University Governance in a Time of Crisis

Authors:

Matan Josephy, Rakesh Khurana

Date Created:

2025-01-01

Course Title:

Professor:

Not specified

About Paper:

In recent years, universities across the United States have grappledn one part influence the other parts and the entity as a whole. with the challenge of maintaining their autonomy and upholding As a complement, we also developed a technical note on higher principles of academic freedom while relying on the federal education in the U.S., employing both broad institutional analyses government for a myriad of benefits, such as research funding, and quantitative reviews of endowment growth, administrative student loans, and the ability to enroll international students. staffing, and trends in board composition dating back to 2000. We These tensions came to a public head in the wake of the Trump found that sustained and unresolved issues within Harvard, such as administration’s 2025 campaign against several elite universities a difficult-to-identify university mission, inflexible administrative in the U.S., which saw the White House freeze federal benefits structures, a highly decentralized model of internal governance, to universities like Columbia, Harvard, and the University of and conflicting goals and functions have constrained its response Pennsylvania and issue demands. To explore how universities to crisis. Parallel trends across other selective institutions include navigate such unprecedented crises, we developed a teachable goalambiguitybackedbygrowthinauxiliaryservicesandstaffing, case study of Harvard’s response to a government demand letter, endowment diversification, and tuition increases. This case whichincludedanalysesofboarddeliberations,long-termfinancial offers recommendations for university executives, trustees, and trends, and pressure from stakeholders. The case highlights the policymakers navigating a governance landscape that is quickly importance of looking at the university as a system; that is, an evolving. entity with identifiable but interrelated parts, such that changes Corporate Engagement with Societal Issues in the U.S. Michelle Liu, Magdalena Larreboure, Vincent Pons Harvard College | Mather House | Mathematics | 2028 This project examines the evolving nature of corporate in-progress analysis aims to illuminate broad trends in the timing, involvement in major societal issues within the United States, industry distribution, and demographic correlates of corporate focusing on the public stances taken by S&P 500 companies activism, while addressing questions around how board, C-suite, and their executives across nine contentious topics—including and employee attributes—such as political orientation—relate climate change, racial justice, and voting rights—between 2008 to a company’s likelihood of taking a stand. This descriptive and 2024. To construct a comprehensive dataset, we collected study supports the investigation of potential impacts on employee and analyzed thousands of newspaper and newswire articles, satisfaction in companion work, with broader implications expanding our coverage to include all firms that appeared in for understanding how business engagement in public debates the S&P 500 index during the study period. Utilizing Factiva influences both corporate culture and the societal landscape. The for large-scale article retrieval and leveraging advanced natural project aims toprovidevaluable insightsintothe interplay between language processing models via the GPT API, we identified and commerce and social responsibility. classified instances of corporate advocacy or commentary. Our 74 Program for Research in Markets and Organizations The Psychology of Self-Disclosure Ivor Mills, Elinora Pentcheva, Leslie John Cornell University | Social Studies | 2027 Why are some people so quick to share personal information significant indirect pathways through mediation analyses. To while others hold back? Our research has looked at how follow up, we have developed a study investigating how these Attachment Style (AS; secure, anxious, and avoidant) and the personality traits and beliefs influence disclosure with our closest Big Five Personality traits (BFP; Agreeableness, Extraversion, others, i.e. in our most important relationships. Having developed Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Open-Mindedness) map an IRB protocol and received approval, we are launching this onto people’s optimism about disclosure (how open they are new study in the week of July 21st, and will analyze the results to self-disclosure), and how that affects their actual disclosure to be included in an ongoing manuscript which aims to shed decisions. To better understand this relationship, we conducted light on our disclosure behaviors and the barriers that prevent linear regression and mediation analyses looking at the effects us from communicating more openly. Understanding the effects of AS and the BFP traits on disclosure optimism. We find that of personality and attachment on disclosure can significantly people who score highly on secure attachment, as well as those improve our insight into when and why people are more likely who are highly agreeable, have more positive beliefs about the to reveal personal information to others. We hope that our interpersonal consequences of disclosure. We also see that this results can help improve social connection and lead to strategies disclosure optimism is associated with an increase in real-life to better incentivize open communication both inside and outside disclosure across a range of topics, and thus establish several of organizational contexts. RestaurantReboot: ExploringtheImpactofGenderonManagingwithRobots Rachel Serre, Erin Shirtz, Allie Feldberg Brigham Young University | Computer Science | 2027 This study explores how robots in the workplace influence interviews and ethnographic observations provide qualitative gendered dynamics in managerial roles, focusing on the restaurant insight into how Roby alters work environments and management industry. Prior research shows that men and women often experiences. In the second phase, quantitative analysis experience managerial authority and workplace interactions using difference-in-differences estimation will test whether differently, shaped by persistent gender stereotypes. As robots performance outcomes such as customer satisfaction differ across become increasingly common in service industries, they may alter establishments managed by men versus women. relational dynamics by disrupting organizational processes and Preliminary findings suggest that women managers respond more transforming traditional interactions among managers, employees, adaptively to disruptions introduced by Roby, leading to smoother and customers. These changes may have varying consequences for staff adoption and improved customer service. Robots may help men and women managers, and