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- November–December 2024
- Article
How to Avoid the Agility Trap
By: Jianwen Liao and Feng Zhu
Agility is all the rage in strategy circles these days. According to conventional wisdom, organizations should rapidly react to technological advances, new market dynamics, and shifting consumer preferences. But in practice this is nearly impossible to pull off,... View Details
- November–December 2024
- Article
Why Employees Quit
By: Ethan Bernstein, Michael B. Horn and Bob Moesta
The so-called war for talent is still raging. But in that fight, employers continue to rely on the same hiring and retention strategies they’ve been using for decades. Why? Because they’ve been so focused on challenges such as poaching by industry rivals, competing in... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Why Has Construction Productivity Stagnated? The Role of Land-Use Regulation
By: Leonardo D’Amico, Edward Glaeser, Joseph Gyourko, William Kerr and Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto
We document a Kuznets curve for construction productivity in 20th-century America.
Homes built per construction worker remained stagnant between 1900 and 1940, boomed after
World War II, and then plummeted after 1970. The productivity boom from 1940 to 1970
shows... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Climate Solutions, Transition Risk, and Stock Returns
By: Shirley Lu, Edward J. Riedl, Simon Xu and George Serafeim
Using large language models to measure firms' climate solution products and services, we find that high-climate solution firms exhibit lower stock returns and higher market valuation multiples. Their stock prices respond positively to events signaling increased demand... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Catalysts for Climate Solutions: Corporate Responses to Venture Capital Financing of Climate-tech Startups
By: Shirley Lu, George Serafeim and Simon Xu
We study whether incumbent firms increase their product focus on climate solutions in response to venture capital (VC) financing of climate-tech startups. Using large language models to measure a firm's focus on climate solutions, we find that incumbents in similar... View Details
- October 2024
- Supplement
Hakluyt: from Corporate Intelligence to Trusted Advisors (B)
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Lena Duchene
This case is a continuation of an earlier study chronicling Hakluyt & Company (Hakluyt)’s transformation from an obscure boutique to a global corporate advisory firm with an outsized reputation. In August 2024, the firm faced a pivotal moment as managing partner Varun... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Talent and Talent Management; Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Corporate Finance; Equity; Stock Shares; Corporate Governance; Business History; Compensation and Benefits; Recruitment; Leadership Style; Growth Management; Management Succession; Management Teams; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Networks; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Consulting Industry; Europe; United Kingdom; England; London
- October 2024
- Article
Founder-CEO Compensation and Selection into Venture Capital-Backed Entrepreneurship
By: Michael Ewens, Ramana Nanda and Christopher Stanton
We show theoretically that a critical determinant of the attractiveness of VC-backed entrepreneurship for high-earning potential founders is the expected time to develop a startup’s initial product. This is because founder-CEOs’ cash compensation increases... View Details
- October 2024
- Article
Strategic Decision Making at Platform Transitions: The Case of Nokia (2010-2011).
