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    • HBS Book

    Better, Not Perfect: A Realist's Guide to Maximum Sustainable Goodness

    By: Max Bazerman

    Every day, you make hundreds of decisions. They’re largely personal, but these choices have an ethical twinge as well; they value certain principles and ends over others. Bazerman argues that we can better balance both dimensions—and we needn’t seek perfection to make a real difference for ourselves and the world.

    • HBS Book

    Better, Not Perfect: A Realist's Guide to Maximum Sustainable Goodness

    By: Max Bazerman

    Every day, you make hundreds of decisions. They’re largely personal, but these choices have an ethical twinge as well; they value certain principles and ends over others. Bazerman argues that we can better balance both dimensions—and we needn’t seek perfection to make a real difference for ourselves and the world.

    • Review of Economics and Statistics 102, no. 5 (December 2020): 912-928.

    Taking Innovation to the Streets: Micro-geography, Physical Structure and Innovation

    By: Maria P. Roche

    In this paper, we analyze how the physical layout of cities affects innovation by influencing the organization of knowledge exchange. We exploit a novel data set covering all Census Block Groups in the contiguous United States with information on innovation outcomes, street infrastructure, as well as population and workforce characteristics.

    • Review of Economics and Statistics 102, no. 5 (December 2020): 912-928.

    Taking Innovation to the Streets: Micro-geography, Physical Structure and Innovation

    By: Maria P. Roche

    In this paper, we analyze how the physical layout of cities affects innovation by influencing the organization of knowledge exchange. We exploit a novel data set covering all Census Block Groups in the contiguous United States with information on innovation outcomes, street infrastructure, as well as population and workforce characteristics.

    • Digital Initiative

    What Has Changed? The Impact of COVID Pandemic on the Technology and Innovation Management Research Agenda

    By: Gerard George, Karim R. Lakhani and Phanish Puranam

    Whereas the pandemic has tested the agility and resilience of organizations, it forces a deeper look at the assumptions underlying theoretical frameworks that guide managerial decisions and organizational practices. In this commentary, we explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on technology and innovation management research.

    • Digital Initiative

    What Has Changed? The Impact of COVID Pandemic on the Technology and Innovation Management Research Agenda

    By: Gerard George, Karim R. Lakhani and Phanish Puranam

    Whereas the pandemic has tested the agility and resilience of organizations, it forces a deeper look at the assumptions underlying theoretical frameworks that guide managerial decisions and organizational practices. In this commentary, we explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on technology and innovation management research.

    • Featured Case

    Daily Table

    By: José B. Alvarez, Zeynep Ton and Annelena Lobb

    Daily Table is a case about a grocery chain with two outposts in Boston neighborhoods Dorchester and Roxbury. Its mission is to provide healthy food at lower prices to people in lower-income neighborhoods. The case explores Daily Table’s responsibility to its employees during the COVID-19 pandemic amid a series of changes to wages.

    • Featured Case

    Daily Table

    By: José B. Alvarez, Zeynep Ton and Annelena Lobb

    Daily Table is a case about a grocery chain with two outposts in Boston neighborhoods Dorchester and Roxbury. Its mission is to provide healthy food at lower prices to people in lower-income neighborhoods. The case explores Daily Table’s responsibility to its employees during the COVID-19 pandemic amid a series of changes to wages.

    • Featured Case

    Apple Bets on Augmented Reality

    By: Rory McDonald, David Lane and Mel Martin

    In 2020, augmented reality (AR) was still a nascent technology with blockbuster potential, one which Apple was actively developing as its iPhone franchise waned. But the emergence of AR was uneven, including the disappointing Google Glass and the unexpected viral success of Pokémon Go. This left the door open for Apple.

    • Featured Case

    Apple Bets on Augmented Reality

    By: Rory McDonald, David Lane and Mel Martin

    In 2020, augmented reality (AR) was still a nascent technology with blockbuster potential, one which Apple was actively developing as its iPhone franchise waned. But the emergence of AR was uneven, including the disappointing Google Glass and the unexpected viral success of Pokémon Go. This left the door open for Apple.

