Entrepreneurial Management

- RECENT PUBLICATION: Working Paper
  Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2018
  Analyzing the Aftermath of a Compensation Reduction
  Jason Sandvik, Richard Saouma, Nathan Seegert and Christopher Stanton
  Wage rigidity creates real and financial frictions, though the real-world drivers of rigidities remain largely unstudied. We use staggered commission reductions at a sales firm to estimate effects on worker turnover and effort. In response to an 18% decline in commissions, we find turnover increases for the most productive workers. We detect limited effort responses, and find no evidence of different effects based on workers’ expectations of fairness or future promotion. The findings suggest that adjustment constraints stem primarily from adverse selection concerns on the extensive (turnover) margin as opposed to asymmetric effort responses on the intensive margin.
  
  Citation:
  Sandvik, Jason, Richard Saouma, Nathan Seegert, and Christopher Stanton. "Analyzing the Aftermath of a Compensation Reduction." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-100, April 2018. View Details
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- RECENT PUBLICATION: Case
  Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2018
  WeWork
  Jeffrey F. Rayport, Sarah Gulick and Matthew G. Preble
  WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey was concerned about the culture of his rapidly expanding global venture, as the scale and complexity of the organization increased. In particular, he wanted to ensure that WeWork continued to be a great place to work, both because he cared about WeWork's people and because a better experience of work was core to the company’s brand. In the summer of 2017, he had made a presentation to the company at an all-hands meeting. In it, he proposed the creation of a culture operations team, and that he announced that he would take the title of chief culture officer to lead it. In this case, which describes the founding and growth of WeWork from 2010, we encounter Miguel planning for his new role with co-founder Adam Neumann and envisioning a “culture OS” that he and Adam would use to lead the organization internally -- and to offer as a “product” to scaled enterprise externally.
  Keywords: Organizational Culture; Employee Relationship Management; Working Conditions;
  
  Citation:
  Rayport, Jeffrey F., Sarah Gulick, and Matthew G. Preble. "WeWork." Harvard Business School Case 818-101, April 2018. View Details
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- RECENT PUBLICATION: Working Paper
  Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2018
  Immigrant Entrepreneurship in America: Evidence from the Survey of Business Owners 2007 & 2012
  Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
  We study immigrant entrepreneurship and firm ownership in 2007 and 2012 using the Survey of Business Owners (SBO). The survival and growth of immigrant-owned businesses over time relative to native-founded companies is evaluated by linking the 2007 SBO to the Longitudinal Business Database (LBD). We quantify the dependency of the United States as a whole, as well as individual states, on the contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs in terms of firm formation and job creation. We describe differences in the types of businesses started by immigrants and the quality of jobs created by their firms. First-generation immigrants create about 25% of new firms in the United States, but this share exceeds 40% in some states. In addition, Asian and Hispanic second-generation immigrants start about 6% of new firms. Immigrant-owned firms, on average, create fewer jobs than native-owned firms, but much of this is explained by the industry and geographic location of the firms. Immigrant-owned firms pay comparable wages, conditional on firm traits, to native-owned firms, but are less likely to offer benefits.
  Keywords: entrepreneurship; immigration; job creation; employee benefits; owner demographics; Exports; outsourcing; Entrepreneurship; Ownership; Demographics; Jobs and Positions; Compensation and Benefits; United States;
  
  Citation:
  Kerr, Sari Pekkala, and William R. Kerr. "Immigrant Entrepreneurship in America: Evidence from the Survey of Business Owners 2007 & 2012." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-098, April 2018. View Details
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The Entrepreneurial Management Unit strives to raise the level of academic work in the field of entrepreneurship, in methodological rigor, conceptual depth, and managerial applicability. We also strive to improve the odds of entrepreneurial success for our students and for practitioners worldwide.

Because it is such a complex phenomenon, entrepreneurship must be studied through multiple lenses. We use three.

The process of entrepreneurship - We seek to understand the processes of entrepreneurial activity in start-ups and established firms by examining the antecedents and consequences of various forms of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and opportunity pursuit for individuals, organizations, and industries. We see experimentation and innovation in products, services, processes, and business models as central to entrepreneurial activity.
The finance of entrepreneurship - We seek to understand the financing of entrepreneurial ventures by studying the antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurial funding decisions both domestically and internationally.
The context of entrepreneurship - We seek to understand the ways in which entrepreneurs both respond to and shape the context in which they operate, by examining the history of entrepreneurship across time and national borders and by analyzing the legal and cultural contexts for managerial action.

Please also visit the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.

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