Research →
- 14 Jun 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Minimizing Justified Envy in School Choice: The Design of New Orleans' OneApp
TCC (Top Trading Cycles) and DA (deferred acceptance) are the two main algorithms for priority-based resource allocation. In 2012, the New Orleans school system tried to use TCC for school assignments, but dropped it after one year. The authors of this paper compared data from New Orleans and Boston in order to review designs and algorithms for better school assignment systems.
- 07 Jun 2017
- Research & Ideas
How an African History Scholar Became a Modern Righter of Wrongs
A scholar of colonial-era African history, Caroline M. Elkins had dramatic success turning prior knowledge into real-world action—namely, with a groundbreaking lawsuit against the British government, which revealed a chillingly bureaucratic process for destroying evidence of torture. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 03 Mar 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Cooperative Strategic Games
The authors examine a solution concept for strategic games. In applications, this concept provides an a-priori assessment of the monetary worth of each player’s position; the assessment reflects the player’s contribution to the total payoff as well as the player’s ability to inflict losses on other players.
- 19 Sep 2016
- Research & Ideas
Why Isn't Business Research More Relevant to Business Practitioners?
There’s a pervasive paradox in academia: Research conducted at business schools often offers no obvious value to people who work in the world of business. Professors and practitioners weigh in on how to enhance the relevance of research. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 26 Jul 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
The Impact of the Entry of Biosimilars: Evidence from Europe
Biosimilars are large-molecule drugs that, while not an exact copy of already-approved large-molecule drugs, have been shown to be therapeutically equivalent. Much like generic drugs, which become available when a small-molecule drug goes off patent, biosimilars are lower in cost than their reference products and present an opportunity for savings when large-molecule drugs’ patents expire. Biosimilars have been available in the United States only since 2015 but have been regulated, approved, and sold in Europe for over a decade. This paper examines the European experience to help inform policy design and institutional choices for the United States. Topics covered include the entry of distributors and unique products; predictors of average product prices following biosimilar competition; and penetration of biosimilars as a share of total sales.
- 04 Jul 2016
- Research & Ideas
Is Your Org Chart Stuck in a Rut? Try a Scientific Experiment
Harvard Business School’s Organizational Lab helps businesses solve operational problems by changing the way their company is organized. Ethan Bernstein and Clayton Christensen explain how academics and business leaders can work together to create a better org chart. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 May 2016
- Research Event
Crowdsourcing, Patent Trolls, and Other Research Insights Highlighted at Harvard Business School Symposium
The 2016 Faculty Research Symposium looked at current and potential collaborations between HBS and Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 12 Feb 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Enhancing the Practical Relevance of Research
Research is relevant when it has the potential to improve the decision making of managers or policymakers. Elaborating on his remarks at the 2015 Production and Operations Management Society conference, Toffel explains why research relevance matters and how scholars can increase the relevance of their research. Journals, professional societies, and doctoral programs can also foster research that is more useful and influential in society at large.
- 08 Jan 2016
- Research & Ideas
Is it Worth a Pay Cut to Work for a Great Manager (Like Bill Belichick)?
Few of us want to take less money to move to another organization, but Boris Groysberg and Abhijit Naik point to research that shows hooking up with the right manager—whether in sports or business—can quickly increase your value even if your pay is less. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Oct 2015
- Research & Ideas
Business Research that Makes for Smarter Public Policy
Just as researchers in the life sciences often target their work to tackle the most dangerous diseases, business scholars are using their research to make a difference in government policy. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 18 Aug 2015
- Working Paper Summaries
Political Identity and Trust
Political polarization is an important phenomenon that has motivated many recent popular and academic articles. The emergence of polarization is often explained as being driven by those with different political identities having dislike or even hatred for one other. However, polarization can also be driven by beliefs that the "other side" simply cannot be trusted. In this study, through a set of incentivized experiments, we discover that polarization is more likely driven by incorrect beliefs than a distaste for others. Although this finding is encouraging since incorrect beliefs should be easier to change than people's taste-based preferences, we find that these incorrect beliefs are, in fact, hard to change.
