Publications

24 Mar 2013
News

There’s a Reason for Deposit Insurance

June 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

Goodbye IMF Conditions, Hello Chinese Capital: Zambia's Copper Industry and Africa's Break with Its Colonial Past

By: Rafael Di Tella, Vincent Pons, Sarah Mehta and David Lane

Over the past several decades, rapid growth in Chinese investment and trade has created for Africa a new development partner. China represents an alternative to U.S. and European nations whose past imperialism, resource avarice, and economic dictates—through the... View Details

Keywords: Copper; Imperialism; IMF; World Bank; ODA; Debt Relief; Growth and Development; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Labor and Management Relations; History; Development Economics; China; Zambia; Africa

September 2014 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Doing Business in Morocco

By: Jill Avery, Tonia Junker and Daniela Beyersdorfer

This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Morocco. It highlights Morocco's ongoing economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2014 in the context of its historical, political, and cultural background. The case summarizes some of... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Market; Emerging Economies; Africa; Global Strategy; Operations Management; Development Economics; Geographic Scope; Globalization; Business History; Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Operations; Strategy; Auto Industry; Africa; Morocco

July 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Mr. Five Percent: Calouste Gulbenkian and the Origins of Global Oil

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yazeed Al-Rashed

This case describes the business career of Calouste Gulbenkian, a skilled intermediary who was able to secure 5 percent of a vast oil concession covering much of the Middle East that was signed in 1928. Gulbenkian was an ethnic Armenian born in the Ottoman Empire,... View Details

Keywords: Oil; Globalization; Energy Sources; History; Biography; Energy Industry; Turkey; Central Asia; Middle East

Portrait Project

Cali Tran

they were about mundane things like test-scores, student-body elections and after-school sports. Unlike my mother, I grew up with the privilege of choice and I fully intend to indulge in this privilege. I choose to remember my family View Details

29 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 29, 2008

increases with organizational size, smaller adopters have such disproportionate influence because they allow observers better to infer that adoption will be profitable for their own organization. We elaborate the theory View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

22 Dec 2022
Blog Post

TOP 10 MBA VOICES BLOGS OF 2022

History Month—a month focused on acknowledging and celebrating the history, political activism, and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming, and queer communities. Here, current HBS students share their... View Details

December 2007
Case

Envisioning "Free Banking" in Antebellum New York (A)

By: David A. Moss and Cole Bolton

Banks throughout New York State suspended specie payments (i.e., payments in gold and silver) in May 1837 following the collapse of several state banks and the onset of a nationwide financial panic. Amid the chaos, the upstart Whigs were able to depose the longstanding... View Details

Keywords: History; Government Legislation; Capital; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; New York (state, US)

14 Feb 2022
Blog Post

Celebrating Love @ HBS in 2022

as outdoor events for the LGBTQ+ community. Adriann was the only one that came to one of my tours. She intently listened for an hour while I gave a detailed history of the trees and site. Then, she joined me for lunch afterwards where we... View Details

16 Dec 2014
News

Did The Spending Bill Just Lay The Groundwork For Another Financial Crisis?

02 May 2025
Blog Post

How to Work with Search Firms

firm? Explore the Coach Directory to filter coaches by industry and function expertise. Search Firms Work for the Organization The most important thing to remember when engaging with an executive search firm is that they do not work for... View Details

Web

Augustine Heard & Co.: Building a Family Business - A Chronicle of the China Trade

Research Business & Environment Business History Christensen Center for Teaching & Learning Entrepreneurship Faculty & Research Global Healthcare HBS Working Knowledge Institute for Strategy & Competitiveness Leadership Networked Business... View Details

27 Oct 2017
News

Lessons for 2017 from a Man Who ‘Called’ the Crash of 1929

07 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: February 7

2017 New York: Oxford University Press Managing Risk in Reinsurance: From City Fires to Global Warming By: Hauter, Niels Viggo, and Geoffrey Jones, eds. Abstract—This is the first book to provide a comprehensive history of the reinsurance... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2018 (Revised May 2018)
Case

AT&T Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century

By: Daniel P. Gross and William R. Kerr

By the 1930s, AT&T dominated the American phone industry, serving 10 million telephones and employing over 100,000 switchboard operators. But beginning in the mid-1910s, the company began changing from manually operated switchboards to mechanical switching systems that... View Details

Keywords: AT＆T; Bell Telephone; Phone Lines; Phone Operators; Mechanical Switching; Layoffs; Technological Change; Transition; History; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Disruption; Change Management; Communications Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States

Research Summary

Political Risk, Foreign Intervention and International Arbitration

The Empire Trap: America's Attempts to Protect Property Rights Overseas, 1898-2008, is a history of the U.S. government's attempts to protect the property rights of American investors when they venture outside the boundaries of the United... View Details

13 Nov 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, November 13, 2018

to then cover their positions once asset prices start recovering. Predation leads to profits of about 25 basis points over ten days and increases the liquidation costs for the distressed fund by 40%. These results suggest a broker’s role... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

December 1995 (Revised November 1996)
Background Note

Corporate Purpose and Responsibility

By: Lynn S. Paine

Presents several conceptions of corporate purpose and responsibility as articulated by a variety of groups and individuals during the period 1970-95. Included are materials from the Business Roundtable, the American Law Institute, the Royal Society of Arts and... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; History; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact