Publications

15 Feb 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Embracing Commitment and Performance: CEOs and Practices Used to Manage Paradox

Keywords: by Tobias Fredberg, Michael Beer, Russell Eisenstat, Nathaniel Foote & Flemming Norrgren

Article

Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search

By: Lars Bo Jeppesen and Karim R. Lakhani

We examine who the winners are in science problem-solving contests characterized by open broadcast of problem information, self-selection of external solvers to discrete problems from the laboratories of large R&D intensive companies, and blind review of solution... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Open Source Distribution; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Markets; Independent Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development; Gender; Science

May 2011
Article

The Power of Small Wins

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

What is the best way to motivate employees to do creative work? Help them take a step forward every day. In an analysis of knowledge workers' diaries, the authors found that nothing contributed more to a positive inner work life (the mix of emotions, motivations, and... View Details

2009
Working Paper

Estimating the Effects of Large Shareholders Using a Geographic Instrument

By: Bo Becker, Henrik Cronqvist and Rudiger Fahlenbrach

Large shareholders may play an important role for firm performance and policies, but identifying this empirically presents a challenge due to the endogeneity of ownership structures. We develop and test an empirical framework which allows us to separate selection from... View Details

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Geographic Location; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Performance Effectiveness; Business and Shareholder Relations; Mathematical Methods

June 2023
Teaching Note

Agricultural Revolution without a Land Revolution: The Megafarms of CP Group

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 316-150. The case introduces students to an innovative new agricultural venture on the outskirts of Beijing. It can be used as a platform to discuss broader issues of agricultural policy reform and regional disparities in social and... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Policy; Economic Growth; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Thailand

January 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Dick's Sporting Goods: Getting Out Of The Gun Business (A)

By: George A. Riedel

Dick's Sporting Goods was one of the top five retailers of a range of firearms in the US. Over the last several years and specifically following the Parkland shooting of 2018, Ed Stack, the CEO and chairman, had wrestled with the question of their role as a leading... View Details

Keywords: Gun Policy; Gun Violence; Sporting Goods; Sport; Human Behavior; Violence; Ethics; Decision Making; Social Issues; Corporate Accountability; Sports Industry; Retail Industry; United States

Educators

Article

Organizational Beliefs and Managerial Vision

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

Can managers have an impact on their firm that goes beyond their direct actions and decisions? This article shows that a manager with strong beliefs about the right course of action will attract, through sorting in the labor market, employees with similar beliefs. This... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Goals and Objectives; Decisions; Labor; Markets; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Recruitment; Risk and Uncertainty; Values and Beliefs

20 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Student Spotlight: Summer Internships in Business and Environment

fermentation in a carbon-negative biotechnology process. Solugen envisions a global-scale network of automated, carbon-sequestering mini-mills that are multi-product, drastically impacting the way chemicals... View Details

December 2007
Article

Bankers, Industrialists, and Their Cliques: Elite Networks in Mexico and Brazil during Early Industrialization

By: Aldo Musacchio and Ian Read

The historiographies of Mexico and Brazil have implicitly stated that business networks were crucial for the initial industrialization of these two countries. Recently, differing visions on the importance of business networks have arisen. In the case of Mexico, the... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Networks; Business History; Market Entry and Exit; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Financial Markets; Supply and Industry; Banks and Banking; Brazil; Mexico

21 Aug 2017
Blog Post

A Summer Internship with the City of Boston

Kiernan Schmitt (MBA 2018) is a 2017 Social Enterprise Summer Fellow working with the City of Boston Department of Innovation and Technology this... View Details

Keywords: Consulting

19 Jan 2022
Blog Post

From Retail to HBS: How I’m Building a Career Path at the Intersection of Arts, Culture, and Business

American Art in New York. The role is part of the HBS Leadership Fellows Program, a one-year fellowship that affords new HBS graduates both outsized access to senior leadership View Details

2014
Chapter

Schumpeter's Plea: Historical Reasoning in Entrepreneurial Theory and Research

By: G. Jones and R. Daniel Wadhwani

This chapter draws on theories of entrepreneurship and history to explore the ways in which historical processes play an integral role in entrepreneurship. It builds off the plea by Joseph Schumpeter for an active exchange between historical approaches and theories of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Business History; Entrepreneurship; History; Organizations

2010
Chapter

Revisiting the Meaning of Leadership

By: Joel Podolny, Rakesh Khurana and Marya Hill-Popper

During the past 50 years, organizational scholarship on leadership has shifted from a focus on the significance of leadership for meaning-making to the significance of leadership for economic performance. This shift has been problematic for two reasons. First, it has... View Details

Keywords: Communication Intention and Meaning; Economics; Leadership; Performance Improvement; Behavior

December 2000 (Revised March 2001)
Background Note

Strategic Use of Music in Marketing, The: A Selective Review

By: Gerald Zaltman and Nancy Puccinelli

Summarizes selected research on music and its impact on mood and shopping behavior, and its impact on the communication of ideas. View Details

Keywords: Communication Intention and Meaning; Music Entertainment; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Behavior

Educators

10 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 10, 2018

improves financial performance on measures such as profitable investments at the individual portfolio-company level and overall fund returns. And even though associating with... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

06 Sep 2017
What Do You Think?

Summing Up: What Are the Limits of CEO Activism?

themselves. Now more than ever, American society needs this kind of exchange of ideas.” Bill added, “All it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to remain silent.” Jesteeleconsult commented,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

14 Dec 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Regulating for Legitimacy: Consumer Credit Access in France and America

Keywords: by Gunnar Trumbull

2011
Working Paper

Fiduciary Duties and Equity-Debtholder Conflicts

By: Bo Becker and Per Stromberg

We use an important legal event as a natural experiment to examine the effect of management fiduciary duties on equity-debt conflicts. A 1991 Delaware bankruptcy ruling changed the nature of corporate directors' fiduciary duties in firms incorporated in that state.... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Capital Structure; Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Laws and Statutes; Conflict and Resolution; Welfare or Wellbeing; Delaware