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Harvard Business School
(259 results)-
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Business Interfaces, Performance Networks - And a New View of Alignment
April 1, 2009, 12:00am PDT
Performance management has traditionally been a hierarchical discipline, one that follows a top-down approach. Organizations roll up budgets, cascade scorecards, drill down to locate deviations...
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The Ownership Quotient
April 8, 2009, 12:00am PDT
Lanham Napier is CEO of Rackspace Hosting, based in San Antonio, Texas. Napier is obsessed with the development of customer owners, even though he doesn't use the term. His organization, which...
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Envy At Work
April 1, 2010, 12:00am PDT
Comparing yourself with successful coworkers can be motivating, but it can also trigger envy. The authors' research suggests that such feelings may cause real damage, both to your own career and...
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The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking
September 10, 2008, 12:00am PDT
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that...
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Finding And Grooming Breakthrough Innovators
January 14, 2009, 12:00am PST
Just 5% - 10% of your high-potential managers have the skills to become breakthrough innovators. If you don't find and groom these rarities, some other company will mastermind the next big thing....
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Putting The Service- Profit Chain To Work
June 23, 2008, 12:00am PDT
What drives growth and profitability in a service business? Highly satisfied customers. And to keep those customers profitable, you need to manage all the aspects of your operation that affect...
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Imitation Is More Valuable Than Innovation
March 16, 2010, 12:00am PDT
Imitation is underappreciated. It can be more important to business growth than innovation is. Imitation is not mindless repetition; It's and intelligent search for cause and effect. The author...
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Tomorrow's Global Giants? Not The Usual Suspects
October 24, 2008, 12:00am PDT
In the largest emerging markets, established multinationals and local players are battling for dominance. Conventional wisdom says MNCs rule in high-end, knowledge intensive businesses; local...
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Do Your Commitments Match Your Convictions?
March 20, 2008, 12:00am PDT
How many people struggle hard every day to uphold obligations to the bosses, families and communities even as the quality of the lives erodes? And how many feel too overwhelmed to examine the...
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Why Inside Outsiders Are The Key To Succession
January 24, 2008, 12:00am PST
A central challenge facing most companies today is picking their next CEO. Even if a company's CEO has only recently been installed, and even if he or she seems to be doing an outstanding job, the...
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The Hard Work Of Being A Soft Manager
May 29, 2009, 12:00am PDT
The soft management enables you to build credibility with the people your company needs most to succeed. Soft management hinges on candor, sensitivity, and the willingness to suffer painful...
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Marketing Malpractice: The Cause And The Cure
March 7, 2007, 12:00am PST
Thirty thousand new consumer products hit store shelves each year. Ninety percent of them fail. Why? We're using misguided market-segmentation practices. For instance, we slice markets based on...
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Assess Your Own Performance As A Leader
September 19, 2008, 12:00am PDT
When top executives stumble, they risk taking their companies down with them. How can you stay steady on your feet so you keep delivering high-quality leadership? Feedback. But getting feedback on...
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High Performance With High Integrity
September 11, 2008, 12:00am PDT
In an era characterized by accelerating change, economic dislocation, and - all too often - highly visible scandals, a key question has become more and more pressing. It's a question that is posed...
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To Succeed In The Long Term, Focus On The Middle Term
June 21, 2007, 12:00am PDT
Why do so many promising ventures fail? After transforming hot ideas into fledgling businesses, some companies drop them when executives realize they won't pay off quickly. In other firms,...
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Serve Your Customers - Efficiently And Profitably
June 23, 2008, 12:00am PDT
You know the adages: "The customer comes first.""The customer's always right." These mantras have merit. Fail to give your customers exactly what they want and you risk seeing them march off to...
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On Competition
September 11, 2008, 12:00am PDT
In essence, the job of the strategist is to understand and cope with competition. Often, however, managers define competition too narrowly, as if it occurred only among today's direct competitors....
