Publications

April 2020
Article

CEO Behavior and Firm Performance

By: Oriana Bandiera, Stephen Hansen, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun

We measure the behavior of 1,114 CEOs in six countries parsing granular CEO diary data through an unsupervised machine learning algorithm. The algorithm uncovers two distinct behavioral types: "leaders" and "managers." Leaders focus on multi-function, high-level... View Details

Keywords: CEOs; Management; Behavior; Organizations; Performance; Analysis

1997
Book

Corporate Strategy: Resources and the Scope of the Firm

By: D. J. Collis and C. A. Montgomery

Keywords: Corporate Strategy

23 Aug 2016
Working Paper Summaries

CEO Personality and Firm Policies

Keywords: by Ian D. Gow, Steven N. Kaplan, David F. Larcker, and Anastasia A. Zakolyukina; Financial Services

2016
Working Paper

CEO Personality and Firm Policies

By: Ian D. Gow, Steven N. Kaplan, David F. Larcker and Anastasia A. Zakolyukina

Based on two samples of high quality personality data for chief executive officers (CEOs), we use linguistic features extracted from conferences calls and statistical learning techniques to develop a measure of CEO personality in terms of the Big Five traits:... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Personal Characteristics; Management Teams

March 2019
Article

Open Source Software and Firm Productivity

By: Frank Nagle

As open source software (OSS) is increasingly used as a key input by firms, understanding its impact on productivity becomes critical. This study measures the firm-level productivity impact of nonpecuniary (free) OSS and finds a positive and significant value-added... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Open Source Distribution; Performance Productivity; Information Technology; Strategy

2011
Working Paper

Management Practices Across Firms and Countries

By: Nicholas Bloom, Christos Genakos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

For the last decade we have been using double-blind survey techniques and randomized sampling to construct management data on over 10,000 organizations across 20 countries. On average, we find that in manufacturing, American, Japanese, and German firms are the best... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Business Ventures; Public Sector; Private Sector; Country; Performance; Motivation and Incentives

Research Summary

Building Capabilities in Professional Service Firms

One of the most distinctive aspects of professional service firms is that the vast majority of the people who work in them are directly involved in serving clients. Long-term success in a professional service firm requires obtaining and developing the right... View Details

Research Summary

Come Together: Firm Boundaries and Delegation

By: Laura Alfaro

We develop an incomplete-contracts model to jointly study firm boundaries and the allocation of decision rights within them. Integration has an option value: it gives firm owners authority to delegate or centralize decision rights, depending on who can best solve... View Details

February 2024
Article

Come Together: Firm Boundaries and Delegation

By: Laura Alfaro, Nick Bloom, Paola Conconi, Harald Fadinger, Patrick Legros, Andrew F. Newman, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We develop an incomplete-contracts model to jointly study firm boundaries and the allocation of decision rights within them. Integration has an option value: it gives firm owners authority to delegate or centralize decision rights, depending on who can best solve... View Details

Keywords: Boundaries; Decision Choices and Conditions; Risk and Uncertainty

11 Oct 2007
Working Paper Summaries

How Firms Respond to Being Rated

Keywords: by Aaron K. Chatterji & Michael W. Toffel

2011
Other Unpublished Work

What Do Private Firms Look Like?

By: John Asker, Joan Farre-Mensa and Alexander Ljungqvist

Private firms in the U.S. are not subject to public reporting requirements, so relatively little is known about their characteristics and behavior—until now. This Data Appendix describes a new database on private U.S. firms, created by Sageworks Inc. in cooperation... View Details

Keywords: Data and Data Sets; Behavior; Public Sector; Corporate Disclosure; Private Sector; Financial Statements; United States

SSRN

2022
Article

The Effects of Public and Private Equity Markets on Firm Behavior

By: Shai Bernstein

In this article, I review the theoretical and empirical literature on the effects of public and private equity markets on firm behavior, emphasizing the consequences that emerge from disclosure requirements, ownership concentration, and degree of firm standardization.... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Finance And Governance; Financing Policy; Commercialization; Capital Markets; Private Equity; Public Equity; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Cost of Capital

Purchase

Research Summary

Spatial Agglomeration and Superstar Firms

By: Laura Alfaro

We characterize the agglomeration patterns of industries and plants in Europe, distinguishing Eurozone countries and the United States. Using a micro-level index, we quantify the degree of geographic concentration in industrial activities and explore how firm... View Details

September 2024 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Carrie Wang: Choosing Between the Family Firm and the Family Spirit

By: Lauren Cohen, Fei Wu and Sophia Pan

Carrie Wang, Investment Head of the Wang’s single-family office, contemplated her next career steps. As one of the first businessmen who had risen from China’s industrial rise, her father had grown his wealth to a considerable level, eventually requesting that his... View Details

Keywords: Family Office; Interests Of Consumers; Family Business; Business Growth and Maturation; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Financial Markets; Investment Portfolio; Investment Return; Private Equity; Customer Relationship Management; Interests; Reputation; Work-Life Balance; Real Estate Industry; China

Educators

2009
Working Paper

Securing Jobs or the New Protectionism?: Taxing the Overseas Activities of Multinational Firms

By: Mihir A. Desai

Tax policy toward American multinational firms would appear to be approaching a crossroads. The presumed linkages between domestic employment conditions and the growth of foreign operations by American firms have led to calls for increased taxation on foreign... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Policy; Taxation; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; United States

29 Aug 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Location Fundamentals, Agglomeration Economies, and the Geography of Multinational Firms

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro and Maggie Xiaoyang Chen

06 Jun 2016
News

Shareholder Proposals Contested by Firm Management

14 Aug 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Firm Competitiveness and Detection of Bribery

Keywords: by George Serafeim

April 10, 2017
Article

The Different Approaches Firms Use to Set Strategy

By: Kimberly Teti, Mu-Jeung Yang, Nicholas Bloom, Jan Rivkin and Raffaella Sadun

Many senior executives struggle to describe how they make strategic decisions. That’s a serious problem since the process for making strategic decisions can shape the strategy itself. To understand better how companies really make strategic choices, we interviewed 92... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Decision Making