    • HBS Working Knowledge

    Party-State Capitalism in China

    By: Margaret Pearson, Meg Rithmire, and Kellee Tsai

    China’s political economy has evolved from “state capitalism” to a distinctly party-driven incarnation. Party-state capitalism, via enhanced party monitoring and industrial policy, deepens ambiguity between the state and private sectors, and increases pressure on foreign capital, prioritizing the regime’s political survival above all.

    • HBS Working Knowledge

    Party-State Capitalism in China

    By: Margaret Pearson, Meg Rithmire, and Kellee Tsai

    China’s political economy has evolved from “state capitalism” to a distinctly party-driven incarnation. Party-state capitalism, via enhanced party monitoring and industrial policy, deepens ambiguity between the state and private sectors, and increases pressure on foreign capital, prioritizing the regime’s political survival above all.

    • HBS Working Paper

    India’s Food Supply Chain During the Pandemic

    By: Matt Lowe, V G Nadhanael and Benjamin N. Roth

    We document the impact of India’s COVID-19 lockdown on the food supply chain. Food arrivals in wholesale markets dropped by 62% in the three weeks following the lockdown and wholesale prices rose by 8%. Six weeks after the lockdown began, volumes and prices had fully recovered. The initial food supply shock was highly correlated with early incidence of COVID-19. We provide evidence that this correlation is due more to state-level lockdown policy variation than local responses of those in the food supply chain. Finally, during the recovery phase, the correlation between the food supply disruption and COVID-19 exposure disappeared, suggesting uniform recovery.

    • HBS Working Paper

    India’s Food Supply Chain During the Pandemic

    By: Matt Lowe, V G Nadhanael and Benjamin N. Roth

    We document the impact of India’s COVID-19 lockdown on the food supply chain. Food arrivals in wholesale markets dropped by 62% in the three weeks following the lockdown and wholesale prices rose by 8%. Six weeks after the lockdown began, volumes and prices had fully recovered. The initial food supply shock was highly correlated with early...

Initiatives & Projects

Creating Emerging Markets

The Creating Emerging Markets project explores the evolution of business leadership in Africa, Asia, and Latin America throughout recent decades.
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Seminars & Conferences