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Senior Leadership Teams: What It Takes To Make Them Great
February 8, 2008, 12:00am PST
The author is an experienced executive, a respected leader, and a veteran of the usual corporate team-building exploits, including trekking through the steamy rain forests of Costa Rica. But...
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The Innovator's Guide To Growth
May 21, 2008, 12:00am PDT
Trees don't grow to the sky forever." With that sentence, the CEO of a multibillion dollar media company urged a cross-functional group of senior managers to develop innovative ideas. It was 2005....
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Making Diversity A Business Advantage
March 26, 2008, 12:00am PDT
Today, the smartest organizations in the world are recognizing that their diversity can be a source of competitive strength. Instead of merely monitoring minority representation within the ranks a...
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Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want
August 16, 2007, 12:00am PDT
Fake. Contrived. Disingenuous. Phony. Inauthentic. Do your customers use any of those words to describe what you sell or how you sell it? That is exactly how more and more consumers view what...
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Is Your Growth Strategy Flying Blind?
April 20, 2009, 12:00am PDT
Your company's best growth opportunities may be hidden by the big picture. To find those opportunities, look at markets and performance under a microscope. For example, a large industrial company...
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Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change And Changing Leaders
November 19, 2007, 12:00am PST
Beginning in 2002 an ad agency by the name of McKinney & Silver rolled out a slogan that caught on fast. Hired to persuade people in the market for premium cars that Audi cars were better than...
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Managing Up: Expert Solution To Everyday Challenges
April 3, 2008, 12:00am PDT
Managing up is a conscious approach to working with your manager toward mutually agreed-upon goals that are in the best interests of you, your boss, and your organization. It is not mere political...
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The Execution Premium: Linking Strategy To Operations For Competitive Advantage
September 11, 2008, 12:00am PDT
Managing Strategy Differs from managing operations. But both are vital, and need to be integrated. As strategy authority Michael Porter has noted, "Operational effectiveness and strategy are both...
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Investing In The IT That Makes A Competitive Difference
June 23, 2008, 12:00am PDT
It's not just you. It really is getting harder to outpace the other guys. Since the midl990s, competition in the U.S. economy has accelerated to unprecedented levels. The engine behind this hyper...
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When You Shouldn't Go Global
November 14, 2008, 12:00am PST
Globalization promises substantial advantages like new growth and scale. For some companies, it's paid off handsomely. But global mania has also blinded many firms to a hard truth: global...
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When To Walk Away From A Deal
November 13, 2007, 12:00am PST
Is your company prone to 'Deal fever - getting so excited while pursuing acquisitions that it skimps on due diligence? Caught up in the thrill of the chase, many firms use due diligence to justify...
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The Real Reason People Won't Change
November 10, 2009, 12:00am PST
Tearing out the managerial hair over employees who just won't change - especially the ones who are clearly smart, skilled, and deeply committed to the company and their plans for improvement?...
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Predicting Your Competitor's Reaction
March 17, 2009, 12:00am PDT
Considering launching a new product? Making a price change? Implementing some other strategic move? If so, one needs to know how the toughest competitors might respond. But most competitive...
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How Local Companies Keep Multinationals At Bay
February 19, 2008, 12:00am PST
If you're setting out to compete in rapidly developing economies, beware: Smart domestic enterprises are staving off the challenge from global market leaders. And they're seizing new opportunities...
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Reinventing Your Business Model
November 14, 2008, 12:00am PST
When Apple introduced the iPod, it did something far smarter than wrap a good technology in a snazzy design. It wrapped a good technology in a great business model. Combining hardware, software,...
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Transforming Giants
December 21, 2007, 12:00am PST
To compete in the global economy, multinational companies must respond quickly and innovatively to opportunities and challenges wherever they arise. But many big businesses are saddled with vast...
