Publications

January 2025
Case

Creating Value by Splitting Aster: Can One Minus One Equal Two?

By: V.G. Narayanan and Kairavi Dey

Aster DM Healthcare (Aster), founded by Dr. Azad Moopen in 1987, is a prominent healthcare conglomerate with operations spanning hospitals, clinics, retail pharmacies, and diagnostic centers across India and the GCC. After its 2018 listing on India’s National Stock... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Corporate Governance; Corporate Accountability; Leadership; Change Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Health Industry; Asia; India; Middle East; United Arab Emirates

Educators

January 2025
Case

Apax Partners: Deciding Whether to Bid for Trader Corp.

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer

Apax Partners’ investment committee was schedule to meet on March 21, 2011, to decide whether to invest in Trader Corporation, a Canadian classified advertising business for used automobiles with both print (magazines) and digital (website) distribution. What made this... View Details

Educators

2024
Working Paper

A Gender Backlash: Does Exposure to Female Labor Market Participation Fuel Gender Conservatism?

By: Paula Rettl, Diane Bolet, Catherine E. De Vries, Simone Cremaschi, Tarik Abou-Chadi and Sergi Pardos-Prado

The growing participation of women in the labor market has marked a significant societal transformation, coinciding with the rise of gender conservatism and far-right support. We study whether the economic consequences of labor market feminization and gender backlash... View Details

Keywords: Gender Bias; Gender Equality; Gender Inclusivity; Politics; Political Backlash; Political Culture; Conservatism; Gender; Government and Politics; Equality and Inequality; Prejudice and Bias; Labor

2025
Working Paper

Global Evidence on Gender Gaps and Generative AI

By: Nicholas G. Otis, Solène Delecourt, Katelynn Cranney and Rembrand Koning

Generative AI has the potential to transform productivity and reduce inequality, but only if adopted broadly. In this paper, we show that recently identified gender gaps in generative AI use are nearly universal. Synthesizing data from 18 studies covering more than... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Technology Adoption; Behavior

October 2024
Article

On Why Women-owned Businesses Take More Time to Secure Microloans

By: Goran Calic, Moren Lévesque and Anton Shevchenko

Examining gender differences in business financing reveals important dimensions on which women- and men-owned businesses differ. Although considerable progress has been made in understanding gender differences in mobilizing resources, the role of time in business... View Details

Keywords: Microfinance; Gender; Financing and Loans; Equality and Inequality; Risk and Uncertainty; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship

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October 2024
Article

Racial Inequality in Organizations: A Systems Psychodynamic Perspective

By: Sanaz Mobasseri, William A. Kahn and Robin J. Ely

This paper uses systems psychodynamic concepts to develop theory about the persistence of racial inequality in U.S. organizations and to inform an approach for disrupting it. We treat White men as the dominant group and Black people as the archetypal subordinate group... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Race; Prejudice and Bias; Organizational Culture; Gender; Power and Influence; Employees; Attitudes

Fall, 2024
Article

Sixty Years of the Voting Rights Act: Progress and Pitfalls

By: Andrea Bernini, Giovanni Facchini, Marco Tabellini and Cecilia Testa

We review the literature on the effects of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which removed formal restrictions to Black political participation. After a brief description of racial discrimination suffered by Black Americans since Reconstruction, we introduce the goals... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Equality and Inequality; Race; Political Elections; Voting; Policy; Outcome or Result; Government Legislation

September 2024
Case

The Health Equity Accelerator at Boston Medical Center

By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Witkowski and Katie Sonnefeldt

This case describes how Boston Medical Center, a hospital and safety net organization, changed its strategic approach to health equity after realizing that previous efforts were not sufficient to address the health disparities among their patients. In 2021, the Health... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Decisions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Diversity; Race; Ethnicity; Urban Scope; Local Range; Equality and Inequality; Health Industry; Boston

Educators

September 2024
Article

Gender Gaps: Back and Here to Stay? Evidence from Skilled Ugandan Workers During COVID-19

By: Livia Alfonsi, Mary Namubiru and Sara Spaziani

We investigate gender disparities in the effect of COVID-19 on the labor market outcomes of skilled Ugandan workers. Leveraging a high-frequency panel dataset, we find that the lockdowns imposed in Uganda reduced employment by 69% for women and by 45% for men,... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Wage Gap; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Employment; Wages; Uganda