in turn, their organizations. standardize tasks and reduce resistance, indirectly reinforcing In partnership with Robotco, a late-stage startup that engineers female managerial authority. and supplies a proprietary robot server called Roby, this project examines the impact of robotic integration on male and female Inthecomingmonths,wewilltestthesehypothesesusingYelpand managers in fast-casual sit-down restaurants. Roby performs Google reviews, comparing restaurants using Roby with matched establishments that do not. We expect to find more positive routine tasks such as delivering food and clearing tables, while service-related feedback in woman-managed restaurants following human staff remain responsible for customer interaction and Roby’s implementation. This research offers early evidence that problem-solving. Managers retain discretion over how to implement robotic support and guide staff adaptation. robotic technology may shift gendered power dynamics in service settings, with implications for leadership equity and inclusive The project uses a multi-method approach. In the first phase, workplace design. Wireless Products and Their Markets Ahmed Fahim Shihab, Shane Greenstein Harvard College | Adams House | Economics | 2027 The wireless technology revolution over the past three decades level time-series dataset. Preliminary results indicated a notable has reshaped the technological landscape in the United States, frequency of missing data predominantly concentrated around leading to the emergence of numerous influential submarkets. Silicon Valley, supporting the hypothesis of geographic clustering Despite this transformation, existing literature reveals a notable of entrepreneurial wireless technology firms in this region. gap in understanding the geographic concentration and dispersion Currently, the study is employing Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) of production for new wireless products. This research represents regression and Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) to further the first comprehensive survey addressing this gap, hypothesizing examine regional concentrations of different wireless product that wireless technology submarkets - marked by different product categories. Should the hypotheses be supported, the findings categories — exhibit significant geographic concentration. To could illuminate significant trends in the evolution of wireless test this hypothesis, the study analyzes administrative data from technologyintheU.S.,providingvaluableinsightsforfuturepolicy theFederalCommunicationsCommission(FCC),cross-referenced formulation and market forecasting. with the Your-Economy Time Series (YTS), an establishment- The Rise and Consequences of Indian Innovation Shambhavi Sinha, Josh Lerner Duke University | Mathematics | 2027 Innovation has guided the flows of economic growth and and large language models for OCR to obtain patent documents development globally. Traditionally, these headwinds have and specifications. Secondly, we intend to present fundamental been captured and fostered by a few high-income, developed analyses to examine historical trends in Indian innovation through countries. In recent years, innovative activity has increased rapidgraphs and descriptive statistics. Initial analyses show that in emerging markets and developing countries, like China and innovative activity is clustered and concentrated geographically India. In India, especially, the number of patents granted has and by contributors. The top grantees are firms, followed by increased from 90 in 1995 to 64367 in 2024 alone. Despite this academic institutions. These entities also collaborate internally tremendous potential, academic research has not kept up with (within firms) and externally (between firms and institutions), these changes in emerging market innovation. This project is which could suggest spillovers in knowledge. Finally, we intend a pioneering effort to understand Indian innovation, its causes, to deepen our analysis by investigating heterogeneity, causes, and and returns. Firstly, it will become the largest publicly availableconsequencesofinnovationintheIndianmarket. Wealsointendto dataset for researching innovation in India, comprising 343,778 study its links to venture capital activity and financial innovation, patent awards filed between 1995 and 2022. The creation of this and the possibilities of global spillovers and impacts. dataset involved scraping the IPIndia websites using Selenium 76 Program for Research in Markets and Organizations Sanctioned Radicals: Authorization and Discipline for Black and Asian Employee Resource Groups Leah Thompson, Jaylon Sherrell, Lumumba Seegars Spelman College | Psychology | 2027 How do marginalized groups collectively organize around racial tensions of sanctioning: balancing organizational legitimacy with identities in the workplace? The formation of employee resource the need to avoid disciplinary action. The Black ERG navigated groups (ERGs) within organizations comes with the double-sided dynamics by building support with Black executives and creating sword ofsanctioning. Sanctioningcanmeaneitherformalapproval a private chat room to discuss Black experiences, while presenting or punishment through, respectively, provision of resources or themselves guardedly in supervised settings. Asian ERG members disciplining. ERGs benefit from organizational authorization experienced salient differences between East/South Asian and but must navigate racialized hierarchies. This includes not just immigrant/multigenerational identities and events. However, they restricted access to resources, but systemic disciplining that shapesited under an Americanized Asian identity recognized by the how members behave and are perceived within organizations. company and shared events to make culture seem less “foreign” to PreviousresearchsuggestsBlackandAsiangroupsmightapproach colleagues. These behaviors permitted both ERGs authorization to sanctioning differently. To understand how collective organizing pursue goals while avoiding disciplining. These findings highlight around race manifested similarly and differently for Black versus how racialization constrains access to resources and reproduces Asian ERGs, we independently coded interviews with 31 Black marginalization through group-specific sanctioning dynamics. By ERG and 20 Asian ERG members from a major American-based showing that Black and Asian ERGs faced qualitatively different tech company. Coding themes from prior analysis were refined forms of racialization, this research points to the need for future iteratively, with the final iteration comparing ERG behaviors, studies to further examine how the nature of racialization shapes resources, and concerns. We found that although surface-level collective organization across organizational contexts. behaviors appeared dissimilar, both groups navigated underlying

