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The Future of Cities Depends on Innovative Financing

Harvard Business Review

In a perfect world, governments would have the cash and the consensus to fund and coordinate the construction of the infrastructure required to sustainably accommodate a rapidly urbanizing world. The vibrant, sustainable cities of the future will be funded and delivered by creative financing arrangements that encourage collaboration.

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The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings

Harvard Business Review

More recently, it has gained attention as a way to finance new ventures, through what is known as an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Less noticed, though, is ICOs appear almost antithetical to the standard approach to financing a risky venture. In fact, ICOs have upended the conventional pattern of staged experimentation and fundraising.

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Guidance is Good, Overpriced Shares a Disaster

Harvard Business Review

Baruch Lev teaches accounting and finance at NYU's Stern School of Business. The situation improved recently with the accounting recognition of a stock option expense, which clarified to directors that options are not costless, and with the general lengthening of the options' vesting period (incenting long-term orientation).

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What Is Organizational Culture? And Why Should We Care?

Harvard Business Review

While there is universal agreement that (1) it exists, and (2) that it plays a crucial role in shaping behavior in organizations, there is little consensus on what organizational culture actually is, never mind how it influences behavior and whether it is something leaders can change. Culture is powerfully shaped by incentives.

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What We Learned About Bureaucracy from 7,000 HBR Readers

Harvard Business Review

Interestingly, individuals working in customer service, sales, production, logistics and R&D were more likely to feel that bureaucracy was growing than those working in functions like HR, finance, planning, purchasing, and administration. As you ponder that question, we should note that there was one area of consensus.

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The Sad Truth Behind Growing Clashes at the WTO

Harvard Business Review

Before the financial crisis ushered in the current global economic downturn, there was a strong intellectual consensus among mainstream economists and policymakers about the merits of free trade.

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