Research - Global - Harvard Business School

September 2025
Article
Journal of Development Economics

Using Satellites and Phones to Evaluate and Promote Agricultural Technology Adoption: Evidence from Smallholder Farms in India

By: Shawn Cole, Tomoko Harigaya, Grady Killeen and Aparna Krishna

This paper evaluates a low-cost, customized soil nutrient management advisory service in India. As a methodological contribution, we examine whether and in which settings satellite measurements may be effective at estimating both agricultural yields and treatment...

July 2025
Case

Mitsui & Co., Ltd.

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Akiko Saito

In 2025, Kenichi Hori, President and CEO of Mitsui & Co., Ltd.—one of Japan’s most prominent Sogo Shosha (investment and trading companies with sprawling global footprints)—reflected on the company’s record-breaking profits. Its operations spanned multiple...

July 2025
Case

Mother’s Home: Eradicating Social Orphancy in Kazakhstan

By: Boris Groysberg and Annelena Lobb

Mother’s Home International Foundation, a Kazakhstani foundation, had reduced the number of children living in orphanages in Kazakhstan from roughly 10,000 to 4,000 over 12 years, building crisis centers for new mothers to help them keep their babies and stabilize...

July 3, 2025
Article
Harvard Business Review Digital Articles

A New Framework for Reducing Healthcare Disparities

By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Lynch Witkowski, Lidia M. V. R. Moura and Katie Sonnefeldt

Despite decades of initiatives to address healthcare inequities in the U.S., disparities across race, gender, geography, and income remain stubbornly persistent. This article introduces the Strategic Fingerprint Framework for Health Equity, a practical, principle-based...

July 2025
Article
Review of Economic Studies

Economic Integration and the Transmission of Democracy

By: Marco Tabellini and Giacomo Magistretti

In this paper, we study the effects of economic integration with democratic partners on democracy. We assemble a large country-level panel dataset from 1960 to 2015, and exploit improvements in air, relative to sea, transportation to derive a time-varying instrument...

July 2025
Article
Accounting Review

Digital Lending and Financial Well-Being: Through the Lens of Mobile Phone Data

By: AJ Chen, Omri Even-Tov, Jung Koo Kang and Regina Wittenberg-Moerman

To mitigate information asymmetry about borrowers in developing economies, digital lenders use machine-learning algorithms and nontraditional data from borrowers’ mobile devices. Consequently, digital lenders have managed to expand access to credit for millions of...

2025
Working Paper

How Does Wage Inequality Affect the Labor Movement

By: Barbara Biasi, Zoë B. Cullen, Julia H. Gilman and Nina Roussille

This paper provides causal evidence on how wage inequality among workers affects the labor movement using three complementary research designs: a vignette experiment with union organizers, a natural policy experiment that increased wage inequality among Wisconsin...

2025
Working Paper

The Extent and Drivers of Internal Agglomeration of U.S. Multi-Unit Firms

By: Juan Alcácer and Jasmina Chauvin

This paper examines the extent and determinants of internal agglomeration—the spatial clustering of establishments within firms. It introduces a novel methodology that benchmarks a firm’s spatial footprint against that of comparable stand-alone firms, yielding a...

2025
Book Chapter

An Appraisal on 'Teaching the Early History of IB at Harvard Business School'

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter reviews new research about the origins of International Business as an academic discipline. Contrary to conventional wisdom that it orginated in economics departments in the 1960s, this research highlights the importance of teaching at Harvard Business...

2025
Working Paper

Public Displays of Alignment: Firm Speech in Autocratic Regimes

By: Joris Mueller, Jaya Y. Wen and Cheryl Wu

Political speech by firms is increasingly common around the world. This paper examines the government as an important, yet understudied, audience for such speech, focusing on how Chinese firms rhetorically align with the state. We introduce novel, general, and...

June 2025
Case

Redefining the Edge: Jahez’s Strategic Pivot in Saudi Arabia’s Food Delivery Battle

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Ahmed Dahawy

Jahez made its mark in Saudi Arabia’s food delivery market by serving customers willing to pay more for reliable, high-quality service—a segment largely overlooked by other platforms. As the company grew, it expanded into the mass market and developed a network of...

June 2025
Case

Bessemer Venture Partners (2025)

By: Jo Tango and Srimayi Mylavarapu

Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the oldest venture capital firms in the United States, had long been known for its decentralized culture and thesis-driven investing. An internal debate had surfaced around the firm’s approach to seed-stage investing. With competitors...

June 2025
Teaching Material

SWEN Blue Ocean: Impact Investing Goes to Sea

By: Vikram S Gandhi and David Allen

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 325-013

June 2025
Case

(Family) Size Matters: Nico Oprée and the Decreasing Power of Family Unity over Time

By: Lauren Cohen, Octavian Graf Pilati, Dominik V. Eynern and Sophia Pan

Nico Oprée, a fourth-generation (G4) member of his family’s heavy manufacturing business, found himself reflecting on how the firm would navigate a deepening shareholder conflict. While the second generation (G2) had managed the business in harmony, dynamics shifted...

June 2025
Case

TK Group: Expanding the Global Factory?

By: Letian Zhang, Wenjie Ma and Jingshu Zhang

June 2025
Teaching Material

Skills-First Talent Management: Artificial Intelligence

By: Boris Groysberg, James Barnett and Izzy Yeoh

A note in a series of notes on how organizations manage skills-first talent-management chains. This note examines how artificial intelligence (AI) has shaped skills-first talent management at companies. Other notes in this series include “Skills-First Talent...

Summer 2025
Article
New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology & Society

Does Marriage Have a Future?

By: Debora L. Spar and Aryanna Garber

The article explores how technology is reshaping the institution of marriage, highlighting significant changes in societal norms and personal relationships. It discusses the decline in marriage rates in industrialized nations, particularly Japan and the United States,...

June 2025
Teaching Material

The Miccosukee Tribe and the Battle to Save the Everglades (B): The Art of Coalition Building

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 325-132. Curtis Osceola, Chief of Staff to the Chairman of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, exercised leadership to mobilize allies, deal with opposition, and forge internal and external multi-sector coalitions to help preserve...

June 2025
Case

Transforming a Titan (A)

By: George Serafeim and Lena Duchene

Dimitri Papalexopoulos, fourth-generation CEO of TITAN Cement, must decide whether to keep leading the 120-year-old, family-controlled firm or hand the reins to new management. Over 26 years he has turned TITAN from a domestic player into an internationally diversified...

June 2025
Teaching Material

Transforming a Titan (B)

By: George Serafeim and Lena Duchene

After a global search the board appoints Marcel Cobuz—ex-LafargeHolcim executive with deep innovation experience—as TITAN’s first non-family CEO. Cobuz co-creates a four-pillar roadmap: sharpen the core cement portfolio, accelerate low-carbon products and aggregates,...