Are harmful actions carried out through others evaluated less negatively than harmful actions carried out directly? Four experiments examine the moral psychology of indirect agency.... View Details
- 2008
- Book
Predictable Surprises
By: Max Bazerman and Michael D. Watkins
Most events that catch us by surprise are both predictable and preventable, but we consistently miss (or ignore) the warning signs. This book shows why such "predictable surprises" put us all at risk, and shows how we can understand, anticipate, and prevent them before... View Details
- March 2008 (Revised February 2009)
- Case
Transparent Value LLC
By: Sharon P. Katz, Krishna G. Palepu and Aldo Sesia, Jr.
Leading index company Dow Jones recently signed a license and joint marketing agreement with Transparent Value LLC, the creator of a new fundamentals-based valuation methodology. The agreement allowed Dow Jones to offer a family of indexes based on the Transparent... View Details
Keywords: Asset Management; Stocks; Price; Performance Expectations; Mathematical Methods; Valuation
- February 2008 (Revised September 2008)
- Case
Apple Inc., 2008
By: David B. Yoffie and Michael Slind
In January 2007, three decades after its incorporation, Apple Computer shed the second word in its name and became Apple Inc. With that move, the company signaled a fundamental shift away from its historic status as a vendor of the Macintosh personal computer (PC)... View Details
- January 2008
- Article
The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy
This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. In 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first... View Details
- January 2008
- Article
Venture Capital Investment Cycles: The Impact of Public Markets
It is well documented that the venture capital industry is highly volatile and that much of this volatility is associated with shifting valuations and activity in public equity markets. This paper examines how changes in public market signals affected venture capital... View Details
- November 2007
- Article
Standing Out from the Crowd: The Visibility-Enhancing Effects of IPO-related Signals on Alliance Formation by Entrepreneurial Firms
By: Tim Pollock and Ranjay Gulati
In this study, we explore how multiple signals related to entrepreneurial companies at the time of their initial public offering (IPO) influence the firms' ability to acquire non-financial resources over time. Specifically, the study looks at how signals based on... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
The 'Fees → Savings' Link, or Purchasing Fifty Pounds of Pasta
By: Michael I. Norton and Leonard Lee
Many consumers have had the experience of entering discount membership clubs to make a few purchases, only to leave with enough pasta to outlast a nuclear winter. We suggest that the presence of membership fees can lead consumers to infer a "fees → savings" link,... View Details
- October 2007 (Revised July 2016)
- Teaching Note
Gordon Bethune at Continental Airlines
By: Anthony J. Mayo
A $385 million loss for the final months of fiscal year 1994 signaled Continental might go bankrupt. Could new CEO Gordon Bethune turn Continental around? Continental was in dire straits because the deregulation of the commercial airline industry in 1978 ushered in a... View Details
- September 2007
- Article
(Noisy) Communication
By: Bharat Anand and Ron Shachar
Communication is central to many settings in marketing and economics. A focal attribute of communication is miscommunication. We model this key characteristic as a noise in the messages communicated, so that the sender of a message is uncertain about its perception by... View Details
- November 2006
- Background Note
Technical Game Theory Note #5: Private Information and Signaling Models
By: Dennis A. Yao
Discusses private information and signaling. View Details
- 2006
- Other Unpublished Work
Does Competition Increase Patent Litigation? Empirical Evidence of Strategic Patenting in the Telecom Equipment Industry
By: Juan Alcacer and Rachelle C. Sampson
Anecdotal evidence suggests that patent litigation has increased in the last 20 years as firms in knowledge intensive industries use patents more frequently to protect their knowledge stocks and managers focus on extracting new revenue streams from existing patent... View Details
- July 2006
- Background Note
Out of Frame: The Coming Digital Disruption of Hollywood
By: Stephen P. Bradley, Brian DeLacey and Reed Martin
The record opening of the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, starring Johnny Depp, had finally provided the industry with incontrovertible proof that it was still possible to draw massive audiences to movie theaters. Grossing $136 million during its opening... View Details
- March 2006
- Module Note
Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World: Module 4: Sensing Opportunity
Describes the fourth module of the 30-session Harvard Business School elective course Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World. The course helps students understand the challenges that uncertainty implies for innovation and how to overcome them. The course emphasizes... View Details
- January 2006 (Revised July 2016)
- Case
Gordon Bethune at Continental Airlines
By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Mark Benson
A $385 million loss for the final months of fiscal year 1994 signaled Continental might go bankrupt. Could new CEO Gordon Bethune turn Continental around? Continental was in dire straits because the deregulation of the commercial airline industry in 1978 ushered in a... View Details