Publications

Educators

Article

What Evolution Can Teach Us About Innovation

By: Noubar Afeyan and Gary P. Pisano

Many people believe that the process for achieving breakthrough innovations is chaotic, random, and unmanageable. But that view is flawed, the authors argue. Breakthroughs can be systematically generated using a process modeled on the principles that drive evolution in... View Details

Keywords: Breakthrough Innovation; Variance Generation; Selection Pressure; Emergent Discovery; Innovation and Invention; Value Creation; Innovation Leadership

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Research Summary

Overview

When information is digitized, it can be aggregated and shared nearly instantly. I am interested in how this acceleration in the aggregation and availability of information, via digitization, affects firms and firm strategy. Platforms have emerged as marketplaces for... View Details

Forthcoming
Article

Legislators' Demand for Firms' Financial Statements: Evidence from U.S. Congressional Redistricting Events

By: Matthew Ma, Jing Pan, Ethan Rouen and Laura Wellman

We investigate whether U.S. House representatives and their staff seek financial information from constituent firms to inform their legislative decisions. We exploit shifts in U.S. congressional districts (i.e., the reconfiguration of federal district lines or... View Details

Keywords: Redistricting; Lobbying; Legislators; Voting Behavior; Corporate Disclosure; Government Legislation; Voting; Behavior

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2011
Teaching Note

UFIDA (D) (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Ping He, Xiohua Wu and Lijuan Liu

This case describes the financing decisions of a software company at difference stages of its development. Started from 1988 as an individual business, along with the "Reform and Open" policy of China, the firm has experienced tremendous growth, and has become a... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Computer Software; Emerging Markets; Financial Strategy; IPO; Investments; China; Applications and Software; China

May 2001 (Revised February 2005)
Case

KONE: The MonoSpace Launch in Germany

By: Das Narayandas and Gordon Swartz

Focuses on the launch of a new elevator product in Germany. In 1996, global construction slumps and low differentiation among competitive offerings has led to significant price competition and margin erosion in the elevator industry. In these circumstances, KONE, one... View Details

Keywords: Machinery and Machining; Product Launch; Product Development; Construction Industry; Germany

Educators

May–June 2018
Article

Layoffs That Don't Break Your Company: Better Approaches to Workforce Transition

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

Today layoffs have become companies’ default response to the challenges created by advances in technology and global competition. Yet research shows that job cuts rarely help senior leaders achieve their goals. Too often, they’re done for short-term gain, but the cost... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employees; Transition; Strategic Planning

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June 2021
Case

Building the Governance to Take Capital SAFI to the Next Level

By: V.G. Narayanan, Asis Martinez Jerez and Mariana Cal

Asset management firm Capital SAFI wanted to attract new strategic investors and expand to other countries. Having the right corporate governance in place was critical to achieve this goal. View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Transparency; Sustainable Finance; South America; Latin America; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business Organization; Corporate Strategy; Transformation; Investment Funds; Financial Services Industry; Bolivia; South America; Latin America

Educators

20 Jan 2014
News

Language Wars Divide Global Companies

02 Dec 2013
News

What You Need to Know to Become an Angel Investor

19 Aug 2021
News

Harvard’s Neeley on Mistakes Bosses Will Make Returning to Offices

Research Summary

Information Intermediation

Christopher F. Noe's research involves examining a variety of issues relating to the process through which firms communicate with external parties. He has shown that trading by corporate officials in their own firms shares of common stock increases in the period... View Details

Research Summary

Managing Financial Reporting and the Effect on Firms' Costs of Capital

Amy P. Hutton's research investigates the impact of capital market forces and firm contracts on financial reporting and disclosure policies. Specifically, her research examines how managers use financial reporting to convey a firm's strategy, and the effect of... View Details

March 2023
Article

Not from Concentrate: Collusion in Collaborative Industries

By: Jordan M. Barry, John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery

The chief principle of antitrust law and theory is that reducing market concentration—having more, smaller firms instead of fewer, bigger ones—reduces anticompetitive behavior. We demonstrate that this principle is fundamentally incomplete.

In many... View Details

SSRN

2019
Working Paper

Why Do User Communities Matter for Strategy?

By: Sonali K. Shah and Frank Nagle

User communities represent a unique organizing structure for the exchange of ideas and knowledge. They are organizations composed primarily of users working collaboratively, voluntarily, and with minimal oversight to freely and openly develop and exchange knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Management; Knowledge Sharing; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Organizations; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Strategy

SSRN

2023
Working Paper

Too Many Managers: The Strategic Use of Titles to Avoid Overtime Payments

By: Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun and N. Bugra Ozel

We find widespread evidence of firms appearing to avoid paying overtime wages by exploiting a federal law that allows them to do so for employees termed as “managers” and paid a salary above a pre-defined dollar threshold. We show that listings for salaried positions... View Details

Keywords: Wages; Organizational Design; Job Design and Levels; Compensation and Benefits

2016
Article

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence, and Exceptions

By: Lyra J. Colfer and Carliss Y. Baldwin

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that organizational ties within a project, firm, or group of firms (e.g., communication, collocation, employment) will correspond to the technical dependencies in the work being performed. This article presents a unified picture of... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Mirroring Hypothesis; Organization Design; Conway's Law; Knowledge Boundaries; Relational Contracts; Open Source Software; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Boundaries; Knowledge Management; Applications and Software

March 1998
Article

An Assessment of the Performance of Indian State-Owned Enterprises

By: Gautam Ahuja and Sumit K. Majumdar

We examine the determinants of performance of 68 Indian state-owned enterprises in the manufacturing sector for a five-year period: 1987 to 1991. Relative performance is determined using data envelopment analysis, with variations in performance patterns subsequently... View Details

Keywords: State-owned Enterprises; Economic Reform; Efficiency Analysis; Performance Efficiency; Privatization; Microeconomics; State Ownership; Manufacturing Industry; India

November – December 2011
Article

Explaining Influence Rents: The Case for an Institutions-Based View of Strategy

By: Gautam Ahuja and Sai Yayavaram

Research in strategy has identified and tried to explain four types of rents: monopolistic rents, efficiency rents, quasi rents, and Schumpeterian rents. Building on previous work on political and institutional strategies, we add a fifth type of rent: influence rents.... View Details

Keywords: Institutions; Influence Rents; Generic Strategies; Strategy; Organizations; Renting or Rental; Economics

2011
Working Paper

What Do Development Banks Do? Evidence from Brazil, 2002-2009

By: Sergio G. Lazzarini, Aldo Musacchio, Rodrigo Bandeira-de-Mello and Rosilene Marcon

While some authors view development banks as an important tool to alleviate capital constraints in scarce credit markets and unlock productive investments, others see those banks as conduits of cheap loans to politically connected firms that could obtain capital... View Details

Keywords: Cost of Capital; Credit; Equity; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Investment; Government and Politics; Data and Data Sets; Resource Allocation; Markets; Performance; Banking Industry; Brazil