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- 2025
- Working Paper
Data-driven Technologies and Local Information Advantages in Small Business Lending
By: Wilbur Chen, Jung Koo Kang and Aditya Mohan
We investigate whether banks' adoption of data-driven technologies influences competitive dynamics in local small business lending by diminishing the information advantages traditionally held by local banks. Using local newspaper closures as an adverse shock to the... View Details
- May 2025
- Case
The Video-Streaming Wars in 2025: Can Anyone Catch Netflix?
By: Anita Elberse and Javiera Larenas
On January 21, 2025, Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive officer of video-streaming service Netflix, presented the company’s quarterly earnings. He had every reason to be upbeat: Netflix added 19 million new subscribers in the final quarter of 2024, ended the year with a... View Details
Keywords: Entertainment; Media; Television; Management; Strategy; Disruption; Technology; Competition
- 2025
- Chapter
Employer-Based Short-Term Savings Accounts
By: Sarah Holmes Berk, John Beshears, Jay Garg, James J. Choi and David Laibson
We study the introduction of a choice architecture design intended to increase short-term savings among employees at five U.K. firms. Employees were offered the opportunity to opt into a payroll deduction program that auto-deposits funds from each paycheck into a... View Details
- May 2025
- Article
Transaction Cost Economics in the Digital Economy: A Research Agenda
By: Frank Nagle, Robert Seamans and Steve Tadelis
Transaction cost economics theory explains when it is more efficient for a transaction between two parties to occur across the market or within an organization. How does transaction cost economics apply in the digital economy, which relies on digital transactions? In... View Details
- April 2025
- Case
Techint: Strategic Choices for Community Impact
By: Lauren Cohen, Virak Prum, Kenneth Charman, Pedro Levindo and Mariana Cal
In early 2024 Erika Bienek, Chief Community Relations Officer at Techint, had to decide whether to invest in a new company-owned and operated technical school in Veracruz, Mexico, or invest instead in strengthening the city’s public education system. Techint, a global... View Details
Keywords: Technical Institutes; Community Relations; Social Impact; Argentina; Mexico; Brazil; Conglomerate; Stakeholder Management; Government And Business; Community Impact; Philanthropy; Business Conglomerates; Business Subsidiaries; Business Headquarters; Family Business; Decision Making; Private Sector; Public Sector; Education; Curriculum and Courses; Middle School Education; Secondary Education; Teaching; Training; Learning; Energy; Engineering; Construction; Values and Beliefs; Geography; Global Range; Local Range; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Globalized Firms and Management; Government Legislation; Recruitment; Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Knowledge; Resource Allocation; Industry Clusters; Infrastructure; Family Ownership; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business and Community Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Creativity; Reputation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Poverty; Strategy; Construction Industry; Education Industry; Energy Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Steel Industry; Europe; Italy; Latin America; North and Central America; Mexico; North America; United States; South America; Argentina; Buenos Aires; Brazil
- April 2025
- Case
Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters: Vickers Oils and Resolving Family Conflict over Generations
By: Lauren Cohen, Octavian Graf Pilati and Sophia Pan
Will Vickers, a seventh-generation (G7) member of the Vickers Family, grappled with a pressing challenge: how to re-integrate family members into the firm to recover lost talent. His father, Peter Vickers, was the lone leader of the Vickers Oils – despite having... View Details
Keywords: Leadership; Family; Relationships; Shareholder; Conflict; Involvement; Family Office; Family Firms; Diversification; Family Business; Business Growth and Maturation; Experience and Expertise; Retention; Leadership Development; Business or Company Management; Management Succession; Organizational Structure; Family Ownership; Family and Family Relationships; Consumer Products Industry; United Kingdom
- 2025
- Working Paper
Training Within Firms
By: Brayan Diaz, Andrea Neyra-Nazarrett, Julian Ramirez, Raffaella Sadun and Jorge Tamayo
Training investments are essential for improving worker and firm productivity, yet their
implementation is often hindered by low participation rates and insufficient worker engagement.
