Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions

Faculty & Research

  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
    • HBS Book

    Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

    By: Caroline M. Elkins

    Drawing on more than a decade of research on four continents, Legacy of Violence implicates all sides of Britain’s political divide in the creation, execution, and cover-up of imperial violence. By demonstrating how and why violence was the most salient factor underwriting Britain’s empire and the nation’s imperial identity at home, Elkins upends long-held myths and sheds new light on empire’s role in shaping the world today.

    • HBS Book

    Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

    By: Caroline M. Elkins

    Drawing on more than a decade of research on four continents, Legacy of Violence implicates all sides of Britain’s political divide in the creation, execution, and cover-up of imperial violence. By demonstrating how and why violence was the most salient factor underwriting Britain’s empire and the nation’s imperial identity at home, Elkins upends...

    • Journal of Financial Economics 144, no. 2 (May 2022): 523–546.

    Do the Right Firms Survive Bankruptcy?

    By: Samuel Antill

    In U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, firms are either reorganized, acquired, or liquidated. I show that decisions to liquidate often reduce creditor recovery, costing creditors billions of dollars every year. I exploit the within-district random assignment of bankruptcy judges to estimate a structural model of bankruptcy. I estimate that liquidation is frequently chosen when a reorganization would have maximized total creditor recovery. Liquidations involving "363 sales," in which managers sell assets without creditor approval, are especially harmful for creditors. I estimate that courts could dramatically improve creditor recovery by assigning liquidations using a statistical model.

    • Journal of Financial Economics 144, no. 2 (May 2022): 523–546.

    Do the Right Firms Survive Bankruptcy?

    By: Samuel Antill

    In U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, firms are either reorganized, acquired, or liquidated. I show that decisions to liquidate often reduce creditor recovery, costing creditors billions of dollars every year. I exploit the within-district random assignment of bankruptcy judges to estimate a structural model of bankruptcy. I estimate that...

    • Business & Environment Initiative

    ReNew Power: Leading the Energy Transition in India

    By: Gunnar Trumbull and Malini Sen

    Founder-CEO of one of India’s largest clean energy companies, ReNew Power, which develops, builds, and operates utility-scale wind and solar energy projects, has to decide the way forward for the company as the country and the world stand poised at the cusp of an energy revolution. In 2021, at the COP26 summit, India’s Prime Minister had pledged that the country would achieve net-zero emissions by 2070 and raise renewable energy capacity fivefold by 2030. What role will ReNew Power play in this transition? Besides, with traditional power generators, which had focused on fossil fuel-based sources, finally taking notice of the renewables market, how can ReNew Power stay ahead of the competition?

    • Business & Environment Initiative

    ReNew Power: Leading the Energy Transition in India

    By: Gunnar Trumbull and Malini Sen

    Founder-CEO of one of India’s largest clean energy companies, ReNew Power, which develops, builds, and operates utility-scale wind and solar energy projects, has to decide the way forward for the company as the country and the world stand poised at the cusp of an energy revolution. In 2021, at the COP26 summit, India’s Prime Minister had pledged...

    • Featured Case

    Unilever: Remote Work in Manufacturing

    By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Susie L. Ma

    In December 2021, Unilever—one of the world’s largest producers of consumer goods—was in the midst of a pilot project to digitize its manufacturing facilities and enable remote work for factory employees. This was possible because of an earlier project to retrofit a facility in Brazil with state-of-the art sensors on factory equipment to collect real-time data. The data was then analyzed using machine learning applications on the cloud so that key capabilities of the factory could be run remotely on a laptop in a technician’s kitchen. The company hoped expanding this effort would improve efficiency and performance across its network of factories, and result in cost savings and decreased energy consumption for the entire organization.

    • Featured Case

    Unilever: Remote Work in Manufacturing

    By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Susie L. Ma

    In December 2021, Unilever—one of the world’s largest producers of consumer goods—was in the midst of a pilot project to digitize its manufacturing facilities and enable remote work for factory employees. This was possible because of an earlier project to retrofit a facility in Brazil with state-of-the art sensors on factory equipment to collect...

    • Featured Case

    Passing the Mic: Career and Firm Outcomes of Executive Interactions

    By: Wei Cai, Ethan Rouen and Yuan Zou

    To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020. Within a year, the company had reached over 35 countries with many potential users pending on its waiting lists. A ‘for-profit with purpose’, Be Mobile Africa aimed to lift 100 million people out of poverty by extending financial services to previously unbanked populations across the African continent. Racing towards its goal, the company needed a longer-term expansion strategy to fulfill Jeannot’s mission.

