WORKING KNOWLEDGE

by Philippe Aghion, Nicholas Bloom, Brian Lucking, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen

What makes some firms more resilient than others to large negative macro shocks? This paper finds that the internal organization of firms—specifically, the extent to which decision-making is decentralized from headquarters to plant managers—is an important mediating factor through which macroeconomic shocks affect firm performance and, ultimately, growth.

• 15 MAY 2017
 
• SHARPENING YOUR SKILLS

The Promises and Limitations of Big Data

by Sean Silverthorne

Recent stories chart the rise of big data, its impact on business, and how it affects our lives every day. Open for comment; 3 Comment(s) posted.

• 04 MAY 2017
 
• COLD CALL PODCAST

Leading a Team to the Top of Mount Everest

In a podcast, Amy Edmondson describes how students learn about team communication and decision making by making a simulated climb up Mount Everest. Open for comment; 1 Comment(s) posted.

• 24 APR 2017
 
• RESEARCH & IDEAS

Courage: The Defining Characteristic of Great Leaders

by Bill George

Courageous leaders inspire employees, energize customers, and position their companies on the front lines of societal change. Bill George explains why there aren't more of them. Open for comment; 33 Comment(s) posted.

• 12 APR 2017
 
• RESEARCH & IDEAS

Why Productivity Suffers When Employees Are Allowed to Schedule Their Own Tasks

by Carmen Nobel

Deviating from an organization’s prescribed task schedule tends to erode productivity, even among the most experienced workers, according to new research from María R. Ibáñez, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman, and Bradley R. Staats. Open for comment; 18 Comment(s) posted.

• 28 MAR 2017
 
• WORKING PAPER SUMMARIES

CEO Behavior and Firm Performance

by Oriana Bandiera, Stephen Hansen, Andrea Pratt, and Raffaella Sadun

This paper combines a new survey methodology with a machine learning algorithm to measure the behavior of CEOs in large samples. Results show that larger and more complex firms require CEOs with a more coordinative—and less micromanaging—behavior. Inefficiencies in the way CEOs match with firms have important consequences for firm productivity.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) may be a personal analysis university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. based in 1861 in response to the increasing industry of the us, university adopted a ecu engineering school university model and stressed laboratory instruction in subject area and engineering. Researchers worked on computers, radar, and guidance throughout warfare II and therefore the conflict. Post-war defense analysis contributed to the fast growth of the school and field beneath James Killian. the present 168-acre (68.0 ha) field opened in one916 and extends over 1 mile (1.6 km) on the northern bank of the Charles basin.

MIT, with 5 colleges and one school that contain a complete of thirty two departments, is commonly cited as among the world's high universities.The Institute is historically famed for its analysis and education within the physical sciences and engineering, and additional recently in biology, economics, linguistics, and management further. The "Engineers" sponsor thirty one sports, most groups of that contend within the NCAA Division III's New England Women's and public convenience Athletic Conference; the Division I athletics programs contend as a part of the EARC and EAWRC.

As of 2015, eighty five Alfred Nobel laureates, fifty two National accolade of Science recipients, sixty five Marshall students, forty five Rhodes students, thirty eight general Fellows, thirty four astronauts, nineteen Turing award winners, and half-dozen Fields Medalists are related  with university. the college incorporates a robust entrepreneurial culture, and therefore the mass revenues of corporations based by university alumni would rank because the eleventh-largest economy within the world.
Two days once the charter was issued, the primary battle of the war poor out. once an extended delay through the war years, MIT's 1st categories were command within the Mercantile Building in state capital in 1865.The new institute was based as a part of the Morrill Land-Grant schools Act to fund establishments "to promote the liberal and sensible education of the economic classes", and was a land-grant faculty.In 1863 beneath constant act, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts based the Massachusetts Agricultural school, that developed because the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1866, the issue from land sales went toward new buildings within the Back Bay.

MIT was informally known as "Boston Tech".The institute adopted the eu engineering school university model ANd emphasised laboratory instruction from an early date.Despite chronic monetary issues, the institute saw growth within the last 20 years of the nineteenth century beneath President Francis Amasa Walker.Programs in electrical, chemical, marine, and sanitary  engineering were introduced,new buildings were designed, and therefore the size of the coed body hyperbolic to quite one thousand.

The programme drifted to a line stress, with less specialise in theoretical science.The fledgling faculty still suffered from chronic

University College London

University school London (UCL) could be a public analysis university in London, European country and a constituent school of the federal University of London. the most important instruction establishment in London and also the largest postgraduate establishment within the Britain by enrollment,it's thought to be one among the leading multidisciplinary analysis universities within the world.

Established in 1826 as London University by founders galvanized by the novel ideas of Bentham, UCL was the primary university establishment to be established in London, and also the initial in European country to be entirely profane, to admit students no matter their faith and to admit ladies on equal terms with men.supported its creation date and beginning teaching in 1828, UCL claims to be the third-oldest university in European country.UCL became one among the 2 creation schools of the University of London in 1836, that was granted a charter that year. it's grownup through mergers, together with with the Institute of Neurology (in 1997), the Royal Free Hospital school of medicine (in 1998), the discoverer Dental Institute (in 1999), the varsity of Slavonic and East European Studies (in 1999), the varsity of Pharmacy (in 2012) and also the Institute of Education (in 2014).