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Delegating Work: Expert Solution To Everyday Challenges
December 19, 2007, 12:00am PST
To Master The Basics of delegating, let's start by exploring its purpose and benefits as well as common concerns that managers have about the subject. The following sections address each of these...
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The Right Way To Manage Unprofitable Customers
March 20, 2008, 12:00am PDT
Some of the customers aren't paying their bills. Others are so high-maintenance that the cost of serving them is eroding the profits. What to do? For many companies, the answer is simple: Show...
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How To Market In A Downturn
March 17, 2009, 12:00am PDT
No two recessions are alike, so you're in poorly charted waters every time. How should you market in this downturn? Resegment consumers according to their emotional responses to the recession:...
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Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders To Drive Performance And Build Lasting Value
January 24, 2008, 12:00am PST
In the Pursuit of Leadership, thousands of books and articles have been published. So why one more? This book focuses on what is called the leadership brand and offers two insights into how to in...
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Leadership That Gets Results
August 19, 2008, 12:00am PDT
New research suggests that the most effective executives use a collection of distinct leadership styles - each in the right measure, at just the right time. Such flexibility is tough to put into...
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How Risky Is Your Company?
January 20, 2009, 12:00am PST
Success brings your company profits, growth, and unbounded optimism. It can also blind you to risks that creep in with success. For example, a fast-growing firm accelerates hiring. Soon new,...
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Is It Real? Can We Win? Is It Worth Doing?
November 13, 2007, 12:00am PST
Incremental innovations (small, safe changes to your firm's offerings) make up 8596-90% of companies' development portfolios. But "little i" projects rarely produce competitive advantage. For...
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Bank Lending During The Financial Crisis Of 2008
December 15, 2008, 12:00am PST
This paper documents that new loans to large borrowers fell by 37% during the peak period of the financial crisis (September-November 2008) relative to the prior three-month period and by 68%...
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Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?
April 3, 2009, 12:00am PDT
This paper employs a new empirical approach for identifying the impact of government spending on the private sector. The key innovation is to use changes in congressional committee chairmanship as...
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Risky Trust: How Multi-Entity Teams Develop Trust In A High Risk Endeavor
February 16, 2011, 12:00am PST
This paper explicates the challenge of risky trust, which the authors define as trust that exists between parties vulnerable to high economic, legal or reputational risks at individual or...
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Top Executive Background And Financial Reporting Choice: The Case Of Goodwill Impairment
February 22, 2011, 12:00am PST
The authors study the role of executive functional background in explaining goodwill impairment choices. They focus on top executives (CEOs and CFOs) whose employment history includes experience...
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Innovating At The World's Crossroads: How Multicultural Networks Promote Creativity
February 11, 2011, 12:00am PST
This paper examines the effects of multicultural social networks on individuals' creative performance. Combining network analysis with experimental methods, two studies using different samples...
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How Do Incumbents Fare In The Face Of Increased Service Competition?
February 10, 2011, 12:00am PST
The authors explore the conditions under which service competition leads to customer defection from an incumbent and which customers are most vulnerable to its effects. They find that customers...
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Delay As Agenda Setting
February 8, 2011, 12:00am PST
In this paper the authors examine a class of dynamic decision-making processes that involve endogenous commitment. The analysis is relevant to group decision making settings as well as to...
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Platform Competition Under Asymmetric Information
February 6, 2011, 12:00am PST
In the context of platform competition in a two-sided market, the authors study how uncertainty and asymmetric information concerning the success of a new technology affects the strategies of the...
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Bond Supply And Excess Bond Returns
April 28, 2008, 12:00am PDT
The authors examine empirically how the maturity structure of government debt affects bond yields and excess returns. The analysis is based on a theoretical model of preferred habitat in which...
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Surviving The Global Financial Crisis: FDI And Establishment Performance
June 1, 2010, 12:00am PDT
The authors examine in this paper the differential response of establishments to the global financial crisis, with particular emphasis on the role of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in determining...
