Research - Global - Harvard Business School

Fall 2022
Article
International Security

China's Political Economy and International Backlash: From Interdependence to Security Dilemma Dynamics

By: Margaret Pearson, Meg Rithmire and Kellee Tsai

Contrary to expectations that economic interdependence might lessen security conflict between China and the U.S. and its allies, much of the contestation between China and several OECD countries has focused on firms and economic links. This paper explains the...

2022
Book Chapter

How Does Party-State Capitalism in China Interact with Global Capitalism?

By: Margaret Pearson, Meg Rithmire and Kellee Tsai

August 2022
Case

One Tiger Per Mountain: The He Family Office

By: Lauren Cohen, Fei Wu and Grace Headinger

Roy He, founder and majority shareholder of his family construction material production company, was preparing to pass down the family business through its first generational handover to his children. His decision would establish his familial legacy and set a precedent...

July 2022
Case

Building a Mishap-Free U.S. Navy

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Herman B. Leonard, Michael W. Toffel and Michael Norris

In 2021, Kevin “Bud” Couch, a retired Navy captain who was now working as a civilian employee of the Navy Safety Center, was trying to determine how best to reduce the risk of Navy mishaps. The Navy had experienced a series of major mishaps in 2017 that had led to a...

July 2022
Teaching Material

TraceTogether

By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah Mehta

This Note provides guidance for teaching "TraceTogether," HBS Case No. 820-111.

July 2022
Case

FIJI Water: Carbon Negative? (Abridged)

By: Michael W. Toffel, George Serafeim, Francesca Gino, Stephanie Van Sice and Tom Quinn

In the midst of increasing press scrutiny of the bottled water industry’s environmentally harmful practices, FIJI Water made a series of sustainability promises. The boldest of these was a pledge to go “carbon negative.” The company said that not only would they offset...

2022
Book

Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China

By: William C. Kirby

The modern university was born in Germany. In the twentieth century, the United States leapfrogged Germany to become the global leader in higher education. Will China challenge its position in the twenty-first? Today American institutions dominate nearly every major...

June 2022 (Revised June 2022)
Teaching Material

Note on Digital Commerce and Delivery: Grocery and Food Value Chains

By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor, Paige Boehmcke and Will Ensor

Increasing digitalization of grocery retail and quick commerce reveals insights about managing complex supply chains at scale and shifting revenue streams from product sales to data monetization. How are the roles of retailers changing? What happens if marginal cost...

Article
Science

Zeroing Out on zero-COVID

By: William C. Kirby

China’s culture reveres science, yet operates under a government that often defines what “science” is and is not. China’s “zero-COVID” policy has created a bifurcated scientific community that threatens international collaboration in science and technology. A...

May 2022
Case

The Freedom Fund (A): Ending Modern Slavery

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Courtney Han

The Freedom Fund founded in 2013 to end modern slavery had raised more than half its intended target (by 2025) of $200 million. In 2021, impressed by its decentralized-partnering style of operations, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott awarded the Fund a gift of $35 million...

Article
Harvard Business Review Digital Articles

Capture New Value from Your Existing Tech Infrastructure

By: Stefan Thomke and Anthony Rodrigo

When senior managers think about how to respond to the threats and opportunities of technological change, they often dream of the same thing: If they just could start a new company or division that isn’t held back by conventional thinking or outdated business models....

April 2022
Case

NIO: A Chinese EV Company's Global Strategy

By: William C. Kirby, Shu Lin and Noah B. Truwit

Founded in November 2014 and based in Shanghai, NIO designed, jointly manufactured, and sold premium “smart” EVs. Its mission was to “shape a joyful lifestyle by offering high-performance smart electric vehicles and being the best user enterprise. At NIO Day 2021,...

April 2022
Article
Comparative Politics

Going Out or Opting Out? Capital, Political Vulnerability, and the State in China's Outward Investment

By: Meg Rithmire

How do state-business relations interact with outward investment in authoritarian regimes? This paper examines this question in the context of China’s rapid transformation into a major capital exporter. While most political economy scholarship focuses on firms’...

March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Doubling Down: Elon Musk's Big Bets in 2022

By: David Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

2021 was a banner year for Elon Musk. CEO of the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, the aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, and a few smaller startups, Musk became the richest person on Earth after Tesla reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion and SpaceX a private...

March 2022
Case

Talent@Tencent

By: Tarun Khanna, Shu Lin and Nancy Hua Dai

On November 11, 2016, Xi Dan, Senior Vice President of Tencent, and Ma Yongwu, Dean of Tencent Academy, were discussing how Tencent could develop new capabilities to sustain its growth miracle and entry into new technologies, expansion into B2B businesses, and...

March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Winning Business at Russell Reynolds (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco

In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting–and...

March 2022
Teaching Material

Winning Business at Russell Reynolds (B)

By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco

In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting–and...

March 2022
Case

Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Investment Co., Ltd.: December 2014

By: Josh Lerner, Luyang Zhang, Xinlai Tong and Yue Kong

In early December 2014, the senior team of Pudong Science and Technology Investment (hereafter, Pudong S&T) gathered in the offices of their chairman, Dr. Xudong Zhu. Before completing its cross-border acquisition of Montage Technology, Pudong S&T—wholly owned by the...

2022
Working Paper

Stock Market Stimulus

By: Robin Greenwood, Toomas Laarits and Jeffrey Wurgler

The stock market crash in March 2020 was followed by a historic rebound, particularly among stocks favored by retail investors. We study the effects of the arrival of the three rounds of “stimulus checks” to U.S. taxpayers and the single round of direct payments to...

February 2022
Case

Sekisui House and the In-Home Early Detection Platform

By: John D. Macomber and Akiko Kanno

To address an aging population and sales declines, major Japanese homebuilder considers pivoting to provide and support an in-home health detection platform, in competition with tech companies. This case considers the point of view of major builders regarding how...