Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,274)
- Faculty Publications (328)
- April 2017 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu
Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying to political activism. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must... View Details
Keywords: Boycott; Corporate Political Activity; Lobbying; LGBTQ; Campaign Contributions; Campaign Finance; Retail; Shareholder Activism; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Problems and Challenges; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Media; Political Elections; Taxation; Corporate Accountability; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Diversity; Customers; Communication; Business and Government Relations; Retail Industry; United States
- April 2017
- Supplement
Imprimis (B)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karen Elterman and Marc Appel
This case is a supplement to Imprimis (A). It describes the company’s decision to enter into the pharmaceutical compounding business in 2013–2014. Imprimis purchased a compounded ophthalmological medication called Dropless Therapy, which was injected into patients’... View Details
- February 2017 (Revised January 2018)
- Case
Womenomics in Japan
By: Boris Groysberg, Mayuka Yamazaki, Nobuo Sato and David Lane
This case profiles Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's vigorous attempts to revive Japan's economy, specifically by advocating for a larger role for women in the economy—not as a matter of social policy or gender equity per se, but as an essential element of any solution to... View Details
Keywords: Gender Equality; Japan; Leadership; Government-business Relations; Shinzo Abe; Economic Growth; Aging Society; Womenomics; Abenomics; Labor Market Discrimination; Workplace Culture; Women And Leadership; Change Management; Leading Change; Gender; Business and Government Relations; Growth and Development; Employment; Working Conditions
- January 2017 (Revised January 2019)
- Case
The Rise and Fall of Lehman Brothers
By: Stuart C. Gilson, Kristin Mugford and Sarah L. Abbott
With nearly $700 billion in assets, Lehman was the largest U.S. bankruptcy in history. In 2007, Lehman achieved record earnings of over $4 billion on revenues of $60 billion. By September 2008 the fourth largest investment bank in the world was bankrupt. How had a... View Details
Keywords: Bankruptcy; Financial Distress; Accounting Policies; Business Ethics; Financial Reporting; Volatility; Judgments; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financial Liquidity; Investment Banking; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Failure; Business and Government Relations; Ethics; Banking Industry; New York (city, NY)
- December 2016
- Case
Public Mission, Private Funding: The University of California, Berkeley
By: William C. Kirby and Joycelyn W. Eby
UC Berkley, long known as one of the leading public universities in both the U.S. and the world, has seen turbulent times recently. While student enrollment and costs have increased steadily in recent years, the school, which has been fiercely proud of its public... View Details
Keywords: Public University; University Administration; Conflict Management; State Funding; Competition; Faculty Governance; University Of California Berkeley; Change Management; Volatility; Diversity; Residency; Higher Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Globalization; Policy; Leading Change; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Design; Privatization; Problems and Challenges; Education Industry; United States
- 2016
- Working Paper
Meet the Oligarchs: Business Legitimacy, State Capacity and Taxation
By: Rafael Di Tella, Juan Dubra and Alejandro Lagomarsino
We analyze the role of people’s beliefs about the rich in the determination of public policy in the context of a randomized online survey experiment. A question we study is the desirability of government-private sector meetings, a variable we argue is connected to... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Delaying Firearm Purchases Reduces Gun Violence
By: Michael Luca, Deepak Malhotra and Christopher Poliquin
Handgun waiting periods are laws that impose a two to seven-day delay between the purchase and delivery of a firearm. While states might institute waiting periods for different reasons (e.g., to allow for background checks), these delays also create a “cooling off”... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Self-Employment Dynamics and the Returns to Entrepreneurship
By: Eleanor W. Dillon and Christopher T. Stanton
Small business owners and others in self-employment have the option to transition to paid work. If there is initial uncertainty about entrepreneurial earnings, this option increases the expected lifetime value of self-employment relative to pay in a single year. This... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised September 2016)
- Case
The Tavistock Group and the Australian Agricultural Company
By: Dante Roscini and Matthew Preble