This study uses data from three firms–a car manufacturer, a quick-service... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Extractive Taxation and the French Revolution
By: Tommaso Giommoni, Gabriel Loumeau and Marco Tabellini
We study the fiscal determinants of the French Revolution, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the salt tax—a large source of royal revenues and one of the most extractive forms of taxation of the Ancien Régime. Implementing a Regression Discontinuity... View Details
- March 2025
- Case
Taylor Guitars: Making Employee Ownership Work The Taylor Way
By: Dennis Campbell, Petros Kusmu and Stacy Straaberg
In 2013, guitar manufacturer Taylor Guitars’ co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug were considering several exit options including selling to a competitor or to a private equity firm. The co-founders decided, instead, to embark on a seven-year process to transfer 100%... View Details
Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Communication Strategy; Strategy; Announcements; Decisions; Music Entertainment; Values and Beliefs; Borrowing and Debt; Geographic Location; Global Range; Governance; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Private Ownership; Business Strategy; Management Succession; Manufacturing Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States; California; San Diego; Mexico; Netherlands
- March 2025 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
Good for the Seller, Good for the Buyer and Good for Society: Sampo-yoshi, Sustainability and Trust at ITOCHU
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Bethelehem Y Araya
In 2024, ITOCHU CEO Masahiro Okafuji was at a crossroads. As the thirteenth CEO since ITOCHU’s founding in 1858, he had fueled the company’s growth since 2011 by bringing ITOCHU’s founding philosophy of Sampo-yoshi (good for the seller, good for the buyer and... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Centralized Governance in Decentralized Organizations
By: Lin William Cong, Daniel Rabetti, Charles C.Y. Wang and Yu Yan
We systematically document governance centralization in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and study its drivers and economic implications. Using multiple data sources and granular on-chain transactional data, we compare our findings to those in corporate... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Code-Washing: Evidence from Open-Source Blockchain Startups
By: Ofir Gefen, Daniel Rabetti, Yannan Sun and Che Zhang
This study examines startups' management of source code repositories, distinguishing authentic developers ("code-producers''), from those inflating activity to mislead investors ("code-washers''). Using global blockchain startup and GitHub data, we find that... View Details
- February 2025 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
Align Partners and SM Entertainment: Korean Shareholder Activism Meets K-Pop (A)
By: Charles CY Wang and Billy Chan
For years, institutional investors had experienced very limited success in influencing the management of listed companies through shareholder activist campaigns in Korea. The common practice of circular ownership and public resentment toward foreign shareholder... View Details
- February 2025
- Supplement
Align Partners and SM Entertainment: Korean Shareholder Activism Meets K-Pop (B)
By: Charles CY Wang and Billy Chan
For years, institutional investors had experienced very limited success in influencing the management of listed companies through shareholder activist campaigns in Korea. The common practice of circular ownership and public resentment toward foreign shareholder... View Details
- January 2025 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Duolingo: On a 'Streak'
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Nicole Tempest Keller and Nicole Luo
In December 2024, Severin Hacker, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Duolingo, reflected on the remarkable evolution of the language-learning app he helped launch in 2011. As the #1 most downloaded education app in the world, Duolingo had over 100 million... View Details
- January 2025
- Teaching Note
Index and Active Investing: Vanguard and the New Frontier of Active ETFs
By: Marco Sammon and Luis M. Viceira
- January 2025
- Case
Index and Active Investing: Vanguard and the New Frontier of Active ETFs
By: Marco Sammon, Luis M. Viceira and Jonathan Kanagasabai
This case explores Vanguard’s strategic decision-making process as it considers entering the growing market for actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Set in 2024, the case places students in the position of Rodney Comegys, Vanguard’s global head of the Equity... View Details
- January 2025
- Case
A Tiger in the Tank: Exxon Sues Investors
By: Clayton S. Rose, Sarah Sasso and James Weber
In June 2024, investors were trying to make sense of ExxonMobil’s (Exxon) lawsuit against two impact investors, Arjuna Capital (Arjuna) and Follow This, that had just been dismissed by the U.S. District Court of Northern Texas. Exxon’s suit challenged the rights of two... View Details
Keywords: Disruption; Talent and Talent Management; Customer Satisfaction; Decision Making; Demographics; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Employees; Recruitment; Retention; Leadership; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Adaptation; Investment Activism; Lawsuits and Litigation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry; Energy Industry; United States; Netherlands; Norway
- January 2025
- Article
Automatic Enrollment with a 12% Default Contribution Rate
By: John Beshears, Ruofei Guo, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and James J. Choi
We study a retirement savings plan with a default contribution rate of 12% of income, which is much higher than previously studied defaults. Twenty-five percent of employees had not opted out of this default 12 months after hire; a literature review finds that the... View Details
- December 2024 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
Strategy and CEO Succession at Starbucks
By: Krishna G. Palepu and David Lane
On August 13, 2024, Starbucks announced that Laxman Narasimhan who was appointed as the CEO only in September 2023, was stepping down as CEO and board director “with immediate effect.” Laxman would be replaced on September 9 by Brian Niccol, CEO since 2018 of Chipotle... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Corporate Governance; Leadership; Management Succession; Cost Management; Labor Unions; Working Conditions; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Service Operations; Investment Activism; Governing and Advisory Boards; Resignation and Termination; Food and Beverage Industry; United States