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- August 2023
- Article
What About the Race Between Technology and Education in the Global South? Comparing Skill-premiums in Colonial Africa and Asia
By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
Historical research on the race between education and technology has focused on the West but barely touched upon ‘the rest’. A new occupational wage database for 50 African and Asian economies allows us to compare long-run patterns in skill premiums across the colonial...
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- 2023
- Article
Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa
By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
This review article seeks to build bridges between mainstream African history and the more historically oriented branch of the ‘new’ economic history of Africa. We survey four central topics of the new economic history of Africa—growth, trade, labor, and inequality—and...
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Keywords:
Economic Growth;
Trade;
Labor;
Equality and Inequality;
Development Economics;
History;
Africa
- February 2023 (Revised June 2023)
- Case
Doing Business in Helsinki, Finland
By: Martin A. Sinozich, Lena Duchene, Tonia Labruyere and Daniela Beyersdorfer
This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Finland. It highlights Finland's economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2023 in the context of its history, culture, and politics. The case gives an overview of some of the main...
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- January 2023 (Revised February 2023)
- Technical Note
Labor Unions in the United States
By: Reshmaan Hussam, Trevor Fetter and Grace Liu
This note provides an overview of the regulation, mechanics, and history of labor unions in the United States, along with an overview of their place in the early 21st century.
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- August 2022
- Case
Air Wars: Deregulating the U.S. Airline Industry
By: Tom Nicholas and James Weber
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the U.S. government assisted in the development of an airline industry by subsidizing the delivery of mail and allowing mail carriers to also fly passengers. Because the government awarded mail routes to the lowest...
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Keywords:
Government Regulation;
Deregulation;
Change Management;
Economics;
Entrepreneurship;
Financial Management;
Business History;
Human Resources;
Compensation and Benefits;
Labor;
Labor Unions;
Leading Change;
Leadership Style;
Crisis Management;
Industry Structures;
Operations;
Strategy;
Adaptation;
Competition;
Air Transportation;
Air Transportation Industry;
United States
- 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...
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- 2023
- Working Paper
Faith and Assimilation: Italian Immigrants in the U.S.
By: Stefano Gagliarducci and Marco Tabellini
How do ethnic religious organizations influence immigrant assimilation? To answer this question, we assemble novel data from the Catholic directories to measure the presence of Italian Catholic churches in the US between 1890 and 1920, when four million Italians moved...
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- 2021
- Chapter
The Economic and Political Effects of Immigration: Evidence from the Age of Mass Migration
By: Marco Tabellini
Between 1850 and 1920, during the Age of Mass Migration, more than 30 million Europeans moved to the United States. European immigrants provided ample supply of cheap labor as well as specific skills and know-how, contributing to American economic growth. These...
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- September 2020
- Case
Uber at a Crossroads (2017)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman
This case describes the history of Uber, its business model—including the ways it differed from that of the traditional taxi industry—and its competition with Lyft. The case is set in 2017, a year in which Uber was plagued by even more scandals than usual, though its...
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Keywords:
Business Startups;
Business Model;
Customer Satisfaction;
Fairness;
Values and Beliefs;
Price;
Profit;
Revenue;
Investment;
Government Legislation;
Business History;
Compensation and Benefits;
Resignation and Termination;
Employment;
Wages;
Lawfulness;
Leadership Style;
Leading Change;
Management Style;
Market Entry and Exit;
Digital Platforms;
Product Design;
Organizational Culture;
Problems and Challenges;
Attitudes;
Strategy;
Competitive Strategy;
Expansion;
Transportation Networks;
Mobile and Wireless Technology;
Valuation;
Transportation Industry;
Technology Industry;
United States
- August 2020 (Revised February 2021)
- Case
Luckin Coffee (A): Caffeine-fueled Growth?
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman
This case describes the founding of Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee in 2017 and its path to surpassing Starbucks as the largest coffee chain in China (by number of stores) in 2019. Unlike Starbucks stores, which were designed to be welcoming “third places” for...
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Keywords:
Business Model;
Business Earnings;
Cost;
Cost Management;
Financial Statements;
Financial Condition;
Financial Management;
Stocks;
Profit;
Revenue;
Price;
Food;
Business History;
Employment;
Brands and Branding;
Product Positioning;
Marketing Strategy;
Business Strategy;
Expansion;
Competitive Strategy;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Technology Industry;
Asia;
China
- January 2020
- Case
SK Group: Social Progress Credits
By: George Serafeim, Ethan Rouen and David Freiberg
SK Group was one of the largest companies South Korea. A family-run conglomerate consisting of around 120 subsidiaries and employing more than 100,000, SK was tightly knit into the fabric of Korean society. SK viewed their future success as contingent upon the strength...
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Keywords:
Impact;
Impact Investing;
Impact Measurement;
Social Value;
Social Development;
Conglomerates;
Measurement Of Purpose;
ESG;
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance;
Capital Markets;
Innovation;
Environmental Impact;
Collaboration;
Social Enterprise;
Social and Collaborative Networks;
Social Issues;
Measurement and Metrics;
Value Creation;
Cooperation;
Environmental Sustainability;
Employment;
Accounting;
Energy Industry;
Telecommunications Industry;
Chemical Industry;
South Korea
- May 2019 (Revised February 2022)
- Background Note
The Gig Economy: Leasing Skills to Pay the Bills
By: Joseph Fuller, William R. Kerr and Carl Kreitzberg
This primer provides a comprehensive exploration into the gig economy and how it is reshaping global business. It shows how the Uber driver, the freelancing programmer in India, and the independent corporate consultant are all different variants of the modern-day gig...