    • Featured Case

    Passing the Mic: Career and Firm Outcomes of Executive Interactions

    By: Wei Cai, Ethan Rouen and Yuan Zou

    To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020. Within a year, the company had reached over 35 countries with many potential users...

    • HBS Working Paper

    Passing the Mic: Career and Firm Outcomes of Executive Interactions

    By: Wei Cai, Ethan Rouen and Yuan Zou

    We exploit a unique feature of conference calls to study one type of interaction among executives—directly inviting colleagues to respond to analysts’ questions. We find that the frequency of initiating interaction is positively associated with an executive’s ability, but not associated with firm performance. When new CEOs initiate more interactions than their predecessors, interaction among the rest of the executive team also increases, suggesting a learning effect. Turning to the outcomes of this practice, we find that executives who initiate more interactions than their peers are twice as likely as the average executive to be promoted to CEO.

    • HBS Working Paper

    Passing the Mic: Career and Firm Outcomes of Executive Interactions

    By: Wei Cai, Ethan Rouen and Yuan Zou

    We exploit a unique feature of conference calls to study one type of interaction among executives—directly inviting colleagues to respond to analysts’ questions. We find that the frequency of initiating interaction is positively associated with an executive’s ability, but not associated with firm performance. When new CEOs initiate more...

    • NBER Working Paper

    High-Yield Debt Covenants and Their Real Effects

    By: Falk Bräuning, Victoria Ivashina and Ali Ozdagli

    High-yield debt including leveraged loans is characterized by incurrence financial covenants, or “cov-lite” provisions. A traditional loan agreement includes maintenance covenants, which require continuous compliance with the covenant threshold, and their violation shifts the control rights to creditors. Incurrence covenants preserve equity control rights but trigger pre-specified restrictions on the borrower’s actions once the covenant threshold is crossed. We show that the prevalence of incurrence covenants indirectly imposes significant constraints on investments as restricted actions become binding: Similar to the effects associated with the shift of control rights to creditors in traditional loans, the drop in investment under incurrence covenants is large and sudden.

    • NBER Working Paper

    High-Yield Debt Covenants and Their Real Effects

    By: Falk Bräuning, Victoria Ivashina and Ali Ozdagli

    High-yield debt including leveraged loans is characterized by incurrence financial covenants, or “cov-lite” provisions. A traditional loan agreement includes maintenance covenants, which require continuous compliance with the covenant threshold, and their violation shifts the control rights to creditors. Incurrence covenants preserve equity...

Initiatives & Projects

Global

The Global Initiative builds on a legacy of global engagement by supporting the HBS community of faculty, students, and alumni in their work, encouraging a global outlook in research, study, and practice.
→All Initiatives & Projects

Seminars & Conferences

May 31
  • 31 May 2022

Governing Global Capitalism

→More Seminars & Conferences

Recent Publications

Human Resource Management and Abuse in Global Supply Chains

By: Laura G. Babbitt, Drusilla K. Brown, Ana W. Antolin, Elyse N. Voegeli and Kimberly A. Elliot
  • 2022 |
  • Chapter |
  • Faculty Research
Citation
Related
Babbitt, Laura G., Drusilla K. Brown, Ana W. Antolin, Elyse N. Voegeli, and Kimberly A. Elliot. "Human Resource Management and Abuse in Global Supply Chains." Chap. 7 in Handbook on Globalisation and Labour Standards, edited by Kimberly Ann Elliott, 126–141. Handbooks on Globalisation. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022.

Multitasking While Driving: A Time Use Study of Commuting Knowledge Workers to Assess Current and Future Uses

By: Thomaz Teodorovicz, Andrew L. Kun, Raffaella Sadun and Orit Shaer
  • Article |
  • International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
Commuting has enormous impact on individuals, families, organizations, and society. Advances in vehicle automation may help workers employ the time spent commuting in productive work-tasks or wellbeing activities. To achieve this goal, however, we need to develop a deeper understanding of which work and personal activities are of value for commuting workers. In this paper we present results from an online time-use study of 400 knowledge workers who commute-by-driving. The data allow us to study multitasking-while-driving behavior of commuting knowledge workers, identify which non-driving tasks knowledge workers currently engage in while driving, and the non-driving tasks individuals would like to engage in when using a safe highly automated vehicle in the future. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of technology that supports work and wellbeing activities in automated cars.
Citation
Purchase
Related
Teodorovicz, Thomaz, Andrew L. Kun, Raffaella Sadun, and Orit Shaer. "Multitasking While Driving: A Time Use Study of Commuting Knowledge Workers to Assess Current and Future Uses." International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 162 (June 2022).

