Faculty & Research

Facilitating faculty research and case development on an international scale

Our unprecedented network of research centers and regional offices in key areas of the world enable faculty to work with leaders, industry, government, and academia worldwide, and to learn from business challenges and innovations wherever they occur. Through sustained work in the field, faculty are provided the opportunity to immerse themselves in the culture and values – as well as intricacies and nuances – that lead to truly meaningful and insightful global research.

Research Centers & Offices

More than half the faculty are actively involved in international research, developing high-impact cases and course materials on relevant global issues and innovations.

New Research

Article
Strategy & Leadership

Overcoming cultural resistance to open source innovation

By: John Winsor, Jin Hyun Paik, Michael Tushman and Karim R. Lakhani

Purpose: This article offers insight on how to effectively help incumbent organizations prepare for global business shifts to open source and digital business models. Design/methodology/approach: Discussion related to observation, experience and case studies related to incumbent organizations and their efforts to adopt open source models and business tools. Findings: Companies that let their old culture reject the new risk becoming obsolete if doing so inhibits their rethinking of their future using powerful tools like crowdsourcing, blockchain, customer experience-based connections, integrating workflows with artificial intelligence (AI), automated technologies and digital business platforms. These new ways of working affect how and where work is done, access to information, an organization’s capacity for work and its efficiency. As important as technological proficiency is, managing the cultural shift required to embrace transformative industry architecture – the key to innovating new business models -- may be the bigger challenge. Research limitations/implications: Findings are based on original research and case studies. Insights are theoretically, based on additional study, interviews, and research, but need to be tested through additional case studies. Practical implications: The goal is to make the transition more productive and less traumatic for incumbent firms by providing a language and tested methods to help senior leaders use innovative technologies to build on their core even as they explore new business models. Social implications: This article provides insights that will lead to more effective ideas for helping organizations adapt. Originality/value: This article is based on original research and case experience. That research and experience has then been analyzed and viewed through the lens of models that have been known to work. The result is original insights and findings that can be applied in new ways to further adoption within incumbent organizations.

October 2019
Teaching Material

Airbus vs. Boeing (H): Wing Cracks and Battery Fires (2013)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes an issue with the batteries of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner planes overheating and sometimes catching fire in 2013. The planes were grounded for several months until Boeing introduced new safety measures. The case also discusses a problem with cracks on the wings of Airbus’s A380 superjumbo, which required the company to make a costly fix to a particular wing component.

2019
Working Paper

Tariff Passthrough at the Border and at the Store: Evidence from U.S. Trade Policy

By: Alberto Cavallo, Gita Gopinath, Brent Neiman and Jenny Tang

We use micro data collected at the border and at retailers to characterize the effects brought by recent changes in US trade policy -- particularly the tariffs placed on imports from China -- on importers, consumers, and exporters. We start by documenting that the tariffs were almost fully passed through to total prices paid by importers, suggesting the tariffs' incidence has fallen largely on the United States. Since we estimate the response of prices to exchange rates to be far more muted, the recent depreciation of the Chinese renminbi is unlikely to alter this conclusion. Next, using product-level data from several large multi-national retailers, we demonstrate that the impact of the tariffs on retail prices is more mixed. Some affected product categories have seen sharp price increases, but the difference between affected and unaffected products is generally quite modest, suggesting that retail margins have fallen. These retailers' imports increased after the initial announcement of possible tariffs, but before their full implementation, so the intermediate passthrough of tariffs to their prices may not persist. Finally, in contrast to the case of foreign exporters facing US tariffs, we show that US exporters lowered their prices on goods subjected to foreign retaliatory tariffs compared to exports of non-targeted goods.

See all research

Global Colloquium for participant-centered learning

For senior faculty at top business schools in emerging economies who want to be trained in interactive methods of teaching and learning. GloColl comprises a seven-day session held on the HBS campus, followed by a three-day session held in two cities in Asia, Europe, or Latin America each year.

→More information

In the News

- 03 Oct 2019
- Bloomberg
Where Are All the Women in Private Equity?

Re: Nori Gerardo Lietz
- 30 Sep 2019
- The Conversation
What Gandhi believed is the purpose of a corporation

By: Geoffrey Jones
- 26 Sep 2019
- HBS Working Knowledge
What Can the World’s Largest Refugee Camp Teach Us About the Meaning of Work?

Re: Reshmaan (Reshma) Hussam

03 Oct 2019
Bloomberg

Where Are All the Women in Private Equity?

Re: Nori Gerardo Lietz

30 Sep 2019
The Conversation

What Gandhi believed is the purpose of a corporation

By: Geoffrey Jones

26 Sep 2019
HBS Working Knowledge

What Can the World’s Largest Refugee Camp Teach Us About the Meaning of Work?

Re: Reshmaan (Reshma) Hussam

→More News