September 2024
Article

Investing in the Next Generation: The Long-Run Impacts of a Liquidity Shock

By: Patrick Agte, Arielle Bernhardt, Erica M. Field, Rohini Pande and Natalia Rigol

How do poor entrepreneurs trade off investments in business enterprises versus children's human capital, and how do these choices influence intergenerational socio-economic mobility? To examine this, we exploit experimental variation in household income resulting from... View Details

Keywords: Socio-economic Mobility; Entrepreneurship; Education; Income; Literacy; Poverty

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September–October 2024
Article

Working Around the Clock: Temporal Distance, Intrafirm Communication, and Time Shifting of the Employee Workday

By: Jasmina Chauvin, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tommy Pan Fang

This paper examines the effects of temporal distance generated by time zone separation on communication in geographically distributed organizations. We build on prior research, which highlights time zone separation as a significant challenge, but argue that employees... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Employees; Behavior; Equality and Inequality

20 Aug 2024
Interview

Angel City Football Club: A New Business Model for Women’s Sports

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Brian Kenny and Nicole Tempest Keller

Angel City Football Club (ACFC) was founded in 2020 by venture capitalist Kara Nortman, entrepreneur Julie Uhrman, and actor and activist Natalie Portman. As outsiders to professional sports, the all-female founding team had rewritten the playbook for how to build a... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Gender; Franchise Ownership; Business Model; Sports Industry

July 2024
Article

A (Dynamic) Investigation of Stereotypes, Belief-Updating, and Behavior

By: Katherine B. Coffman, Paola Ugalde Araya and Basit Zafar

Many decisions—such as what educational or career path to pursue—are dynamic in nature, with individuals receiving feedback at one point in time and making decisions later. Using a controlled experiment, with two sessions one week apart, we analyze the dynamic effects... View Details

Keywords: Feedback; Beliefs; Stereotypes; Self-assessment; Gender Gap; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Perception; Decision Choices and Conditions

July 2024
Article

Demographic 'Stickiness': The Demographic Identity of Departing Group Members Influences Who Is Chosen to Replace Them

By: Edward H. Chang and Erika Kirgios

People tasked with replacing a departing group member are disproportionately likely to choose a replacement with the same demographic identity, leading to demographic “stickiness” in group composition. We examine this effect in 2,163 U.S. federal judge appointments... View Details

Keywords: Loss Aversion; Diversity; Race; Gender; Decisions

June 2024
Teaching Note

Beamery: Using Skills and AI to Modernize HR

By: Boris Groysberg, David Lane, Susan Pinckney and Alexis Lefort

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 424-004. Unicorn human relationships startup Beamery evaluates it growth versus depth strategy as its strategic partners and customers could become future competitors in a quickly changing AI based human resources and talent management... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Demographically Biased Technological Change

By: Victor Manuel Bennett, John-Paul Ferguson, Masoomeh Kalantari and Rembrand Koning

Who gets the jobs that automation creates? A consensus has begun to emerge that said technologies complement rather than substitute for labor. However, they also shift the demand for specific types of skills and other worker competencies. Such shifts imply unequal... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Employment; Equality and Inequality; Demographics

June 2024
Article

Redistributive Allocation Mechanisms

By: Mohammad Akbarpour, Piotr Dworczak and Scott Duke Kominers

Many scarce public resources are allocated at below-market-clearing prices, and sometimes for free. Such "non-market" mechanisms sacrifice some surplus, yet they can potentially improve equity. We develop a model of mechanism design with redistributive concerns. Agents... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Welfare; Mathematical Methods; Market Design; Cost vs Benefits

SSRN

May 2024
Article

Refugees Are Hosted in Highly Vulnerable Communities

By: C. Austin Davis, Paula Lopez-Peña, A. Mushfiq Mobarak and Jaya Y. Wen

Low- and middle-income nations host 76 percent of the world's refugees. This study uses original data to explore within-country spatial variability in refugee-hosting responsibilities. We find that hosting responsibilities for the displaced Rohingya people in... View Details

Keywords: Refugees; Political Elections; Equality and Inequality; Immigration; Developing Countries and Economies; Income

May–June 2024
Article

Setting Gendered Expectations? Recruiter Outreach Bias in Online Tech Training Programs

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Karim R. Lakhani and Roberto Fernandez

Competence development in digital technologies, analytics, and artificial intelligence is increasingly important to all types of organizations and their workforce. Universities and corporations are investing heavily in developing training programs, at all tenure... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Gender; Training; Recruitment; Personal Development and Career