Jan 21
  • 21 Jan 2021

Boston Conference on Markets and Competition

Jan 29
  • 29 Jan 2021

Hillary Stein | Johnny Tang, Harvard Business School

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Recent Publications

Assessment of Electronic Health Record Use Between US and Non-US Health Systems

By: A Jay Holmgren, Lance Downing, David W Bates, Tait D Shanafelt, Arnold Milstein, Christopher Sharp, David Cutler, Robert S. Huckman and Kevin A. Schulman
  • Article |
  • JAMA Internal Medicine
IMPORTANCE Understanding how the electronic health record (EHR) system changes clinician work, productivity, and well-being is critical. Little is known regarding global variation in patterns of use. OBJECTIVE To provide insights into which EHR activities clinicians spend their time doing, the EHR tools they use, the system messages they receive, and the amount of time they spend using the EHR after hours. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This cross-sectional study analyzed the deidentified metadata of ambulatory care health systems in the US, Canada, Northern Europe,Western Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania from January 1, 2019, to August 31, 2019. All of these organizations used the EHR software from Epic Systems and represented most of Epic Systems’s ambulatory customer base. The sample included all clinicians with scheduled patient appointments, such as physicians and advanced practice practitioners. EXPOSURES Clinician EHR use was tracked by deidentified and aggregated metadata across a variety of clinical activities. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Descriptive statistics for clinician EHR use included time spent on clinical activities, note documentation (as measured by the percentage of characters in the note generated by automated or manual data entry source), messages received, and time spent after hours. RESULTS A total of 371 health systems were included in the sample, of which 348 (93.8%) were located in the US and 23 (6.2%) were located in other countries. US clinicians spent more time per day actively using the EHR compared with non-US clinicians (mean time, 90.2 minutes vs 59.1 minutes; P < .001). In addition, US clinicians vs non-US clinicians spent significantly more time performing 4 clinical activities: notes (40.7 minutes vs 30.7 minutes; P < .001), orders (19.5 minutes vs 8.75 minutes; P < .001), in-basket messages (12.5 minutes vs 4.80 minutes; P < .001), and clinical review (17.6 minutes vs 14.8 minutes; P = .01). Clinicians in the US composed more automated note text than their non-US counterparts (77.5%vs 60.8%of note text; P < .001) and received statistically significantly more messages per day (33.8 vs 12.8; P < .001). Furthermore, US clinicians used the EHR for a longer time after hours, logging in 26.5 minutes per day vs 19.5 minutes per day for non-US clinicians (P = .01). The median US clinician spent as much time actively using the EHR per day (90.1 minutes) as a non-US clinician in the 99th percentile of active EHR use time per day (90.7 minutes) in the sample. These results persisted after controlling for organizational characteristics, including structure, type, size, and daily patient volume. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE This study found that US clinicians compared with their non-US counterparts spent substantially more time actively using the EHR for a wide range of clinical activities or tasks. This finding suggests that US clinicians have a greater EHR burden that may be associated with nontechnical factors, which policy makers and health system leaders should consider when addressing clinician wellness.
Citation
Related
Holmgren, A Jay, Lance Downing, David W Bates, Tait D Shanafelt, Arnold Milstein, Christopher Sharp, David Cutler, Robert S. Huckman, and Kevin A. Schulman. "Assessment of Electronic Health Record Use Between US and Non-US Health Systems." JAMA Internal Medicine (December 31, 2020).

Gentrification and Neighborhood Change: Evidence from Yelp

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca and Erica Moszkowski
  • 2020 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
How does gentrification transform neighborhoods? Gentrification can harm current residents by increasing rental costs and by eliminating old amenities, including distinctive local stores. Rising rents represent redistribution from tenants to landlords and can therefore be offset with targeted transfers, but the destruction of neighborhood character can – in principle – reduce overall social surplus. Using Census and Yelp data from five cities, we document that while gentrification is associated with an increase in the number of retail establishments overall, it is also associated with higher rates of business closure and higher rates of transition to higher price points. In Chicago and Los Angeles especially, non-gentrifying poorer communities have dramatically lower turnover than richer or gentrifying communities. However, the primary transitions appear to the replacement of stores that sell tradable goods with stores that sell non-tradable services. That transition just seems to be slower in poor communities that do not gentrify. Consequently, the business closures that come with gentrification seem to reflect the global impact of electronic commerce more than the replacement of idiosyncratic neighborhood services with generic luxury goods.
Citation
SSRN
Related
Glaeser, Edward L., Michael Luca, and Erica Moszkowski. "Gentrification and Neighborhood Change: Evidence from Yelp." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-074, December 2020.

How to Build a Life: Don’t Isolate Yourself This Holiday Season

By: Arthur C. Brooks
  • December 17, 2020 |
  • Article |
  • The Atlantic
Citation
Related
Brooks, Arthur C. "How to Build a Life: Don’t Isolate Yourself This Holiday Season." The Atlantic (December 17, 2020).

People Analytics at Teach For America (B) (Data Set)

By: Jeff Polzer
  • December 2020 |
  • Supplement |
  • Faculty Research
Citation
Purchase
Related
Polzer, Jeff. "People Analytics at Teach For America (B) (Data Set)." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 421-054, December 2020.

