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Crowdsourcing Memories: Mixed Methods Research by Cultural Insiders-Epistemological Outsiders

by Tarun Khanna, Karim R. Lakhani, Shubhangi Bhadada, Nabil Khan, Saba Kohli Davé, Rasim Alam, and Meena Hewett

Research on the traumatic 1947 partition of British India has most often been carried out by scholars in the humanities and qualitative social sciences. This article presents mixed methods research and analysis to explore tensions within current scholarship and to inspire new understandings of the Partition, and more generally, mass migrations and displacement.

Big Infrastructure May Not Always Produce Big Benefits

by Martha Lagace

Government spending on bridges, roads, and other infrastructure pieces does not always ignite economic good times, say William Kerr and Ramana Nanda. The key question: Are financiers nearby? Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

The Effect of Payment Choices on Online Retail: Evidence from the 2016 Indian Demonetization

by Chaithanya Bandi, Toni Moreno, Donald Ngwe, and Zhiji Xu

Online sellers in many emerging markets are in the early stages of a shift from cash-based payments to digital payments. Findings from this study of a leading Indian online retailer show that firms may enjoy gains from consumer demand on top of operational gains resulting from payment digitization.

Can Biometric Tracking Improve Healthcare Provision and Data Quality? Experimental Evidence from Tuberculosis Control in India

by Thomas Bossuroy, Clara Delavallade, and Vincent Pons

This paper shows the benefits of biometric technology for strengthening service delivery and improving reliability of government data. The technology improved productivity of health workers operating tuberculosis treatment centers and decreased misreporting.

Managerial Quality and Productivity Dynamics

by Achyuta Adhvaryu, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo

Which managerial skills, traits, and practices matter most for productivity? This study of a large garment firm in India analyzes the integration of features of managerial quality into a production process characterized by learning by doing.

Homesick or Home Run? Distance from Hometown and Employee Performance: A Natural Experiment from India

by Prithwiraj Choudhury and Ohchan Kwon

In the short and long term, distance from one’s hometown has a different effect on individual work performance. First-year performance ratings tend to be high the farther employees work from their hometown. Three years later, however, longer travel times are associated with lower ratings, with implications for managers.

No More General Tso's? A Threat to 'Knowledge Recombination'

by Michael Blanding

Immigrants bring with them innovations from their homelands, knowledge that local inventors often build upon, says Prithwiraj Choudhury. Examples: turmeric medicine, double-entry bookkeeping, and American Chinese food. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

How Companies Managed Risk (and Even Benefitted) in World War Internment Camps

by Julia Hanna

Foreign businesses located in at-war countries are often victims of expropriation. Historian Valeria Giacomin explores how German businesses in the United Kingdom and India mitigated risk and even benefitted when their employees were placed in internment camps during the World Wars. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

How to Get People Addicted to a Good Habit

by Carmen Nobel

Reshmaan Hussam and colleagues used experimental interventions to determine if people could be persuaded to develop a healthy habit. Potentially at stake: the lives of more than a million children. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Habit Formation and Rational Addiction: A Field Experiment in Handwashing

by Reshmaan Hussam, Atonu Rabbani, Giovanni Reggiani, and Natalia Rigol

This study in rural West Bengal considers the role of habituation in an essential but unpopular preventive health behavior: handwashing with soap. The study finds that frontloading both financial and social incentives facilitates habituation, and agents internalize this habitual nature. Findings help guide the design of optimal incentives to increase the adoption of positive habits.

Marry Rich, Poor Girl: Investigating the Effects of Sex Selection on Intrahousehold Outcomes in India

by Reshmaan Hussam

This study examines the unintended consequences in India of sex selection technology on the marriage market and the bargaining power of surviving women. It finds women in regions exposed to ultrasound face poorer matches and outcomes in marriage.

Conversational Peers and Idea Generation: Evidence from a Field Experiment

by Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning

To develop a theory of innovator capability, this study extends existing research linking personality and creativity to take into account the social nature of idea generation. Using data from an experiment embedded in a bootcamp for aspiring entrepreneurs, results show that better ideas are generated by “open” innovators exposed to extroverted peers. Extroverts provide more raw information that innovators high in openness are best able to recombine into novel ideas.

Learning to Manage: A Field Experiment in the Indian Startup Ecosystem

by Aaron Chatterji, Solene Delecourt, Sharique Hasan, and Rembrand Koning

This study of 100 high-growth startups in India finds that founder-executives can learn how to improve their management style from their peers at other firms. These interfirm network connections between founders may help explain why some companies are well managed and others less so. Despite the apparent value of this peer learning, founders don’t appear to naturally connect with peers who could help them improve their management style.

Building India’s First $100 Billion Company

Re: Sunil Gupta

Startups welcome growth but are often strangled by it. In this podcast, Sunil Gupta discusses how entrepreneur Vijay Shekhar Sharma is meeting this challenge with his mobile payments company Paytm. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Reputation is Vital to Survival in Turbulent Markets

by Sean Silverthorne

Reputation and resilience are key ingredients that determine whether companies will survive tumultuous markets, according to a new paper by Geoffrey Jones, Tarun Khanna, Cheng Gao, and Tiona Zuzul. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Capturing Value from IP in a Global Environment

by Juan Alcácer, Karin Beukel, and Bruno Cassiman

Challenges to capturing value from know-how and reputation through the use of different IP tools is an increasingly important matter of strategy for global enterprises. They will need to combine different institutional, market, and non-market mechanisms, but the precise combination of tools will depend on local and regional institutional and market conditions.

How Should Advertisers Respond to Consumer Demand for Whiter Skin?

by Dina Gerdeman

Skin-lightening creams are a fast-growing market in India. Rohit Deshpandé explores what firms should do when a product is decidedly popular—but may be promoting discrimination. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Building Affordable Health Care in Paradise

Re: Tarun Khanna

By some accounts, only about 5 percent of people worldwide receive cardiac treatment they need to survive. Professor Tarun Khanna highlights the need for affordable health care at scale, and a possible model based on factory-like repetition and learning in the Cayman Islands. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Shabana Azmi: Leveraging Bollywood Fame into Social Good

by Sean Silverthorne

Indian screen star Shabana Azmi talks to Rohit Deshpandé about how she leverages movie fame into social activism. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Research Trends Discussed at India and South Asia Conference

by Dina Gerdeman

Harvard Business School recently brought together scholars to discuss the business history and current research trends in India and South Asia. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.