Publications

2020
Working Paper

On the Representativeness of Voter Turnout

By: Louis Kaplow and Scott Duke Kominers

Prominent theory research on voting uses models in which expected pivotality drives voters' turnout decisions and hence determines voting outcomes. It is recognized, however, that such work is at odds with Downs's paradox: in practice, many individuals turn out for... View Details

Keywords: Voter Turnout; Paradox Of Voting; Pivotality; Elections; Model; Voting; Behavior; Theory

Forthcoming
Article

Catching Outliers: Committee Voting and the Limits of Consensus When Financing Innovation

By: Andrey Malenko, Ramana Nanda, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Savitar Sundaresan

We document that investment committees of major VCs use a voting rule where one partner `championing' an early-stage investment is sufficient to invest. Their stated reason for this rule is to `catch outliers'. The same VCs use a more conventional `majority' rule for... View Details

Keywords: Optimal Voting Rules; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Investment; Decision Making; Voting

SSRN

November 2024
Article

On the Representativeness of Voter Turnout

By: Louis Kaplow and Scott Duke Kominers

Prominent theory research on voting analyzes a variety of models in which expected pivotality drives voters' turnout decisions and hence determines voting outcomes. It is recognized, however, that such work is at odds with Downs's paradox: in practice, many... View Details

Keywords: Voting Behavior; Voting Turnout; Paradox Of Voting; Pivotality; Elections; Model; Theory; Governance Transparency; Government; Democracy; Turnout; Voting; Governance; Government and Politics; Public Sector; Political Elections

2011
Working Paper

Embracing Paradox

By: Michael Tushman, Wendy K. Smith and Andy Binns

Trying to resolve the paradox between innovation and the core business only weakens the CEO and dooms the company. Exceptional leaders embrace tensions associated with exploiting prior strategies even as they explore into the future. View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow; Innovation Strategy; Leadership; Management Teams; Resource Allocation; Conflict of Interests; Business Strategy

September 2018
Article

Expressive Voting and Its Cost: Evidence from Runoffs with Two or Three Candidates

By: Vincent Pons and Clémence Tricaud

In French parliamentary and local elections, candidates ranked first and second in the first round automatically qualify for the second round, while a third candidate qualifies only when selected by more than 12.5 percent of registered citizens. Using a fuzzy RDD... View Details

Keywords: Expressive Voting; Strategic Voting; Regression Discontinuity Design; French Elections; Voting; Political Elections; France

March 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

When Should CEOs Speak Out Publicly? The 2021 Georgia Voting Law

By: William W. George, Hubert Joly and Amram Migdal

This case describes the March 2021 passage of a voting and elections law in the U.S. state of Georgia and reactions by corporations and corporate leaders to the law. Included are a brief history of voting rights in the United States and Georgia and an overview of the... View Details

Educators

2019
Working Paper

Voting Trusts and Antitrust: Rethinking the Role of Shareholder Rights and Private Litigation in Public Regulation, 1880s to 1930s

By: Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Laura Phillips Sawyer

Scholars have long recognized that the states’ authority to charter corporations bolstered their antitrust powers in ways that were not available to the federal government. But they have also argued that the growth of large-scale enterprises operating in national and... View Details

Keywords: Voting Trusts; Antitrust; Business and Shareholder Relations; Lawsuits and Litigation; History; United States

2018
Working Paper

Expressive Voting and Its Cost: Evidence from Runoffs with Two or Three Candidates

By: Vincent Pons and Clémence Tricaud

In French parliamentary and local elections, candidates ranked first and second in the first round automatically qualify for the second round, while a third candidate qualifies only when selected by more than 12.5 percent of registered citizens. Using a fuzzy RDD... View Details

Keywords: Expressive Voting; Strategic Voting; Regression Discontinuity Design; French Elections; Voting; Political Elections; Behavior; France

June 2011
Article

The Paradox of Excellence

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Sara DeLong

Why is it that so many smart, ambitious professionals are less productive and satisfied than they could be? We argue that it's often because they're afraid to demonstrate any sign of weakness. They're reluctant to ask important questions or try new... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Innovation and Invention; Strength and Weakness; Performance Productivity; Risk and Uncertainty; Motivation and Incentives; Satisfaction

Purchase

October 2022
Article

How Leaders with Divergent Visions Generate Novel Strategy: Navigating the Paradox of Preservation and Modernization in Swiss Watchmaking

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Rich DeJordy and Rory M. McDonald

How do leaders with divergent visions for their organization come together to create a novel strategy? This paper employs paradox as a lens to investigate how leader-dyads can integrate opposing strategies to produce a new, generative approach. Drawing on a qualitative... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Paradoxes; Senior Leaders; Organizational Reinvention; Leadership; Technological Innovation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Change; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Switzerland

July – August 2011
Article

The Paradox of Samsung's Rise

By: Tarun Khanna, Jaeyong Song and Kyungmook Lee

Twenty years ago, few people would have predicted that Samsung could transform itself from a low-cost original equipment manufacturer to a world leader in R&D, marketing, and design, with a brand more valuable than Pepsi, Nike, or American Express. Fewer still would... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Research and Development; Marketing; Business Processes; Brands and Branding; System; Globalized Markets and Industries; Transformation; Cost; Forecasting and Prediction; Production; Quality; China; India; Turkey

Purchase

2019
Article

Creativity from Paradoxical Experience: A Theory of How Individuals Achieve Creativity while Adopting Paradoxical Frames

By: Goran Calic, Sébastien Hélie, Nick Bontis and Elaine Mosakowski

Purpose: Extant paradox theory suggests that adopting paradoxical frames, which are mental templates adopted by individuals in order to embrace contradictions, will result in superior firm performance. Superior performance is achieved through learning and creativity,... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Creativity; Learning

Register to Read

23 Apr 2012
News

The Paradox of Personal Branding

01 Apr 2000
News

Porter's Paradox

In his pathbreaking 1990 book The Competitive Advantage of Nations, HBS professor Michael E. Porter emphasized the strategic importance of clusters, which he defined as "geographic concentrations View Details

18 May 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Embracing Paradox

Keywords: Re: Michael L. Tushman

12 Dec 2014
News

The Paradox of Managing Creativity

Keywords: management; leadership; creativity; innovation; Arts, Entertainment

December 2021
Article

Three Paradoxes of Climate Truth for the Anthropocene Social Scientist

By: P. Devereaux Jennings and Andrew J. Hoffman

Climate change has been one of the most contested truths for the past two decades. Many social scientists within the academy and this volume have spent years discerning the nature of this truth and articulating its importance for business, organizations, and society.... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Knowledge Sharing