By: Timo O. Vuori and Michael Tushman
We studied Nokia’s decision to adopt the Windows platform in 2011 to induce new theory on the emotional dynamics of incumbent firms’ strategic decision making at platform transitions. We find that platform companies’ entry into an established industry activates a... View Details
- Fall 2024
- Article
The Three Traps That Stymie Reinvention: Organizational Identity, Architecture, and Collaboration Can Be Either Assets or Liabilities to Pursuing Growth in New Sectors
By: Ryan Raffaelli
In more than a decade of researching innovation, I have observed how organizations respond to new opportunities, technological changes, or unexpected market shifts that threaten to upend their current business model. This process, which I call reinvention, may occur... View Details
- September 2024 (Revised October 2024)
- Case
River Remedy: Navigating Mississippi’s Medical Marijuana Market
By: Robin Greenwood, Richard S. Ruback and Robert Ialenti
MBA student William Chism, the founder of a fully integrated medical marijuana company based in Mississippi, must respond to a significant disruption in the fledgling industry. In late 2023, Rapid Analytics, one of two active licensed testing facilities, has its... View Details
Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Growth and Maturation; Forecasting and Prediction; Microeconomics; Local Range; Government Legislation; Demand and Consumers; Supply and Industry; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Mississippi
- 2024
- Working Paper
Markups and Cost Pass-through Along the Supply Chain
By: Santiago E. Alvarez, Alberto Cavallo, Alexander MacKay and Paolo Mengano
We study markups and pricing strategies along the supply chain. Our unique dataset combines detailed price and cost information from a large global manufacturer with matched retail prices collected online for the period July 2018 through June 2023. We show that total... View Details
- September 2024
- Article
Political Elite Cues and Attitude Formation in Post-Conflict Contexts
By: Natalia Garbiras-Díaz, Miguel Garcia-Sanchez and Aila M. Matanock
Civil conflicts typically end with negotiated settlements, but many settlements fail, often during the implementation stage when average citizens have increasing influence. Citizens sometimes evaluate peace agreements by voting on referendums or the negotiating... View Details
Keywords: Civil Unrest; Peace Process; Political Leadership; Peace; Politics; Policy Change; Policy; Government and Politics; Government Administration; Governance; Political Elections; Civil Society or Community; Negotiation; Negotiation Participants; Public Relations Industry; Colombia; Latin America; South America
- August, 2024
- Article
Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracts Inside the Firm
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Jean-François Gauthier, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo
We study relational contracts among managers using a unique dataset that tracks transfers of workers across teams in Indian ready-made garment factories. We focus on how relational contracts help managers cope with worker absenteeism shocks, which are frequent, often... View Details
- August 20, 2024
- Article
Sexual Assault Victims Face a Penalty for Adjacent Consent
By: Jillian J. Jordan and Roseanna Sommers
Across 11 experimental studies (n = 12,257), we show that female victims of sexual assault are blamed more and seen as less morally virtuous if their assault follows voluntary sexual intimacy, a factor we term “adjacent consent”. Moreover, we illuminate a... View Details
- Working Paper
The Returns to Skills During the Pandemic: Experimental Evidence from Uganda
By: Livia Alfonsi, Vittorio Bassi, Imran Rasul and Elena Spadini
The Covid-19 pandemic represents one of the most significant labor market shocks to the world economy in recent times. We present evidence from a field experiment to understand whether and why skilled and unskilled workers were differentially impacted by the shock, in... View Details
- July 2024
- Article
Chatbots and Mental Health: Insights into the Safety of Generative AI
By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp, Zeliha Uğuralp and Stefano Puntoni
Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers. Due to the ‘black box’ nature of the algorithms, it is impossible to predict in advance how these conversations will unfold. Behavioral research provides little insight into potential safety... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Navigating Software Vulnerabilities: Eighteen Years of Evidence from Medium and Large U.S. Organizations
By: Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Ran Zhuo and Shane Greenstein
How prevalent are severe software vulnerabilities, how fast do software users respond to the availability of secure versions, and what determines the variance in the installation distribution? Using the largest dataset ever assembled on user updates, tracking server... View Details
- July 1, 2024
- Article
Research: Speed Matters When Companies Respond to Social Issues
By: Alison Wood Brooks, Jimin Nam, Maya Balakrishnan and Julian De Freitas
Companies and their leaders face new pressures to make public statements about controversial and sometimes divisive social and political issues. New research shows that timing matters: consumers perceive a relationship between speed and authenticity, and discount... View Details
- June 2024
- Background Note
Do Companies Overvalue External Talent?
By: Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams
When looking to fill a position above entry level, companies have two choices: transfer/promote an internal candidate, or hire from the outside. Anecdote and research alike show that external hires are usually offered a higher starting salary than internal candidates. View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Investor Influence on Media Coverage: Evidence from Venture Capital-Backed Startups
By: Brian K. Baik and Albert Shin
We examine the role of investors on the media coverage of their private firm investments. Specifically, we survey VC investors and find that 78% of the respondents take active steps to increase their portfolio companies’ media coverage. The survey results also... View Details