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Faculty & Research

Faculty & Research

Harvard Business School faculty members have made notable contributions to the history of business. Faculty research is diverse, based in several of the School’s units, and reflects disciplinary backgrounds in economics, history, sociology, strategy, and political science.
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  • 2022
  • Working Paper

The Impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act on the U.S. Economy

By: Joe Long, Carlo Medici, Nancy Qian and Marco Tabellini
This paper studies the impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese immigration to the United States after 1882, across U.S. counties between 1870 and 1940. We find that the Act reduced labor supply for both the Chinese and other groups (i.e., white and...
  • July 2022
  • Case

A Soul and a Service: North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance

By: Tom Nicholas and John Masko
The North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association (the Mutual) was founded in 1898 as a for-profit entity selling life insurance catering to the Black community. The Mutual was entering a field crowded with established White-owned competitors that largely refused to...
  • 2022
  • Book

Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China

By: William C. Kirby
The modern university was born in Germany. In the twentieth century, the United States leapfrogged Germany to become the global leader in higher education. Will China challenge its position in the twenty-first? Today American institutions dominate nearly every major...
  • 2022
  • Working Paper

Multinationals and Varieties of Capitalism: When U.S. Giants Stepped into the Swiss Coordinated Labor Market in the 1950s

By: Sabine Pitteloud
This working paper investigates unintended consequences of U.S. FDI in Switzerland in the 1950s-1960s: the increased competition that U.S. firms generated within the national labor market and the challenge their hiring practices constituted for the institutional...
  • April 2022
  • Case

Gender Equality in Business: 100 Years of Progress?

By: Boris Groysberg and Colleen Ammerman
"Gender Equality in Business: 100 Years of Progress?" traces the history of women in management from the early 20th to early 21st century through analysis of Harvard Business Review's coverage of women and gender. The case identifies six distinct phases in the...
  • 12 Apr 2022
  • Book

Racism, Colonialism, and Britain's Legacy of Violence

by Avery Forman
In a new book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Caroline Elkins shows how Britain exported and institutionalized racially motivated violence, and covered it up as the country lost its grip on imperial rule.
  • 2022
  • Book Chapter

Capitalism and the Environment

By: Geoffrey Jones
Capitalism drove the environmental decimation of the planet. The environment was seen as a free good, while the consequences of dirty industrial and agricultural processes were seen as external to the firm. Public policies largely allowed this to happen, as politicians...
  • March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
  • Case

When Should CEOs Speak Out Publicly? The 2021 Georgia Voting Law

By: William W. George, Hubert Joly and Amram Migdal
This case describes the March 2021 passage of a voting and elections law in the U.S. state of Georgia and reactions by corporations and corporate leaders to the law. Included are a brief history of voting rights in the United States and Georgia and an overview of the...
  • March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
  • Case

In Search of Global Regulation

By: Geoffrey Jones and Mona Rahmani
The history of the international regulation of global capitalism is surveyed, addressing the challenges facing firms confronting international, national, and regional regulation. Follows the history of global regulation after 1914, from the League of Nations;...
  • March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
  • Case

Pittsburgh: A Successful City?

By: Karen Mills, Caroline Elkins, Vikram Gandhi, Gabriella Elanbeck and Zeke Gillman
Pittsburgh, PA, was once the crown jewel of American heavy industry. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the city was an undisputed leader in steel production, boasting some of the largest companies and wealthiest individuals in the world. Its abundance of...
  • 2022
  • Book Chapter

Crises and International Business

By: Geoffrey Jones
This chapter uses the intellectual journey of the author to suggest that crises have been the norm rather than the exception in the history of international business. Over the last 100 years world wars, regional conflicts, the Great Depression, and decolonization are...
  • 2022
  • Book

Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

By: Caroline M. Elkins
Sprawling across a quarter of the world’s land mass and claiming nearly seven hundred million people, Britain’s twentieth-century empire was the largest empire in human history. For many Britons, it epitomized their nation’s cultural superiority, but what legacy did...
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Initiative Leadership
Walter A. Friedman
Walter A. Friedman
General Management
27 results
Geoffrey G. Jones
Geoffrey G. Jones
General Management
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