Publications
Publications
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(1,764)
- Faculty Publications (464)
- May 2018
- Article
Managing the Family Firm: Evidence from CEOs at Work
By: Oriana Bandiera, Renata Lemos, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun
We present evidence on the labor supply of CEOs and on whether family and professional CEOs differ on this dimension. We do so through a new survey instrument that allows us to codify CEOs’ diaries in a detailed and comparable fashion and to build a bottom-up measure... View Details
- April 2018
- Case
Happy UAE
By: Joshua Schwartzstein, Brian J. Hall, Tiffany Y. Chang, Karim Sameh and Alpana Thapar
This case centers on the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) national goal of raising the happiness of its residents and visitors through ambitious government initiatives. They combined this bold national goal with an accountability structure (incentive plan) built on Key... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
The Impact of CEOs in the Public Sector: Evidence from the English NHS
By: Katharina Janke, Carol Propper and Raffaella Sadun
Abstract
Governments worldwide have sought to reform the delivery of public services by mimicking private sector governance models that grant CEOs greater autonomy and give them responsibility for meeting key government targets. We examine the effectiveness of this... View Details
- Article
Why Compliance Programs Fail: And How to Fix Them
By: Hui Chen and Eugene Soltes
Firms spend millions of dollars annually on whistle-blower hotlines, training, and other efforts to ensure adherence to laws, regulations, and company policies. Yet malfeasance remains entrenched in the corporate world. Why? Too many firms treat compliance as a... View Details
- February 2018
- Case
Root Capital and the Efficient Impact Frontier
By: Shawn Cole and Caitlin Reimers Brumme
In 2015 Root Capital, a pioneer in the impact investing space, began to explore how to more systematically integrate impact and financial management. After much deliberation, Root Capital landed on ex-ante rating system for any potential investment that produced a... View Details
- February 2018 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
New Constructs: Disrupting Fundamental Analysis with Robo-Analysts
By: Charles C.Y. Wang and Kyle Thomas
This case highlights the business challenges associated with a financial technology firm, New Constructs, that created a technology that can quickly parse complicated public firm financials to paint a clearer economic picture of firms, remove accounting distortions,... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Machine Learning Approaches to Facial and Text Analysis: Discovering CEO Oral Communication Styles
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Dan Wang, Natalie A. Carlson and Tarun Khanna
We demonstrate how a novel synthesis of three methods—(1) unsupervised topic modeling of text data to generate new measures of textual variance, (2) sentiment analysis of text data, and (3) supervised ML coding of facial images with a cutting-edge convolutional neural... View Details
- January 2018 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
People Analytics at McKinsey
By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Olivia Hull
A private equity–backed fast food chain has hired McKinsey’s new People Analytics group to help it improve performance. As the final client workshop approaches, Associate Partner Alex DiLeonardo ponders the best way to present the team’s findings, especially those that... View Details
Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Customer Relationship Management; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost Management; Human Resources; Employees; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Measurement and Metrics; Performance; Performance Capacity; Performance Efficiency; Performance Evaluation; Performance Improvement; Consulting Industry; Service Industry
- January 2018
- Technical Note
Business at the Base of the Pyramid: Understanding Impact and Impact Evaluations
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Tricia Gregg
Unlike financial success, there is no clear consensus regarding how best to define and measure social impact. This HBS Technical Note written for students of the HBS MBA course Business at the Base of the Pyramid (BBOP), offers readers pragmatic perspectives on how the... View Details
- November 2017 (Revised April 2019)
- Case
Summa Equity: Building Purpose-Driven Organizations
By: George Serafeim
In 2015, Reynir Indahl left top Nordic private equity firm Altor Equity Partners to found Summa Equity (Summa). After long contemplation following the financial crisis, Indahl was convinced the financial system was producing negative externalities and that the current... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Purpose; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Social Impact; Investment Management; Management Practices; Innovation; Voice; Environmental Impact; Private Equity; Social Enterprise; Finance; Capital Markets; Management Practices and Processes; Innovation Leadership; Leadership; Innovation and Management; Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry; Norway; Sweden; Scandinavia
- 2017
- Working Paper
Crime and Violence: Desensitization in Victims to Watching Criminal Events
By: Rafael Di Tella, Lucía Freira, Ramiro H. Gálvez, Ernesto Schargrodsky, Diego Shalom and Mariano Sigman
We study desensitization to crime in a lab experiment by showing footage of criminal acts to a group of subjects, some of whom have been previously victimized. We measure biological markers of stress and behavioral indices of cognitive control before and after treated... View Details
- October 2017 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
JetBlue: Relevant Sustainability Leadership (A)
By: George Serafeim
In 2017, JetBlue, the airline founded on the mission to “bring humanity back to air travel,” was considering becoming one of the first companies to report its sustainability performance according to the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standards. SASB... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Metrics; Leadership And Change Management; Airlines; Innovation; Purpose; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Sustainability Reporting; Change Management; Leadership; Financial Reporting; Environmental Sustainability; Mission and Purpose; Reports; Competitive Strategy; Measurement and Metrics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Air Transportation Industry; United States
- September 2017
- Teaching Note
The Productivity Decline: Demographics, Robots, or Globalization?