Abstract:

In recent years, universities across the United States have grappledn one part influence the other parts and the entity as a whole. with the challenge of maintaining their autonomy and upholding As a complement, we also developed a technical note on higher principles of academic freedom while relying on the federal education in the U.S., employing both broad institutional analyses government for a myriad of benefits, such as research funding, and quantitative reviews of endowment growth, administrative student loans, and the ability to enroll international students. staffing, and trends in board composition dating back to 2000. We These tensions came to a public head in the wake of the Trump found that sustained and unresolved issues within Harvard, such as administration’s 2025 campaign against several elite universities a difficult-to-identify university mission, inflexible administrative in the U.S., which saw the White House freeze federal benefits structures, a highly decentralized model of internal governance, to universities like Columbia, Harvard, and the University of and conflicting goals and functions have constrained its response Pennsylvania and issue demands. To explore how universities to crisis. Parallel trends across other selective institutions include navigate such unprecedented crises, we developed a teachable goalambiguitybackedbygrowthinauxiliaryservicesandstaffing, case study of Harvard’s response to a government demand letter, endowment diversification, and tuition increases. This case whichincludedanalysesofboarddeliberations,long-termfinancial offers recommendations for university executives, trustees, and trends, and pressure from stakeholders. The case highlights the policymakers navigating a governance landscape that is quickly importance of looking at the university as a system; that is, an evolving. entity with identifiable but interrelated parts, such that changes Corporate Engagement with Societal Issues in the U.S. Michelle Liu, Magdalena Larreboure, Vincent Pons Harvard College | Mather House | Mathematics | 2028 This project examines the evolving nature of corporate in-progress analysis aims to illuminate broad trends in the timing, involvement in major societal issues within the United States, industry distribution, and demographic correlates of corporate focusing on the public stances taken by S&P 500 companies activism, while addressing questions around how board, C-suite, and their executives across nine contentious topics—including and employee attributes—such as political orientation—relate climate change, racial justice, and voting rights—between 2008 to a company’s likelihood of taking a stand. This descriptive and 2024. To construct a comprehensive dataset, we collected study supports the investigation of potential impacts on employee and analyzed thousands of newspaper and newswire articles, satisfaction in companion work, with broader implications expanding our coverage to include all firms that appeared in for understanding how business engagement in public debates the S&P 500 index during the study period. Utilizing Factiva influences both corporate culture and the societal landscape. The for large-scale article retrieval and leveraging advanced natural project aims toprovidevaluable insightsintothe interplay between language processing models via the GPT API, we identified and commerce and social responsibility. classified instances of corporate advocacy or commentary. Our 74 Program for Research in Markets and Organizations The Psychology of Self-Disclosure Ivor Mills, Elinora Pentcheva, Leslie John Cornell University | Social Studies | 2027 Why are some people so quick to share personal information significant indirect pathways through mediation analyses. To while others hold back? Our research has looked at how follow up, we have developed a study investigating how these Attachment Style (AS; secure, anxious, and avoidant) and the personality traits and beliefs influence disclosure with our closest Big Five Personality traits (BFP; Agreeableness, Extraversion, others, i.e. in our most important relationships. Having developed Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Open-Mindedness) map an IRB protocol and received approval, we are launching this onto people’s optimism about disclosure (how open they are new study in the week of July 21st, and will analyze the results to self-disclosure), and how that affects their actual disclosure to be included in an ongoing manuscript which aims to shed decisions. To better understand this relationship, we conducted light on our disclosure behaviors and the barriers that prevent