How to Build a Life: Mindfulness Hurts. That’s Why It Works.

By: Arthur C. Brooks
  • May 19, 2022 |
  • Article |
  • The Atlantic
Citation
Related
Brooks, Arthur C. "How to Build a Life: Mindfulness Hurts. That’s Why It Works." The Atlantic (May 19, 2022).

Want to Keep Your Employees Happy? Offer these 5 Things

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter
  • May 18, 2022 |
  • Other Article |
  • CNN.com
Citation
Related
Kanter, Rosabeth M. "Want to Keep Your Employees Happy? Offer these 5 Things." CNN.com (May 18, 2022).

Valuing Yahoo! in 2013 (Abridged)

By: Luis M. Viceira
  • May 2022 |
  • Supplement |
  • Faculty Research
Citation
Purchase
Related
Viceira, Luis M. "Valuing Yahoo! in 2013 (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 222-717, May 2022.

Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?

By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger
  • May 2022 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash literally promised “Fast Cash” for its users who also had a Rawbank account. Unlike most mobile money platforms on the African continent, Illico cash was backed by an established bank – not a technology or a telecommunications company. As he contemplated Rawbank’s next strategic move, the future of Illico Cash, and the bank’s future moves into digital payment systems in the DRC, he saw multiple challenges to Illico Cash’s adoption in several regions across the DRC. Seeing lower-than-anticipated usage rates, he wondered if local preferences for cash seemed just too powerful to overcome. Can the bank’s digital payments efforts overcome hurdles in local infrastructure, entrenched interests that favored cash, and currency instability? Would crafting a digital ecosystem be a worthwhile investment for Rawbank without a wholesale structural shift in beliefs?
Citation
Educators
Related
Cohen, Lauren, and Grace Headinger. "Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?" Harvard Business School Case 222-084, May 2022.

Why Build in Web3

By: Jad Esber and Scott Duke Kominers
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review Digital Articles
Citation
Related
Esber, Jad, and Scott Duke Kominers. "Why Build in Web3." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (May 16, 2022).

Founder Collective

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
  • May 2022 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
FC launched in 2009 with a clear mission: to be the most aligned fund for founders at the seed stage. In keeping with its mission, FC maintained smaller fund sizes and was not a lifecycle investor. By November of 2021, however, the seed market had gotten more competitive, and FC had successfully picked several Unicorn and even Decacorn investments, causing some LPs to wonder about the opportunity costs of FC’s “no pro rata” view. The FC Managing Partners David Frankel, Eric Paley, and Micah Rosenbloom wondered if the “game on the field” had changed too much and if they should evolve their strategy. They contemplated three potential paths forward: start investing their pro rata in later rounds, raise an opportunity fund, or continue their current strategy.
Citation
Educators
Related
Tango, Jo, and Alys Ferragamo. "Founder Collective." Harvard Business School Case 822-129, May 2022.
More Publications

In The News

    • 18 May 2022
    • Harvard Business School

    Capping a Two-Year First at HBS: Inaugural Cohort of MS/MBA Biotechnology: Life Sciences Program Showcase Their Work

    Re: Amitabh Chandra
    • 17 May 2022
    • Cold Call

    Delivering a Personalized Shopping Experience with AI

    Re: Jill Avery
    • 15 May 2022
    • Protocol

    Layoffs on Zoom: Is There a Better Way?

    Re: Sandra Sucher
    • 15 May 2022
    • Engadget

    Hitting the Books: Why We Need to Treat the Robots of Tomorrow Like Tools

    Re: Tsedal Neeley
→More Faculty News

The Case Method

Introduced by HBS faculty to business education in 1925, the case method is a powerful interactive learning process that puts students in the shoes of a leader faced with a real-world management issue and challenges them to propose and justify a resolution.
Today, HBS remains an authority on teaching by the case method. The School is also the world’s leading case-writing institution, with HBS faculty members contributing hundreds of new cases to the management curriculum a year via the School’s unique case development and writing process.
→Browse HBS Case Collection
→Purchase Cases

Faculty Positions

Harvard Business School seeks candidates in all fields for full time positions. Candidates with outstanding records in PhD or DBA programs are encouraged to apply.
→Learn More
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College