Interdisciplinary Research

Interdisciplinary research projects are cross-disciplinary efforts that draw together members of the faculty from throughout the School (and in some cases, the University) to investigate ideas that change the way managers think and act. Their work generates research output, courses, programs, and partnerships.

The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship
Harvard Business School has long been at the forefront of teaching and research in entrepreneurship, which has emerged as an approach to management that is useful to organizations of all sizes and stages of development. In 2003, HBS dedicated the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship on campus, made possible by a gift from Arthur Rock (MBA 1951), a pioneering San Francisco-based venture capitalist. The Center coordinates the full range of work in entrepreneurship from across the entire School, supporting research and the development of course materials while encouraging further outreach and interaction with entrepreneurial individuals and organizations around the world.

Business History
More than any other leading business school, Harvard Business School has integrated the study of business history into its curriculum from its earliest days. Currently, the business history group is the largest in the United States and among the largest in the world. The group conducts research, convenes a range of workshops and seminars, develops cases and other teaching materials, and develops and teaches the specific courses in the field.

Corporate Governance Initiative
This project showcases Harvard Business School's ongoing research and course development in the area of global corporate governance, which is defined as the dynamic relationships among investors (shareholders and providers of debt capital), managers, and boards of directors (supervisory boards in some countries). Corporate governance systems also include the various intermediaries between the individual providers of capital and the companies in which they invest, such as banks, mutual funds, and pension funds, as well as auditors and agencies that provide external oversight. The faculty team currently includes Professors Jay Lorsch, George Baker, Dwight Crane, Alexander Dyck, Brian Hall, Paul Healy, Simi Kedia, Carl Kester, Tarun Khanna, Rakesh Khurana, Krishna Palepu, and Guhan Subramanian.

Dynamics of Global Entrepreneurship
The aim of the project is to advance understanding of the virtues of high-growth enterprises and the requirements for their success. Using a unique panel dataset of private companies as the platform for analysis, the faculty team involved will begin to explore two broad classes of questions: (a) what does it take to succeed for high-growth enterprises, and (b) what are the implications for policy? The debate over these questions will be enriched by a combination of large-scale empirical analysis and detailed case studies of the dynamics of entrepreneurship around the world. The faculty team currently includes Professors Mihir Desai, Paul Gompers, and Josh Lerner.

Global Initiative
The Global Initiative works to expand the School's international research and course development through its network of research centers in key areas around the world, including Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific. At each center, a team headed by an HBS graduate from the region develops mutually beneficial ties between the School and leaders of industry, academia, and government, creating a network of relationships that spans the globe. This effort weaves the work of the School into the fabric of these societies, helping faculty conduct research on emerging regional and global challenges, learn about the latest business developments and best management practices wherever they occur, and develop an expanding spectrum of international cases.

Healthcare Initiative
The Healthcare Initiative focuses on expanding the body of knowledge related to the business of creating and delivering health services and health-related technologies. It is an interdisciplinary endeavor with participation from nearly all functions of the school including accounting, entrepreneurship, finance, management, marketing, organizational behavior, strategy, and technology and operations management. Research, cases, and course materials span a diverse range of topics including technology strategy, the design of care delivery, consumer-driven health care, team learning and organizational change, venture capital, alliances, startups, and innovation. The mission of the Initiative is to produce leading edge research, to deliver a world class MBA health care curriculum, and to offer a variety of Executive Education programs that attract, challenge, and enhance the skills of health care leaders from around the world.

Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness
The Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness (ISC), led by University Professor Michael E. Porter, is dedicated to the study of competition and its implications for company strategy; the competitiveness of nations, regions, and cities; and the relationship between competition and society The Institute seeks to develop new theory, assemble bodies of data to test and apply the theory, and disseminate its ideas widely to scholars and practitioners in business, government, and non-governmental organizations such as universities, economic development organizations, and foundations In addition to books, articles, working papers, bibliographies, and speeches accessible via its Web site, the Institute disseminates information products based on Professor Porter's research.

Leadership
The Leadership Initiative is an interdisciplinary initiative that strives to serve as a catalyst for cutting-edge research and course development. The initiative aspires to be at the forefront of leadership research and development in the 21st century, and aims to contribute to Harvard Business School's overriding mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. The projects and course development efforts aim to capture the realities of leadership throughout the organization (not just at the CEO level) and also the challenges of leadership in context (across time and location). The core faculty collaborates and builds alliances with individuals and organizations across the globe. In addition, the initiative offers executive education programs and provides resources for interdisciplinary collaboration.

Modern Giants
The Modern Giants research initiative focuses on the management of large, complex enterprises—firms of huge scale and scope with many billions of dollars in revenues and tens of thousands of employees. The project, which involves multiple faculty from several different fields, is designed to answer the following question: How do senior managers use critical processes, such as strategy development, resource allocation, and performance management, to meet the distinctive challenges of continuing growth and disciplined execution that face such large enterprises.

Social Enterprise Initiative
Established in 1993, the Social Enterprise Initiative generates and shares knowledge to help individuals and organizations deliver social value in the nonprofit, private, and public sectors. The School's approach expands traditional views of nonprofit organizations, embracing the contributions that any organization-non-profit, private, or public sector- can make toward social improvement. This effort builds on long-standing interests within the HBS community and reflects the School's view that involvement in social enterprise is a fundamental component of leadership. HBS has made key contributions to the intellectual underpinnings of social enterprise, and continues to build an interdisciplinary faculty dedicated to providing leading research and teaching in the field.