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Driven By Social Comparisons: How Feedback About Coworkers? Effort Influences Individual Productivity
February 4, 2011, 12:00am PST
Drawing on theoretical insights from research on social comparison processes, this paper explores how managers can use performance feedback to sustain employees' motivation and performance in...
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How Firm Strategies Influence The Architecture Of Transaction Networks
January 27, 2011, 12:00am PST
In the paper of business ecosystems, hierarchy is an architectural property that refers to the degree to which transactions proceed in a single direction, from "Upstream" to "Downstream." It is...
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The Global Networks Of Multinational Firms
April 1, 2010, 12:00am PDT
The proliferation of multinational activities has led to the emergence of new industrial clusters around the world. In this paper, the authors examine how "First nature" location fundamentals and...
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Do US Market Interactions Affect CEO Pay? Evidence From UK Companies
January 1, 2011, 12:00am PST
This paper examines the extent that interactions with US markets impact the compensation practices of non-US firms. Using a sample of large UK companies, the authors find that the total...
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Location Strategies For Agglomeration Economies
November 1, 2009, 12:00am PDT
Geographically concentrated industry activity creates pools of skilled labor and specialized suppliers, and increases opportunities for knowledge spillovers. The strategic value of these...
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A Reexamination Of Tunneling And Business Groups: New Data And New Methods
August 8, 2010, 12:00am PDT
The last decade of corporate governance research has been focused in large part on identifying what leads to superior or deficient corporate governance in emerging economies. The author proposes...
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Matching Firms, Managers, And Incentives
February 27, 2010, 12:00am PST
The author provides evidence on the match between firms, managers, and incentives using a new survey that contains information on managers' risk preferences and human capital, on their...
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The Great Leap Forward: The Political Economy Of Education In Brazil, 1889-1930
March 5, 2010, 12:00am PST
This paper explains how state governments got the funds to pay for education and examines the incentives that politicians had to spend on education between 1889 to 1930. The findings are...
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Multinational Strategies And Developing Countries In Historical Perspective
March 10, 2010, 12:00am PST
This working paper offers a longitudinal and descriptive analysis of the strategies of multinationals from developed countries in developing countries. The central argument is that strategies were...
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Banking Market Concentration And Consumer Credit Constraints: Evidence From The 1983 Survey Of Consumer Finances
February 1, 2010, 12:00am PST
This paper uses data from the 1983 Survey of Consumer Finances to test the relationship between the banks' market power and households' self-reported levels of credit constraints. The 1983 Survey...
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Why Do Firms Use Non-Linear Incentive Schemes? Experimental Evidence On Sorting And Overconfidence
March 12, 2010, 12:00am PST
Non-linear incentive schemes are commonly used to determine employee pay, despite their distortionary impact. The author investigates possible reasons for their widespread use by examining the...
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Reversing The Null: Regulation, Deregulation, And The Power Of Ideas
October 28, 2010, 12:00am PDT
It has been said that deregulation was an important source of the recent financial crisis. It may be more accurate, however, to say that a deregulatory mindset was an important source of the...
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Who Selected Adjustable- Rate Mortgages? Evidence From The 1989-2007 Surveys Of Consumer Finances
March 1, 2010, 12:00am PST
The author finds evidence that households selecting adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) during the recent decade were disproportionately those who were less suspicious or who may have had difficulty...
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Investment Taxation And Portfolio Performance
March 15, 2010, 12:00am PDT
This paper constructs after-tax returns for benchmark portfolios used by both academics and practitioners. Differences in tax burdens across these portfolios are driven by two factors. The first...
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Environmental Federalism In The European Union And The United States
February 21, 2010, 12:00am PST
The United States (US) and the European Union (EU) are federal systems in which the responsibility for environmental policy-making is divided or shared between the central government and the...
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The Consequences Of Entrepreneurial Finance: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis
March 18, 2010, 12:00am PDT
This paper documents the role of angel funding for the growth, survival, and access to follow-on funding of high-growth start-up firms. They use a regression discontinuity approach to control for...