In late 2015, Dr. Shehan Dissanayake, a managing director and board member of Bahamian investment firm The Tavistock Group (Tavistock), the largest shareholder in the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo), one of the country's largest agribusinesses, faces a... View Details
- 2016
- Chapter
Unpacking the Dynamics of Successful Change: Ten Insights from the Private Sector
Book Abstract: The aim of this book is to catalyze global interest in the pursuit of transformational changes in natural resource and environmental management. It is shown that transformational policy reforms involve fundamental shifts in strategy with far-reaching... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Experimental Evidence on Policies Aimed at Closing the Gender Gap in Willingness to Guess on Multiple-Choice Tests
Research has shown that women skip more questions than men on multiple-choice tests with penalties for wrong answers. We propose and test five policy changes aimed at eliminating this source of gender bias in test scores. Our data show that simply removing the penalty... View Details
- June 2016 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
FANUC Corporation: Reassessing the Firm's Governance and Financial Policies
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno
In February 2015, Daniel Loeb (a U.S.–based activist investor) announced his firm had a large investment in FANUC Corporation, a leading producer of industrial robots and software for machine tools. Loeb was demanding that the Japanese firm change its financial and... View Details
Keywords: Hedge Funds; Economic Policy; Investments; Government Policy; Deregulation; Financial Management; Valuation; Investment Funds; Policy; Corporate Governance; Macroeconomics; Investment Activism; Change Management; Financial Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan; United States
- June 2016
- Supplement
FANUC Corporation: Reassessing the Firm's Governance and Financial Policies Spreadsheet Supplement
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Akiko Kanno
In February 2015, Daniel Loeb (a US-based activist investor) announced his firm had a large investment in FANUC Corporation, a leading producer of industrial robots and software for machine tools. Loeb was demanding that the Japanese firm change its financial and... View Details
- March 2016
- Teaching Note
Advanced Leadership Pathways: Inge Skjelfjord and the Cacao Supply Chain
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone
Inge Skjelfjord, with a long career in international finance focused on agribusiness projects, had a vision to build a cacao research center that would help smallholder cacao farmers, who benefited the least from the chocolate value chain. He aimed to support the... View Details
- March 2016
- Module Note
Government Policy and Distributive Justice
This note introduces the second of two main modules in the HBS elective curriculum course, The Role of Government in Market Economies (RoGME). This module is focused on policies, such as taxes, that change the distribution of economic outcomes. Like the... View Details
- February 2016
- Case
Debt and Democracy: The New York Constitutional Convention of 1846
By: David Moss and Dean Grodzins
On September 23, 1846, delegates to New York State's constitutional convention prepared to vote on a proposal that its principal proponent, Michael Hoffman, conceded would be “a serious change in our form of government.” The proposal would place tight restrictions on... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised July 2017)
- Case
Leadership and Independence at the Federal Reserve
By: David Moss and Marc Campasano
“From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the current economic crisis caused by the housing bubble, every economic downturn suffered by this country over the past century can be traced to Federal Reserve policy.” Ron Paul, a Republican from... View Details
- February 2016
- Article
Bridging Science and Technology Through Academic-Industry Partnerships
By: Sen Chai and Willy C. Shih
Partnerships that foster the translation of scientific advances emerging from academic research organizations into commercialized products at private firms are a policy tool that has attracted increased interest. This paper examines empirical data from the Danish... View Details
- February 2016
- Article
Positive and Normative Judgments Implicit in U.S. Tax Policy, and the Costs of Unequal Growth and Recessions
By: Benjamin B. Lockwood and Matthew Weinzierl
Calculating the welfare implications of changes to economic policy or shocks to the economy requires economists to decide on a normative criterion. One way to make that decision is to elicit the relevant moral criteria from real-world policy choices, converting a... View Details
- Article
The Baby Benefits Club
By: Debora L. Spar
This past summer several prominent firms seemed to be competing for the title of America's most family-friendly company. In August, Netflix announced plans to offer new mothers and fathers "unlimited leave". Microsoft countered quickly, promising to increase its own... View Details