linear regression and mediation analyses looking at the effects us from communicating more openly. Understanding the effects of AS and the BFP traits on disclosure optimism. We find that of personality and attachment on disclosure can significantly people who score highly on secure attachment, as well as those improve our insight into when and why people are more likely who are highly agreeable, have more positive beliefs about the to reveal personal information to others. We hope that our interpersonal consequences of disclosure. We also see that this results can help improve social connection and lead to strategies disclosure optimism is associated with an increase in real-life to better incentivize open communication both inside and outside disclosure across a range of topics, and thus establish several of organizational contexts. RestaurantReboot: ExploringtheImpactofGenderonManagingwithRobots Rachel Serre, Erin Shirtz, Allie Feldberg Brigham Young University | Computer Science | 2027 This study explores how robots in the workplace influence interviews and ethnographic observations provide qualitative gendered dynamics in managerial roles, focusing on the restaurant insight into how Roby alters work environments and management industry. Prior research shows that men and women often experiences. In the second phase, quantitative analysis experience managerial authority and workplace interactions using difference-in-differences estimation will test whether differently, shaped by persistent gender stereotypes. As robots performance outcomes such as customer satisfaction differ across become increasingly common in service industries, they may alter establishments managed by men versus women. relational dynamics by disrupting organizational processes and Preliminary findings suggest that women managers respond more transforming traditional interactions among managers, employees, adaptively to disruptions introduced by Roby, leading to smoother and customers. These changes may have varying consequences for staff adoption and improved customer service. Robots may help men and women managers, and in turn, their organizations. standardize tasks and reduce resistance, indirectly reinforcing In partnership with Robotco, a late-stage startup that engineers female managerial authority. and supplies a proprietary robot server called Roby, this project examines the impact of robotic integration on male and female Inthecomingmonths,wewilltestthesehypothesesusingYelpand managers in fast-casual sit-down restaurants. Roby performs Google reviews, comparing restaurants using Roby with matched establishments that do not. We expect to find more positive routine tasks such as delivering food and clearing tables, while service-related feedback in woman-managed restaurants following human staff remain responsible for customer interaction and Roby’s implementation. This research offers early evidence that problem-solving. Managers retain discretion over how to implement robotic support and guide staff adaptation. robotic technology may shift gendered power dynamics in service settings, with implications for leadership equity and inclusive The project uses a multi-method approach. In the first phase, workplace design. Wireless Products and Their Markets Ahmed Fahim Shihab, Shane Greenstein Harvard College | Adams House | Economics | 2027 The wireless technology revolution over the past three decades level time-series dataset. Preliminary results indicated a notable has reshaped the technological landscape in the United States, frequency of missing data predominantly concentrated around leading to the emergence of numerous influential submarkets. Silicon Valley, supporting the hypothesis of geographic clustering Despite this transformation, existing literature reveals a notable of entrepreneurial wireless technology firms in this region. gap in understanding the geographic concentration and dispersion Currently, the study is employing Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) of production for new wireless products. This research represents regression and Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) to further the first comprehensive survey addressing this gap, hypothesizing examine regional concentrations of different wireless product that wireless technology submarkets - marked by different product categories. Should the hypotheses be supported, the findings categories — exhibit significant geographic concentration. To could illuminate significant trends in the evolution of wireless test this hypothesis, the study analyzes administrative data from technologyintheU.S.,providingvaluableinsightsforfuturepolicy