Publications

Research Summary

Overview

The focus of Professor Gross’ research agenda is U.S. technological innovation, innovation policy, and the effects of technological change on economic activity. He is also interested in learning about what drives individual creative behavior. Methodologically, he is... View Details

January 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Case

U.S. Steel: Proposed Acquisition by Nippon Steel

By: Willy Shih

The case setting is the proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, which elicited a great deal of controversy. The purpose of the case is to look at the history of the American steel industry since World War II and understand how the steel minimill operators... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business History; Technological Innovation; Business Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Steel Industry; United States

January 2008
Case

The Deutsche Bank (A)

By: David A. Moss

Founded in 1870 to help finance surging German exports and imports, the Deutsche Bank soon moved into domestic banking. In fact, its founders aimed to create both a commercial bank and an investment bank under one roof—that is, a "universal bank." By the end of the... View Details

Keywords: History; Investment Banking; Commercial Banking; Banking Industry; Germany

01 Dec 2014
Research & Ideas

The Big Influence of Small Countries in the United Nations Secretariat

countries are rejecting the global system. Either way, it's not clear that it's in the best interest of the world for these rising powers to take a back seat when it comes to solving international conflicts." Then again, says Werker,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2003
Book

The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896

By: Sven Beckert

This book, first published in 2001, is a comprehensive history of the most powerful group in the nineteenth-century United States: New York City's economic elite. This small and diverse group of Americans accumulated unprecedented economic, social, and political power,... View Details

Keywords: Literacy; Income; Identity; Culture; Economics; Power and Influence

October 2012 (Revised July 2014)
Background Note

The Role of the Government in the Early Development of American Venture Capital

By: Josh Lerner and Tom Nicholas

Whether the government or markets, or a mixture of both, can provide efficient and effective incentives for encouraging entrepreneurial activity and new venture financing is an age-old question. Public promotion efforts are controversial and in most cases they tend to... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business and Government Relations; United States

Spring 2018
Article

The ‘Moral Effect’ of Legalized Lawlessness:: Violence in Britain’s Twentieth Century Empire

By: Caroline M. Elkins

From 1930s Palestine to Kenya in the years following World War II, systematized violence shaped and defined much of Britain’s twentieth-century empire. Liberal authoritarianism, and with it the “moral effect” that coercion had upon colonial subjects, gave rise to the... View Details

Keywords: Colonialism; Authoritarianism; Violence; History; Great Britain

Research Summary

Family, Inc. Historical Development of German and US Family Firm

Family-owned businesses are the most common form of business organization worldwide. This project deals with the main characteristics of closely-held ownership and more precisely families as majority owners. It strives for an international comparison of family firms... View Details

March 2012
Article

Managing Political Risk in Global Business: Beiersdorf 1914-1990

By: Geoffrey Jones and Christina Lubinski

This article is concerned with business strategies of political risk management during the twentieth century. It focuses especially on Beiersdorf, a pharmaceutical and skin care company in Germany. During World War I, the expropriation of its brands and trademarks... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Government and Politics; Risk Management; Brands and Branding; Problems and Challenges; Communication Technology; Cost; Trademarks; Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Germany

July 2005 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Jesse Holman Jones and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Bridget Gurtler

Jesse Holman Jones is regarded as one of the most influential men in reviving the American economy from the Great Depression. With only an 8th grade education, he rose to the top of the banking, real estate, and lumber industries, as well as the upper echelons of... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Financial Strategy; Business History; Leading Change; Managerial Roles; Business and Government Relations; Power and Influence

2019
Article

Industrie-Holding: Creating a Community of Interest among Swiss 'Multinationals'

By: Sabine Pitteloud

This article focuses on the genesis and evolution of Industrie-Holding, a federation of Swiss multinationals, from 1942 onwards. Thanks to recent donations from the Alusuisse and Hero archives, historians now have access to the minutes of the Industrie-Holding... View Details

Keywords: Business ＆ Government Relations; Multinationals; Lobbying; Business and Government Relations; Multinational Firms and Management; Switzerland

January 2004
Article

Cross-country Technological Adoption: Making the Theories Face the Facts

By: Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn

We examine the diffusion of more than twenty technologies across twenty-three of the world's leading industrial economies. Our evidence covers major technology classes such as textile production, steel manufacture, communications, information technology,... View Details

Keywords: Technology Adoption; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Development Economics; Human Capital; Government and Politics; Trade; Production; Information Technology; Steel Industry; Communications Industry

Research Summary

Investment and marketing strategies of American multinationals in Argentina (1890c-1939)

Andrea Lluch is undertaking a major research project on American business expansion in Argentina up to the beginning of World War II. The first part of the project focuses on the American companies investment strategies. The second part analyses of the evolution of... View Details

January 2020
Article

Gifts of the Immigrants, Woes of the Natives: Lessons from the Age of Mass Migration

By: Marco Tabellini

In this paper, I jointly investigate the political and the economic effects of immigration and study the causes of anti-immigrant sentiments. I exploit exogenous variation in European immigration to U.S. cities between 1910 and 1930 induced by World War I and the... View Details

Keywords: Political Backlash; Age Of Mass Migration; Cultural Diversity; Immigration; History; Economy; Attitudes; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Diversity

Article

Business Groups, Entrepreneurship and the Growth of the Koç Group in Turkey

By: Geoffrey Jones and Asli M. Colpan

This article examines the emergence and development of what became the largest business group in Turkey, the Koç Group. This venture was an important factor in the emergence of modern business enterprise in the new state of the Republic of Turkey from the 1920s. After... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Governance; History; Strategy; Auto Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Service Industry; Turkey

Article

Milestones in Marketing

By: John A. Quelch and Katherine Jocz

Marketing flourished in U.S. business schools in the prosperous years following World War II. Students preparing for assistant-product-manager positions at the likes of Procter & Gamble, Lever, and General Foods enrolled in courses in marketing management, management... View Details

Keywords: Education; Business History; Marketing; Practice

07 Jul 2010
First Look

First Look: July 7

Stephan Heblich, and William R. Kerr Abstract We identify the impact of local firm concentration on incumbent performance with a quasi natural experiment. When Germany was divided after World War II, many... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

08 Nov 2016
First Look

November 8, 2016

firm: “offline problem solving” and “simulation advantage” emerge as key strategic differentiators for firms facing complex problems. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51885 Harvard Business School Case 916-415 Global Wine View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2011
Working Paper

Managing Political Risk in Global Business: Beiersdorf 1914-1990

By: Geoffrey Jones and Christina Lubinski

This working paper examines corporate strategies of political risk management during the twentieth century. It focuses especially on Beiersdorf, a German-based pharmaceutical and skin care company. During World War I the expropriation of its brands and trademarks... View Details

Keywords: History; Risk Management; Business History; Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Strategy; Intellectual Property; Cooperation; Business and Government Relations; Germany