Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(3,018)
- Faculty Publications (931)
Theory
→
Page 1 of 931
Results →
- 2025
- Working Paper
Private Equity and Workers: Modeling and Measuring Monopsony, Reallocation, and Trust
By: Kyle Herkenhoff, Josh Lerner, Gordon M. Phillips, Francisca Rebelo and Benjamin Sampson
We measure the real effects of private equity buyouts on worker outcomes by building a new
database that links transactions to matched employer-employee data in the United States. To
guide our empirical analysis, we derive testable implications from three theories in... View Details
- March 2025
- Article
Does Communicating Measurable Diversity Goals Attract or Repel Historically Marginalized Job Applicants? Evidence from the Lab and Field
By: Erika L. Kirgios, Ike Silver and Edward H. Chang
Many organizations struggle to attract a demographically diverse workforce. How does adding a measurable goal to a public diversity commitment—for example, “We care about diversity” versus “We care about diversity and plan to hire at least one woman or racial minority... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Blockchain-Induced Supply Chain Transparency and Firm Performance: The Role of Capacity Utilization
By: ShinWoo Lee Lee, Jedson Pinto, Daniel Rabetti and Gil Sadka
This study empirically investigates how blockchain adoption affects firm profitability. Employing a quasi-experimental design triggered by regulatory changes across the United States, we provide novel empirical evidence to recent theory, proposing that blockchain... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Blockchain Adoption and Audit Quality
By: Mei Luo, Daniel Rabetti and Shuangchen Yu
This study examines the impact of blockchain adoption in the corporate setting. Specifically, we provide comprehensive empirical support to recent theory (Cao, Cong, and Young, 2024) proposing that blockchain adoption positively affects endogenous audit quality and... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
A Cognitive Theory of Reasoning and Choice
By: Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli, Giacomo Lanzani and Andrei Shleifer
We present a theory of decisions in which attention to the features of choice options is determined by the decision maker's categorization of the current choice problem in a set of problems she solved in the past. Categorization depends on goal-relevant as well as... View Details
- February 2025
- Article
Deep Responsibility, SDGs, and Asia: A Historical Perspective
By: Geoffrey Jones
Although it was only in 2015 the 17 SDGs were adopted by UN Member States, many of the underlying ideas can be found in the strategies of some businesses going back to the nineteenth century. Asia was the home of many of the most advanced concepts of business... View Details
- 2024
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Earth
By: Barry Nalebuff and Max Bazerman
Earth was created to provide participants with the opportunity to negotiate a solution to the most important environmental challenge that faces humanity — climate change. Just as finding solutions to climate change is challenging, students will be challenged to find a... View Details
- December 2024
- Article
Respect for Improvements and Comparative Statics in Matching Markets
One of the oldest results in the theory of two-sided matching is the entry comparative static, which shows that under the Gale–Shapley deferred acceptance algorithm, adding a new agent to one side of the market makes all the agents on the other side weakly... View Details
- November 2024
- Case
AlphaGo (A): Birth of a New Intelligence
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
This case, the first of a three-part series, traces DeepMind's evolution from its 2010 founding through its acquisition by Google in 2014. Often referred to as the "Apollo project" of artificial intelligence, DeepMind used games as a testing ground to develop AI... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Categorical Processing in a Complex World
By: Marco Sammon, Thomas Graeber and Christopher Roth
In real-world news environments, quantitative information is rarely presented in isolation; it is characterized through qualitative comparisons with various reference levels. Company earnings, for example, are commonly compared to analyst forecasts, previous earnings,... View Details
- 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
- October 2024
- Article
Racial Inequality in Organizations: A Systems Psychodynamic Perspective
By: Sanaz Mobasseri, William A. Kahn and Robin J. Ely
This paper uses systems psychodynamic concepts to develop theory about the persistence of racial inequality in U.S. organizations and to inform an approach for disrupting it. We treat White men as the dominant group and Black people as the archetypal subordinate group... 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
- 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
- September–October 2024
- Article
Working Around the Clock: Temporal Distance, Intrafirm Communication, and Time Shifting of the Employee Workday
By: Jasmina Chauvin, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tommy Pan Fang
This paper examines the effects of temporal distance generated by time zone separation on communication in geographically distributed organizations. We build on prior research, which highlights time zone separation as a significant challenge, but argue that employees... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Determinants of Top-Down Sabotage
By: Hashim Zaman and Karim R. Lakhani
We investigate the conditions that motivate managers to impede the growth of talented subordinates due to fears of future competition for their own positions. Our research expands on existing tournament and contest theory literature that considers peer-to-peer sabotage... View Details
- July 2024
- Module Note
The Scope of the Corporation
By: David J. Collis
Every company, regardless of size or configuration, has to make decisions about the appropriate scope of its operations. In fact, the issue is so fundamental that Ronald Coase won the Nobel Prize in Economics for merely asking the question, “what determines the scope... View Details
- June 2024
- Case
SnapTravel: Betting on 'Super.com'
By: Reza Satchu and Tom Quinn
This case explores SnapTravel, a travel startup offering discounted hotel rooms, and its founders’ desire to pivot to a “super app” that saved customers money across many different purchase types. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hussein Fazal and Henry Shi saw SnapTravel... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Plan; Business Startups; Change Management; Disruption; Transformation; Volatility; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Decisions; Income; Entrepreneurship; Geographic Scope; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Health Pandemics; Surveys; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Leading Change; Crisis Management; Goals and Objectives; Risk Management; Consumer Behavior; Game Theory; Risk and Uncertainty; Adaptation; Diversification; Expansion; System Shocks; Accommodations Industry; Technology Industry; Canada; United States; Las Vegas
- June 2024
- Article
Defining Who You Are by Whom You Serve? Strategies for Prosocial–Professional Identity Integration with Clients
By: Lakshmi Ramarajan and Julie Yen
Many professionals want to both achieve professional success and contribute to society. Yet, in some professional contexts, these aims are in tension because serving elite clients is considered the pinnacle of professional success, but professionals themselves may view... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Health, Human Capital Development and the Longevity of Japanese Elites Since 710
By: Tom Nicholas and Hiroshi Shimizu
We examine the lifespan of over 40,000 elites in Japan born between 710 and 1912, including samurai warriors, feudal lords, business, political, cultural, and religious leaders at the apex of the social hierarchy. Japanese elites experienced increases in lifespan about... View Details