theFederalCommunicationsCommission(FCC),cross-referenced formulation and market forecasting. with the Your-Economy Time Series (YTS), an establishment- The Rise and Consequences of Indian Innovation Shambhavi Sinha, Josh Lerner Duke University | Mathematics | 2027 Innovation has guided the flows of economic growth and and large language models for OCR to obtain patent documents development globally. Traditionally, these headwinds have and specifications. Secondly, we intend to present fundamental been captured and fostered by a few high-income, developed analyses to examine historical trends in Indian innovation through countries. In recent years, innovative activity has increased rapidgraphs and descriptive statistics. Initial analyses show that in emerging markets and developing countries, like China and innovative activity is clustered and concentrated geographically India. In India, especially, the number of patents granted has and by contributors. The top grantees are firms, followed by increased from 90 in 1995 to 64367 in 2024 alone. Despite this academic institutions. These entities also collaborate internally tremendous potential, academic research has not kept up with (within firms) and externally (between firms and institutions), these changes in emerging market innovation. This project is which could suggest spillovers in knowledge. Finally, we intend a pioneering effort to understand Indian innovation, its causes, to deepen our analysis by investigating heterogeneity, causes, and and returns. Firstly, it will become the largest publicly availableconsequencesofinnovationintheIndianmarket. Wealsointendto dataset for researching innovation in India, comprising 343,778 study its links to venture capital activity and financial innovation, patent awards filed between 1995 and 2022. The creation of this and the possibilities of global spillovers and impacts. dataset involved scraping the IPIndia websites using Selenium 76 Program for Research in Markets and Organizations Sanctioned Radicals: Authorization and Discipline for Black and Asian Employee Resource Groups Leah Thompson, Jaylon Sherrell, Lumumba Seegars Spelman College | Psychology | 2027 How do marginalized groups collectively organize around racial tensions of sanctioning: balancing organizational legitimacy with identities in the workplace? The formation of employee resource the need to avoid disciplinary action. The Black ERG navigated groups (ERGs) within organizations comes with the double-sided dynamics by building support with Black executives and creating sword ofsanctioning. Sanctioningcanmeaneitherformalapproval a private chat room to discuss Black experiences, while presenting or punishment through, respectively, provision of resources or themselves guardedly in supervised settings. Asian ERG members disciplining. ERGs benefit from organizational authorization experienced salient differences between East/South Asian and but must navigate racialized hierarchies. This includes not just immigrant/multigenerational identities and events. However, they restricted access to resources, but systemic disciplining that shapesited under an Americanized Asian identity recognized by the how members behave and are perceived within organizations. company and shared events to make culture seem less “foreign” to PreviousresearchsuggestsBlackandAsiangroupsmightapproach colleagues. These behaviors permitted both ERGs authorization to sanctioning differently. To understand how collective organizing pursue goals while avoiding disciplining. These findings highlight around race manifested similarly and differently for Black versus how racialization constrains access to resources and reproduces Asian ERGs, we independently coded interviews with 31 Black marginalization through group-specific sanctioning dynamics. By ERG and 20 Asian ERG members from a major American-based showing that Black and Asian ERGs faced qualitatively different tech company. Coding themes from prior analysis were refined forms of racialization, this research points to the need for future iteratively, with the final iteration comparing ERG behaviors, studies to further examine how the nature of racialization shapes resources, and concerns. We found that although surface-level collective organization across organizational contexts. behaviors appeared dissimilar, both groups navigated underlying

Source:

Harvard / Harvard College | Mather House | Applied Math | 2028 / 2025

Topics:

university, disclosure, wireles, innovation, black, asian, acros, trend, market, organization, roby, resource

Co-authors:

@matanjosephy219 , @rakeshkhurana220