Publications

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2013
Chapter

Who Chooses Board Members?

By: Ali Akyol and Lauren Cohen

We exploit a recent regulation passed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to explore the nomination of board members to US publicly traded firms. In particular, we focus on firms’ use of executive search firms versus allowing internal members (often... View Details

Keywords: Boards; Boards Of Directors; Executive Search Firms; Governance; SEC Regulation; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Succession; Executive Compensation

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16 Jul 2013
First Look

First Look: July 16

ensuing ecological risks and costs. We then discuss how an operations management lens contributes to the issue and criteria to help the Sustainable Operations Management perspective endure. This article relates to a presentation delivered View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

24 Jun 2008
First Look

First Look: June 24, 2008

two recently identified bounds: bounded ethicality and bounded awareness. By organizing diverse theories into a clear framework, the taxonomy should aid researchers and educators in identifying new strategies for improving decision... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2013
Article

Learning and the Disappearing Association Between Governance and Returns

By: Lucian A. Bebchuk, Alma Cohen and Charles C.Y. Wang

The correlation between governance indices and abnormal returns documented for 1990–1999 subsequently disappeared. The correlation and its disappearance are both due to market participants' gradually learning to appreciate the difference between good-governance and... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Investment Return; Operations; Performance; Value; Learning; Business Earnings; Behavioral Finance

January 2017 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Sesame Workshop: Bringing Big Bird Back to Health

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Ryan Raffaelli and Jonathan Cohen

Sesame Workshop was transforming in 2016. CEO Jeff Dunn had reorganized and shifted the iconic institution to respond to digital disruption and a consensus culture. This case examines his efforts to turn Sesame Workshop around. It notes Sesame's storied history and the... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Technology; Education; Education Industry

May 2025
Teaching Note

Bridj and the Business of Urban Mobility (B): A New Model in Kansas City

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

This Teaching Note helps instructors teach students the HBS Case, Bridj and the Business of Urban Mobility (B): A New Model in Kansas City. In late 2016, Bridj was expanding its digital platform to help address urban mobility problems faced by cities across the country... View Details

Keywords: App Development; Innovation; Stakeholder Engagement; Collaboration; Ride-sharing; Entrenchment; Digital; Transportation; Urban Development; Disruption; Business Startups; Digital Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Expansion

Forthcoming
Article

Calling All Issuers: The Market for Debt Monitoring

By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen and Weiling Liu

95% of long-term municipal bonds have callable features, and yet we find new evidence of a substantial fraction of local governments exercising these valuable options sub-optimally, with significant delays – resulting in sizable losses. Using data from 2001 to 2019, we... View Details

Keywords: Bonds; Financial Institutions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Administration; Financing and Loans

27 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, June 27

relationship between green business and governments. The struggles of entrepreneurial pioneers have rarely proved profitable, as they were forced to compete with conventional businesses that ignored negative environmental externalities and were often subsidized View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Feb 2011
First Look

First Look: Feb. 1

When information is asymmetric (the quality of a potential partner is known only to himself), it may seem that partner choice is not possible without signaling. Many mutualisms, however, exist without signaling, and the mechanisms by... View Details

17 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 17

Introduction to Short Selling Lauren H. Cohen and Christopher MalloyHarvard Business School Note 212-079 We provide a primer on the market for securities' lending of equities in the United States. We... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

January 2017 (Revised April 2017)
Supplement

Bridj and the Business of Urban Mobility (B): A New Model in Kansas City

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

In late 2016, Bridj was expanding its digital platform to help address urban mobility problems faced by cities across the country and the world. Its founder and CEO, Matt George, weighed up several possible strategies for growth as he aimed to responsibly build the... View Details

July 2016 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Code.org

By: John J-H Kim, Lauren Barley and Allison M. Ciechanover

The case explores Hadi Partovi’s mission to provide every K-12 student in the United States the opportunity to learn computer science. Students can assess how Partovi transformed his passion into an organization that reached millions around the globe through the launch... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Education; Education Industry; United States

July 2009
Article

How Is Foreign Aid Spent? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

By: Eric D. Werker, Faisal Z. Ahmed and Charles Cohen

We use oil price fluctuations to test the impact of transfers from wealthy OPEC nations to their poorer Muslim allies. The instrument identifies plausibly exogenous variation in foreign aid. We investigate how aid is spent by tracking its short-run effect on aggregate... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Aid; Money

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18 Nov 2008
First Look

First Look: November 18, 2008

Purchase this case: http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/ b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=109034 PublicationsAttracting Flows by Attracting Big Clients Authors:Lauren Cohen and Breno Schmidt... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

December 2011
Case

Keurig and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters

By: Paul W. Marshall, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Shikhar Ghosh and Lauren Barley

Provides background information for a negotiations exercise in which students will represent either Keurig, a startup that has developed an innovative "portion pack" coffee brewing solution, or Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR), a fast-growing premium coffee... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Food and Beverage Industry

October 2019
Case

China Merchants Bank: Ushering in the Era of Family Office in China

By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, Billy Chan and Dawn H. Lau

China Merchants Bank, the sixth-largest lender in China, intends to boost its family office business as a result of an increase in the population of ultra-high net worth individuals. Already ranked China’s number-one private bank with AUM exceeding US$300 billion, the... View Details

Keywords: Family Office; Strategy; Banks and Banking; Organizational Design; Competitive Strategy; Banking Industry; China

January 2025
Case

AI Meets VC: The Data-Driven Revolution at Quantum Light Capital

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Sophia Pan

Ilya Kondrashov, CEO of Quantum Light Capital, was driven to harness AI for identifying high-potential scale-ups. Collaborating with Nik Storonsky, founder of Revolut, the duo observed that most venture capital (VC) decisions were heavily influenced by emotion, with... View Details

May 2024
Article

The Health Risks of Generative AI-Based Wellness Apps

By: Julian De Freitas and G. Cohen

Artifcial intelligence (AI)-enabled chatbots are increasingly being used to help people manage their mental health. Chatbots for mental health and particularly ‘wellness’ applications currently exist in a regulatory ‘gray area’. Indeed, most generative AI-powered... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Well-being; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Applications and Software

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