Publications

2024
Working Paper

Contributing to Growth? The Role of Open Source Software for Global Startups

By: Nataliya Langburd Wright, Frank Nagle and Shane Greenstein

How does participating in open source software (OSS) communities spur entrepreneurial growth? To address this question, we analyze novel data matching accounts from GitHub—the largest OSS hosting platform—to the universe of global software venture-backed firms... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Open Source Distribution; Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Human Capital; Valuation; Corporate Strategy

SSRN

Article

Is a VC Partnership Greater Than the Sum of Its Partners?

By: Michael Ewens and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

This paper investigates whether individual venture capitalists have repeatable investment skill and to what extent their skill is impacted by the VC firm where they work. We examine a unique dataset that tracks the performance of individual venture capitalists'... View Details

21 Feb 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Developing the Guts of a GUT (Grand Unified Theory): Elite Commitment and Inclusive Growth

Keywords: by Lant Pritchett & Eric D. Werker

01 Mar 2004
News

Protecting against the Erosion of Brand Value

Noble’s foray into publishing cause brand-name publishers heartburn? “Through the lenses of our theories of strategy and innovation, View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

February 2010
Article

Input Constraints and the Efficiency of Entry: Lessons from Cardiac Surgery

By: David M. Cutler, Robert S. Huckman and Jonathan T. Kolstad

Prior studies suggest that, with elastically supplied inputs, free entry may lead to an inefficiently high number of firms in equilibrium. Under input scarcity, however, the welfare loss from free entry is reduced. Further, free entry may increase use of high-quality... View Details

Keywords: Government Legislation; Health Care and Treatment; Medical Specialties; Market Entry and Exit; Welfare; Health Industry; Pennsylvania

May 2000
Article

Maxmin Expected Utility over Savage Acts with a Set of Priors

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Peter Klibanoff and Emre Ozdenoren

This paper provides an axiomatic foundation for a maxmin expected utility over a set of priors (MMEU) decision rule in an environment where the elements of choice are Savage acts. This characterization complements the original axiomatizations of MMEU developed in a... View Details

Keywords: Uncertainty Aversion; Ambiguity; Expected Utility; Set Of Priors; Knightian Uncertainty; Decision Making; Game Theory; Risk and Uncertainty; Mathematical Methods

18 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Industrial Decarbonization: Confronting the Hard Challenges of Cement

Cities like Cairo; Chongqing, China; Delhi; and Kinshasa, Congo are experiencing population explosions accompanied by unprecedented demand for homes, offices, factories, and infrastructure. In the United States, the Biden Administration’s policy-driven infrastructure... View Details

Keywords: by by Janelle Conaway; Green Technology; Energy; Industrial Products; Manufacturing

Article

On the Origin of Shared Beliefs (and Corporate Culture)

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

This article shows how corporate culture, in the sense of shared beliefs and values, originates (often unintentionally) through screening, self-sorting, and manager-directed joint learning. It shows that such culture will be stronger among more important employees and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Learning; Values and Beliefs; Employees; Decisions; Power and Influence; Performance; Perspective

September 2010
Case

Aaron's: Household Goods for the U.S. Base of the Pyramid

By: Michael Chu and Charles Augustus Smithgall IV

With $2.5 billion system-wide revenues, Aaron's, a major rent-to-own supplier to the U.S. base of the pyramid, continues to grow in the recession, but CEO R.C. Loudermilk, Jr. wonders how long the company can sustain the fast growth rate of its past. Founded in 1955,... View Details

Keywords: Fairness; For-Profit Firms; Renting or Rental; Financial Crisis; Demand and Consumers; Social Enterprise; Income; Goods and Commodities; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; United States

Educators

Article

Weak Corporate Insolvency Rules: The Missing Driver of Zombie Lending

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

"Zombie lending"—lending to less-productive firms at subsidized rates—can help banks with misaligned incentives in the short run, but it prolongs economic downturns. We propose that inefficient resolution of insolvency is a significant contributor to this problem. We... View Details

Keywords: Zombie Credit; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financing and Loans; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation

Register to Read

June 2012 (Revised December 2017)
Technical Note

Strategy and Strategic Decisions

By: Eric Van den Steen

This note introduces a framework for formulating strategy that helps a manager identify which decisions are strategic—and thus which decisions to focus on (both when developing strategy and when executing it)—and that provides a practical test for whether a particular... View Details

Keywords: Formulating Strategy; Strategic Theory; Strategy Test; Strategic Analysis; Strategy; Theory; Strategic Planning

Educators

15 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

The Unspoken Messages of COVID-19 Restrictions

colleagues found striking trends as they looked closer at dining patterns. The team analyzed almost six months of data from the foot traffic analytics View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Food & Beverage

December 2007
Article

China + India: The Power of Two

By: Tarun Khanna

China and India are burying the hatchet after four-plus decades of hostility. A few companies from both nations have been quick to gain competitive advantages by viewing the two as symbiotic. If Western corporations fail to do the same, they will lose their competitive... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Economic Growth; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Multinational Firms and Management; Business History; Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; China; India

Research Summary

The Power of Paradox: Some Recent Developments in Interactive Epistemology

This survey describes a central paradox of game theory, viz. the Paradox of Backward Induction (BI). The paradox is that the BI outcome is often said to follow from basic game-theoretic principles--specifically, from the assumption that the players are rational. Yet,... View Details

2013
Working Paper

Helping You Help Me: The Role of Diagnostic (In)congruence in the Helping Process within Organizations

By: Colin M. Fisher, Julianna Pillemer and Teresa M. Amabile

Through an inductive, multi-method field study at a major design firm, we investigated the helping process in project work and how that process affects the success of a helping episode, as perceived by help-givers and/or -receivers. We used daily diary entries and... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Knowledge Management; Performance; Cooperation

SSRN

01 Sep 2018
News

The True Value of a Tweet

challenge for all advertising is to connect the dots all the way to sales. Sales are a function of advertising but also price and the quality... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint

16 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

The Times Captures History of American Business

century. In the midst of economic, political, and demographic transition, the Information Revolution—begun some thirty years ago—accelerated and took a View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Journalism & News

March 2001
Article

Technological Acquisitions and the Innovation Performance of Acquiring Firms: A Longitudinal Study

By: Gautam Ahuja and Riitta Katila

This paper examines the impact of acquisitions on the subsequent innovation performance of acquiring firms in the chemicals industry. We distinguish between technological acquisitions, acquisitions in which technology is a component of the acquired firm's assets, and... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Acquisitions; Knowledge; Strategy; Knowledge Acquisition; Acquisition; Innovation and Invention; Chemical Industry