By: Laura Alfaro and Hayley Pallan
In the early 21st century, there was a noticeable trend of declining productivity growth. Despite the persistent decline in productivity growth, a consensus on its explanation had not been reached. Some of the debate focused on the technicalities of productivity... View Details
- September 2017 (Revised August 2018)
- Case
The Productivity Decline: Demographics, Robots, or Globalization?
By: Laura Alfaro, Hayley Pallan and Sarah Jeong
In the early 21st century, there was a noticeable trend of declining productivity growth. Despite the persistent decline in productivity growth, a consensus on its explanation had not been reached. Some of the debate focused on the technicalities of productivity... View Details
- August 22, 2017
- Article
Find the Right Metrics for Your Sales Team
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Robert Marsh
This article reports the results of a survey of key performance indicators (KPIs) used by more than 800 sales groups across industries. The most common KPIs are closed deals and salesperson performance against quota, which, on average, firms measure monthly. But a... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Crime and Violence: Desensitization in Victims to Watching Criminal Events
By: Rafael Di Tella, Lucia Freira, Ramiro H. Gálvez, Ernesto Schargrodsky, Diego Shalom and Mariano Sigman
We study desensitization to crime in a lab experiment by showing footage of criminal acts to a group of subjects, some of whom have been previously victimized. We measure biological markers of stress and behavioral indices of cognitive control before and after treated... View Details
- 2017
- Other Article
Designing an Agile Software Portfolio Architecture: The Impact of Coupling on Performance
By: Alan MacCormack and Robert Lagerstrom
The modern industrial corporation encompasses a myriad of different software applications, each of which must work in concert to deliver functionality to end-users. However, the increasingly complex and dynamic nature of competition in today’s product-markets dictates... View Details
- July 2017 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
GM's Capital Allocation Framework
By: C. Fritz Foley, F. Katelynn Boland and Michael Lemm
In March of 2015, General Motors announced the details of a newly established capital allocation framework. This framework provided a target for return on invested capital, guidelines for capital structure choices, and policies related to payouts. Senior managers face... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Rethinking Measurement of Pay Disparity and its Relation to Firm Performance
By: Ethan Rouen
I develop measures of firm-level pay disparity and examine their relation to firm accounting performance. Using comprehensive compensation data for a large sample of firms, I find no statistically significant relation between the ratio of CEO-to-mean employee... View Details
- June 2017
- Teaching Note
Project Sun Devil and Project Paris
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Alexander W. Schultz
Tony Lee is preparing to present a project to the investment committee of Howard Street Capital. He will be recommending an investment in Project Sun Devil, a high-quality 225-unit student housing rental property near Tempe, Arizona. Tony Lee will compete for capital... View Details
Keywords: General Management; Financial Analysis; Return On Assets; Accounting; Performance Measurement; Financial Ratios; Return On Equity; Financial Statements; Profitability Analysis; Portfolio Investment; Portfolio Management; Real Estate; Property; Investment Portfolio; Investment Return; Analysis; Real Estate Industry; United States