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- February 2019
- Background Note
Mexican Farmworkers in the United States
By: Forest Reinhardt and Jonathan Schlefer
This note discusses the centuries-long history and current situation of Mexican farmworkers north of the border—documented or undocumented, resident or temporary, and increasingly indigenous. The story provides the background for discussion of dilemmas facing...
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- October 2018 (Revised August 2023)
- Case
Safecast: Bootstrapping Human Capital to Big Data
By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephanie Marton
On March 11, 2011, at 2:46pm, a 9.1-on-the-Richter-scale, six-minute long earthquake unleashed a tsunami that ravaged the Tohoku region of Japan, damaging the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power facility and releasing sufficient radioactive material into the air and ocean...
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Keywords:
Citizen Science;
Creative Commons;
Open Data;
Open Architecture;
Volunteer-based Organization;
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Facility;
311;
Nuclear;
Radiation;
Crowdsourcing;
Bgeigie;
Geiger Counters;
Kickstarter;
Sustainability;
Sustainable Business And Innovation;
Design;
Energy Generation;
Social Entrepreneurship;
Human Capital;
Innovation and Invention;
Crisis Management;
Organizational Structure;
Organizational Design;
Information Technology;
Business Model;
Energy Industry;
Technology Industry;
Japan;
North and Central America;
Europe
- 2023
- Working Paper
Happily Ever After: Immigration, Natives' Marriage and Fertility
By: Michela Carlana and Marco Tabellini
We study the effects of immigration on natives’ marriage, fertility, and family formation across US cities between 1910 and 1930. Using a shift-share design, we find that natives living in cities that received more immigrants were more likely to marry, have children,...
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Keywords:
Immigration;
Demography;
Urban Scope;
Household;
Employment;
History;
Outcome or Result;
United States
- March 2018 (Revised June 2018)
- Case
City Year at 30: Toward Long-Term Impact
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and James Weber
In 2018, City Year was a 30-year-old nonprofit that recruited and organized teams of young-adult “volunteers” (corps teams) to provide a year of citizen service. It had 3,100 corps members serving in 327 schools located in 28 U.S. cities. In its early decades, City...
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Keywords:
Education;
Service Operations;
Nonprofit Organizations;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Performance Efficiency;
Resource Allocation;
Change Management;
Social Entrepreneurship;
Middle School Education;
Secondary Education;
Philanthropy and Charitable Giving;
Human Capital;
Growth Management;
Service Delivery;
Organizational Design;
Social Enterprise;
Poverty;
United States
- January 2018 (Revised May 2018)
- Case
AT&T: Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century
By: Daniel P. Gross and William R. Kerr
By the 1930s, AT&T dominated the American phone industry, serving 10 million telephones and employing over 100,000 switchboard operators. But beginning in the mid-1910s, the company began changing from manually operated switchboards to mechanical switching systems that...
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Keywords:
AT＆T;
Bell Telephone;
Phone Lines;
Phone Operators;
Mechanical Switching;
Layoffs;
Technological Change;
Transition;
History;
Innovation and Invention;
Technological Innovation;
Information Technology;
Disruption;
Change Management;
Communications Industry;
Telecommunications Industry;
United States
- June 2017 (Revised August 2018)
- Case
Goodbye IMF Conditions, Hello Chinese Capital: Zambia's Copper Industry and Africa's Break with Its Colonial Past
By: Rafael Di Tella, Vincent Pons, Sarah Mehta and David Lane
Over the past several decades, rapid growth in Chinese investment and trade has created for Africa a new development partner. China represents an alternative to U.S. and European nations whose past imperialism, resource avarice, and economic dictates—through the...
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- March 2017
- Case
Intellectual Ambition at Harvard Business School: Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger
By: Jan W. Rivkin and Amram Migdal
This case, set in the 1920s and 1930s, discusses the contributions of Harvard Business School (HBS) Professors Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger to management research and to the Human Relations Movement in management scholarship. The case focuses on their research...
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Keywords:
Education;
Business Education;
Curriculum and Courses;
Executive Education;
Higher Education;
Interdisciplinary Studies;
Learning;
History;
Business History;
Human Resources;
Employees;
Employee Relationship Management;
Management;
Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques;
Organizations;
Practice;
Relationships;
Groups and Teams;
Labor and Management Relations;
Rank and Position;
Research;
Social Psychology;
Attitudes;
Behavior;
Emotions;
Motivation and Incentives;
Power and Influence;
Social and Collaborative Networks;
Status and Position;
Trust;
Society;
Social Issues;
Theory;
Education Industry;
United States;
Massachusetts;
Illinois
- February 2017 (Revised May 2018)
- Case
The Flint, Michigan Sit-Down Strike
By: Tom Nicholas, Christopher T. Stanton and Matthew Preble
For roughly six weeks between late December 1936 and February 1937, a major strike at several critical General Motors (GM) plants in Flint, Michigan, essentially halted the corporation’s U.S. production and resulted in significant gains for the nascent United...
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Keywords:
Industrial Unionism;
Craft Unionism;
Welfare Capitalism;
General Motors;
Labor;
Labor Unions;
Labor and Management Relations;
Wages;
Working Conditions;
Government Legislation;
Business History;
Business and Government Relations;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Business and Community Relations;
Auto Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
Mining Industry;
Steel Industry;
United States;
Michigan