- 10 Aug 2015
- Research & Ideas
New Medical Devices Get To Patients Too Slowly
The FDA has streamlined drug testing to ensure new therapies come to market quickly. But when it comes to life-giving medical devices, approvals seem unnecessarily slow, according to research by Ariel Dora Stern. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 20 Apr 2015
- Research & Ideas
The 5 Strategy Rules of Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs
David Yoffie and Michael Cusumano find common leadership lessons from the tech titans of Microsoft, Intel, and Apple in the new book, Strategy Rules. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 01 Dec 2014
- Working Paper Summaries
Financing Innovation
There is growing consensus that well-functioning financial markets play a central role in driving economic growth through their ability to spur technological innovation. In this paper for the Annual Review of Financial Economics, the authors ask how financial markets might actively shape the nature of R&D that is undertaken. They also examine how this may impact technological innovation and growth through the shaping of the ideas that are developed across firms. Drawing on a new but growing literature on the role that capital markets and financial intermediaries play in impacting firm-level innovation, the authors first elaborate on theoretical contributions regarding why financing R&D projects might be distinct from financing other types of projects and the channels through which financial intermediaries and capital markets can impact innovation. They then discuss empirical studies on financing innovation in mature firms, in particular the literature on how ownership and capital structure impact the amount and nature of innovation undertaken by firms. The paper also looks at innovation in startups and the growing literature on the effect that multi-stage financing has on innovation in young firms. Three main themes emerge: 1) A growing body of work documents a role for debt financing related to innovation. 2) A very active area of research has looked at "learning" across multi-stage financing. 3) There is strong interaction between financing choices for innovation and changing external conditions. Key concepts include: Financing constraints can be extensive in the context of firms engaged in R&D and innovation-with the ability to shape both the rate and the trajectory of innovation. Capital structure plays a central role in the outcome of innovations. Bank finance is an important source of finance, particularly for larger firms with tangible and intangible assets to pledge as collateral. Public markets may provide deep pockets but pose a set of agency costs that might be particularly harmful for firms engaged in exploration and novel innovations. There is a growing interest among academics and practitioners in the multi-stage financing of innovation, both in established firms and startups, and understanding the optimal contracts and policies that might stimulate innovation. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 31 Jul 2014
- Research & Ideas
A Scholarly Crowd Explores Crowdsourcing
At the Open and User Innovation Workshop, several hundred researchers discussed their work on innovation contests, user-led product improvements, and the biases of crowds. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 23 Jul 2014
- Lessons from the Classroom
Innovation Is Magic. Really
When Stefan Thomke teaches students how to manage innovation and creativity, he turns to an unexpected source: Magician Jason Randal. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 14 Jul 2014
- Research & Ideas
Pay Attention To Your ‘Extreme Consumers’
Jill Avery and Michael Norton explain what marketers can learn from consumers whose preferences lie outside of the mainstream. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Sep 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
U.S. High-Skilled Immigration, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship: Empirical Approaches and Evidence
In the 2008 Current Population Survey, immigrants represented 16 percent of the United States workforce with a bachelor's education. Moreover, immigrants accounted for 29 percent of the growth in this workforce during the 1995-2008 period. Exceeding these strong overall contributions, the role of immigrants within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is even more pronounced. Even so, the importance of the global migration of STEM talent has been under-studied. In this paper, which focuses exclusively on the United States' experience, the author reviews academic work regarding the effects of global migration on innovation and entrepreneurship. Findings show that while some aspects of the phenomenon are well understood, such as the quantity and quality of immigrants, scholars still have very little insight on others, such as return migration. Overall, immigration has clearly been essential for the United States' leadership in innovation and entrepreneurship. There is also evidence of positive impacts of high-skilled diasporas for home countries, although the ledger that can be measured in the United States remains incomplete. Key concepts include: Scholars are just beginning to trace out and quantify how the economy reacts to immigration. Academic research on low-skilled immigration has a longer history, and efforts to evaluate high-skilled immigration are just starting to define its unique attributes from general immigration (e.g., the impact of firm sponsorship of H-1B visas). In terms of quantity, immigrants generally account for about a quarter of the US workforce engaged in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This share is growing rapidly. In terms of quality, most immigrants engaged in STEM work in the United States are better trained for this work than natives (e.g., chosen academic fields of study, levels of education obtained). Conditional on these education choices, immigrants and natives appear quite comparable in quality, with some greater potential for the "long tail" of superstars. Immigration is associated with higher levels of innovation for the United States. The short-run consequences for natives are minimal. However, this aggregate achievement involves some displacement of U.S. workers, and the long-run impact is less understood. Long-run estimates range from very positive to substantial crowding-out depending upon the study and technique. High-skilled immigrants promote knowledge flows and foreign direct investments to their home countries. It is still unclear whether this benefit fully compensates the country for the potential negative consequences from the talent migration. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 May 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
Clusters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
For many decades, the common wisdom among local officials pursuing employment growth for their areas was to attract a large firm to relocate. This "smokestack chasing" led to many regional governments bidding against each other and providing substantial incentives to large plants making their location choice decisions. The success of entrepreneurial clusters in recent decades, however, has challenged this wisdom, and now many policy makers state that they want their regions "to be the next Silicon Valley." This has led to extensive efforts to seed local entrepreneurship, with today's politicians routinely announcing the launch of an entrepreneurial cluster in a hot industry, such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, or advanced manufacturing. In this paper, the authors explore the rationale for and efficacy of policies to promote local entrepreneurship and innovation and reflect on recent initiatives in this domain. Key concepts include: Entrepreneurship is often linked to local economic growth, and economic theory provides rationales for why governments may want to support entrepreneurship and innovative activities in their local areas (e.g., spillover benefits to neighboring firms). Economic theory and practice also identifies potential pitfalls in these efforts. Policies supporting the emergence of clusters of small-scale entrepreneurs allow policy interventions to touch many entrepreneurship simultaneously, providing important scale to interventions, and appear to respect the empirical tendency of economic activity to cluster. Such approaches can also avoid the dangers of targeting specific firms for support. Despite this foundation and the tremendous current policy interest for entrepreneurship, the optimal formulation of entrepreneurship policy is not yet known. Indeed, relative to our understanding of how to craft policies for mature fields like international trade and monopoly, we have very little experience evaluating policies towards start-up clusters. The best path forward involves extensive experimentation and evaluation. Without advances in these dimensions, we cannot be confident that policies to promote entrepreneurship will have their intended impact. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
Machine Learning Methods for Strategy Research
Marketing, logistics, knowledge flow analysis, and other domains have become highly dependent on machine learning methods and tools. This article provides a survey of these methods and their management applications. Aimed at a broad readership, the article explains tools and concepts in a way that is accessible to non-specialists, including those without a programming background.