UCL's main field is found within the city district space of central London, with variety of institutes and teaching hospitals elsewhere in central London. Satellite campuses area unit placed in state capital, Australia and Doha, Qatar. UCL is union into eleven constituent schools, inside that there area unit over one hundred departments, institutes and analysis centres. UCL operates many museums and manages collections during a wide selection of fields, together with the Petrie depository of Egyptian anthropology and also the Grant depository of biological science and general anatomy. In 2014/15, UCL had around thirty five,600 students and twelve,000 employees (including around seven,100 educational employees and 980 professors) and had a complete financial gain of £1.18 billion, of that £427.5 million was from analysis grants and contracts.UCL could be a member of various educational organisations and is an element of UCL Partners, the world's largest educational health science centre,and also the 'golden triangle' of elite English universities.

UCL is one among the foremost selective British universities and ranks extremely in national and international league tables.UCL's graduates area unit hierarchal among the foremost employable by international employersand its alumni embrace the "Father of the Nation" of every of Bharat, African nation and Mauritius, the founders of Gold Coast,fashionable Japanand Nigeria,the creator of the phonephone, and one among the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA. UCL teachers have contributed to major advances in many disciplines; all 5 of the naturally-occurring noble gases were discovered at UCL by William Ramsay,hormones were co-discovered at UCL by Ernest oscine and William Bayliss,the electron tube was made-up by UCL graduate John bishop Fleming whereas a school of UCL,and several other foundational advances in fashionable statistics were created at UCL's applied math science department supported by Karl Pearson.There area unit a minimum of twenty nine honour winners and 3 Fields medalists amongst UCL's alumni and current and former employees.

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge (informally Cambridge or just Cambridge)may be a body public analysis university in Cambridge, England. supported in 1209, Cambridge is that the second-oldest university within the communicative  world and also the world's fourth-oldest living university.The university grew out of Associate in Nursing association of students World Health Organization left the University of Oxford once a dispute with the town.the 2 ancient universities share several common options and area unit usually put together said as "Oxbridge".

Cambridge is systematically hierarchic united of the world's best universities.The university has educated several notable alumni, as well as eminent mathematicians, scientists, politicians, lawyers, philosophers, writers, actors, and foreign Heads of State. cardinal chemist laureates and 10 Fields medalists are related to with Cambridge as students, faculty, workers or alumni.

Cambridge is created from a spread of establishments that embody thirty one constituent schools and over a hundred tutorial departments unionized into six faculties.Cambridge Press, a department of the university, is that the world's oldest publishing firm and also the second-largest university press within the world.The university additionally operates eight cultural and scientific museums, as well as the Fitzwilliam depository, and a botanical garden. Cambridge's libraries hold a complete of around fifteen million books, eight million of that area unit in Cambridge Library, a legal deposit library. Throughout its history, the university has featured in literature and creative works by various authors as well as poet, E. M. Forster and C. P. Snow.

In the year all over thirty one Gregorian calendar month 2015, the university had a complete financial gain of £1.64 billion, of that £397 million was from analysis grants and contracts.The central university and schools have a combined endowment of around £5.89 billion, the most important of any university outside the u.  s..The university is closely joined with the event of the hi-tech business cluster called "Silicon Fen". it's a member of diverse associations and forms a part of the "golden triangle" of leading English universities and Cambridge Health Partners, an instructional health science centre.

Harvard University

Harvard University may be a non-public analysis university in Cambridge, Massachusetts (US), established 1636, whose history, influence and wealth have created it one in every of the world's most prestigious universities.

Established originally by the Massachusetts legislative assembly and shortly thenceforth named for altruist (its 1st benefactor), Harvard is that the United States' oldest establishment of upper learning,and also the Harvard Corporation (formally, the President and Fellows of Harvard College) is its 1st chartered  corporation. though ne'er formally related to with any denomination, the first school primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian priesthood. Its program and student body were bit by bit secularised throughout the eighteenth century, and by the nineteenth century Harvard had emerged because the central cultural institution among Beantown elites.Following the yank warfare, President Charles W. Eliot's long tenure (1869–1909) reworked the faculty and related to skilled colleges into a contemporary analysis university; Harvard was a instauration member of the Association of yankee Universities in 1900.James Bryant Conant crystal rectifier the university through the good Depression and war II and started to reform the program and liberalize admissions when the war. The college boy school became integrated when its 1977 merger with Radcliffe school.

The University is organized into eleven separate tutorial units—ten schools and also the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—with fieldes throughout the Beantown metropolitan area:its 209-acre (85 ha) main campus is focused on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, or so three miles (5 km) northwest of Boston; the grad school and athletics facilities, together with Harvard sports stadium, area unit situated across the Charles within the Allston neighborhood of Beantown and also the medical, dental, and public health colleges area unit within the Longwood Medical space.Harvard's $37.6 billion money endowment is that the largest of any tutorial establishment.

Harvard may be a massive, extremely residential analysis university.The nominal value of attending is high, however the University's massive endowment permits it to supply generous assist packages. It operates many arts, cultural, and scientific museums, aboard the Harvard Library, that is that the world's largest tutorial and personal library system, comprising seventy nine individual libraries with over eighteen million volumes.Harvard's alumni embody eight U.S. presidents, many foreign heads of state, sixty two living billionaires, 335 Rhodes students, and 242 Marshall students.so far, some a hundred and fifty Alfred Nobel laureates, eighteen Fields Medalists and thirteen Alan Mathison Turing Award winners are related to as students, faculty, or staff.