Learning With People Like Me: The Role of Age-Similar Peers on Online Business Course Engagement

By: Laura R. Huber, Jacqueline N. Lane and Karim R. Lakhani
  • 2020 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
Over the past decade, online learning has witnessed tremendous growth in popularity due to its ability to reach diverse participants in a scalable manner. However, one primary area of concern is the low course completion rates in digital platform-based learning, compared to face-to-face counterparts. Given that most education tends to be organized by age, we ask: how does the degree of age-similarity among cohort peers affect course engagement and persistence? Using a unique dataset of 17,000 working professionals enrolled in business skills training courses offered by an elite U.S. business school over a three year period, we show that age similarity has a positive effect on individual course completion: an individual’s likelihood of course completion increases by 3% for every 10 same-age cohort peers. Given that the average cohort size is 220 people, this suggests that a small threshold of same-age peers can have a substantial impact on course engagement and persistence. To examine mechanisms, we turn to participants’ motivations for taking the course, and find that similar-age peers are more likely to affiliate with one another because they share a common motivation for taking the course. Our results suggest that there is an implicit trade-off between social engagement and diversity of perspectives in online courses, and that the organization and structure of online courses ought to balance both objectives.
Citation
Related
Huber, Laura R., Jacqueline N. Lane, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Learning With People Like Me: The Role of Age-Similar Peers on Online Business Course Engagement." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-072, December 2020.

Algorithm-Augmented Work Performance and Domain Experience: The Countervailing Forces of Ability and Aversion

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Prithwiraj Choudhury, Ryan Allen and Ryan Allen
  • 2020 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
How does a knowledge worker’s level of domain experience affect their algorithm-augmented work performance? We propose and test theoretical predictions that domain experience has countervailing effects on algorithm-augmented performance: on one hand, domain experience enhances a worker’s ability to accurately assess the quality of an algorithmic tool’s advice; on the other hand, highly experienced workers exhibit more aversion to algorithmic advice, relative to their own judgment. We exploit a within-subjects experiment in which corporate IT support workers were assigned to resolve similar problems both manually (using their own judgment) and using advice generated by an algorithmic tool. Relative to solving problems using their own judgment, we confirm an inverted U-shape between IT domain experience and performance for problems where the algorithmic tool generated advice. While low experience workers’ propensity to reject accurate algorithmic advice appears to be driven by lack of ability to accurately assess the algorithm’s advice, highly experienced workers appear to reject algorithmic advice due to algorithmic aversion.
Citation
Related
Choudhury, Prithwiraj, and Ryan Allen. "Algorithm-Augmented Work Performance and Domain Experience: The Countervailing Forces of Ability and Aversion." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-073, October 2020.

Tales of Life-changing Innovations: Living Drugs | Note on the Development of CAR-T Therapies (through 2019)

By: Amar Bhidé and Srikant M. Datar
  • December 2020 |
  • Technical Note |
  • Faculty Research
Citation
Educators
Related
Bhidé, Amar, and Srikant M. Datar. "Tales of Life-changing Innovations: Living Drugs | Note on the Development of CAR-T Therapies (through 2019)." Harvard Business School Technical Note 321-063, December 2020.

Tales of Life-changing Innovations: Without Cutting In | Note on the Development of Endoscopy (through the 1990s)

By: Amar Bhidé, Srikant M. Datar and Katherine Stebbins
  • December 2020 |
  • Technical Note |
  • Faculty Research
Citation
Educators
Related
Bhidé, Amar, Srikant M. Datar, and Katherine Stebbins. "Tales of Life-changing Innovations: Without Cutting In | Note on the Development of Endoscopy (through the 1990s)." Harvard Business School Technical Note 321-061, December 2020.
More Publications

In The News

    • 18 Dec 2020
    • American Medicine

    Making Doctors Effective Managers and Leaders

    Re: Robert Huckman
    • 17 Dec 2020
    • DigiTimes

    Perception skills are key to success: Q&A with Laura Huang, associate professor at Harvard Business School

    Re: Laura Huang
    • 16 Dec 2020
    • Harvard Gazette

    Departing Business School Dean Recalls a Consequential Decade

    Re: Nitin Nohria
    • 16 Dec 2020
    • Bloomberg

    To Make a Building Healthier, Stop Sanitizing Everything

    Re: John Macomber
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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.
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