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Commodity Chains: What Can We Learn From A Business History Of The Rubber Chain? (1870-1910)
April 1, 2010, 12:00am PDT
The literature on the rubber boom applied a Dependencies view of rubber production in the Brazilian Amazon. Even though a sizable surplus was generated in the rubber chain, it was mostly...
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The Job Market For New Economists: A Market Design Perspective
April 6, 2010, 12:00am PDT
This paper, written by the members of the American Economic Association (AEA) Ad Hoc Committee on the Job Market, provides an overview of the market for new Ph.D. economists. First, job market...
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Platforms And Limits To Network Effects
June 22, 2010, 12:00am PDT
The authors model the conditions under which agents in two-sided matching markets rationally prefer a platform limiting choice rather than a platform that offers more choice. They show that a...
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Does Diversification Create Value In The Presence Of External Financing Constraints? Evidence From The 2007?2009 Financial Crisis
November 28, 2010, 12:00am PST
The author shows that the value of corporate diversification increased during the 2007 - 2009 financial crises. Diversification gave firms both financing and investment advantages. First,...
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When Do Analysts Add Value? Evidence From Corporate Spinoffs
March 8, 2010, 12:00am PST
The authors investigate the information content and forecast accuracy of 1,793 analyst reports written around 62 spinoffs - a setting in which analysts' ability to inform investors is potentially...
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The Role Of Institutional Development In The Prevalence And Value Of Family Firms
January 26, 2009, 12:00am PST
The author investigates the role played by institutional development in the prevalence and value of family firms, while controlling for the potential effect of cultural norms. China provides a...
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The Effect Of Market Leadership In Business Process Innovation: The Case(s) Of E-Business Adoption
June 1, 2010, 12:00am PDT
This paper empirically investigates how market leadership influences firm propensity to adopt new business process innovations. Using a unique data set spanning roughly 35,000 plants in 86 U.S....
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The Empire Struck Back: The Mexican Oil Expropriation Of 1938 Reconsidered
June 4, 2010, 12:00am PDT
The Mexican expropriation of 1938 was the first large-scale non-Communist expropriation of foreign-owned natural resource assets. The literature generally makes three assertions: the U.S....
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Manipulability In Matching Markets: Conflict And Coincidence Of Interests
June 14, 2010, 12:00am PDT
The author focuses on the comparative statics of manipulations by women in the men-proposing deferred acceptance mechanism in the two-sided one-to-one marriage market. They prove that if a group...
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From Russia With Love: The Impact Of Relocated Firms On Incumbent Survival
June 1, 2010, 12:00am PDT
The author identifies the impact of local firm concentration on incumbent performance with a quasi natural experiment. When Germany was divided after World War II, many firms in the machine tool...
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Foreign Entry And The Mexican Banking System, 1997-2007
June 21, 2010, 12:00am PDT
The Mexican banking system provides a quasi-experiment to address this question because in 1997 the Mexican government radically changed the laws governing the foreign ownership of banks: the...
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Business Model Innovation And Competitive Imitation
July 12, 2010, 12:00am PDT
The author provides the first formal model of business model innovation in a game-theoretic framework. The analysis focuses on sponsor-based business model innovations where a firm monetizes its...
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The Role Of Organizational Scope And Governance In Strengthening Private Monitoring
January 20, 2011, 12:00am PST
Governments and other organizations often outsource activities to achieve cost savings from market competition. Yet such benefits are often accompanied by poor quality resulting from moral hazard,...
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Speaking Up Constructively: Managerial Practices That Elicit Solutions From Front-Line Employees
August 24, 2010, 12:00am PDT
Ideas that could enable organizations to improve their operating processes often come from front-line workers who voice concerns and share ideas about how to solve problems. The authors' study is...
Provided by Harvard Business School
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