Publications

Article

Behavioral and Neural Representations en route to Intuitive Action Understanding

By: Leyla Tarhan, Julian De Freitas and Talia Konkle

When we observe another person’s actions, we process many kinds of information—from how their body moves to the intention behind their movements. What kinds of information underlie our intuitive understanding about how similar actions are to each other? To address this... View Details

Keywords: Action Perception; Intuitive Similarity; Multi-arrangement; fMRI; Representational Similarity Analysis; Behavior; Perception

April 2020
Article

Collective Emotions

By: Amit Goldenberg, David Garcia, Eran Halperin and James J. Gross

When analyzing situations in which multiple people are experiencing emotions together—whether the emotions are positive or negative and whether the situations are online or offline—we are intuitively drawn to the emotions of each individual in the situation. However,... View Details

Keywords: Emotions; Social Psychology

2024
Working Paper

The Revised-Is-Quality Heuristic: Why Consumers Prefer Products Labeled as Revised

By: Ximena Garcia-Rada, Leslie K. John, Ed O’Brien and Michael I. Norton

From downloading never-ending updates to tracking ever-newer releases, consumers today are surrounded by revised products that purport to have improved upon their predecessors. Seven experiments examine when and why consumers rely on a “revised-is-quality”... View Details

Keywords: Product Change; Versioning; Expectancy Effects; Heuristics; Intuitive Processing; Product Marketing; Change; Perception; Consumer Behavior

SSRN

October 2018 (Revised May 2019)
Teaching Note

Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs

By: Joseph Fuller, Shikhar Ghosh and Monica Baraldi

Teaching Note for HBS No. 816-048. The case tells the story of a product manager within Intuit who develops an idea for a new product that spans two of the company's existing business units—professional tax software, sold to accountants, and the consumer focused... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Business or Company Management; Applications and Software; Accounting; Product Development; Financial Services Industry

Purchase

Article

The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts

By: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen Giblin and Michael I. Norton

Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher-order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as... View Details

Keywords: Spontaneous Thoughts; Self-Insight; Meaning; Attribution; Judgment And Decision Making; Decision Making; Cognition and Thinking

2013
Article

What Goes Up Must Come Down? Experimental Evidence on Intuitive Forecasting

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Andreas Fuster, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

Do laboratory subjects correctly perceive the dynamics of a mean-reverting time series? In our experiment, subjects receive historical data and make forecasts at different horizons. The time series process that we use features short-run momentum and long-run partial... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cognition and Thinking

September 2010 (Revised December 2012)
Case

Assembling Smartphones: Takt Time ≠ Cycle Time?

By: Willy Shih and Ethan Bernstein

The case was prepared to be used as part of a process review in the first year Technology and Operations Management course at HBS. It offers students an opportunity to discuss the context of a manufacturing process choice, and then examine actual production numbers... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Research and Development; Design; Six Sigma; Measurement and Metrics; Production

Educators

Purchase

August 2009
Case

Intuit

By: Frank V. Cespedes

This case study provides an overview of Intuit's growth and, in particular, the sales and service initiatives that historically fueled the company's growth from start-up to a corporation. It also outlines certain processes and cultural values, as well as specific... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Product; Service Delivery; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Sales; Business Strategy

Educators

Purchase

September 1998 (Revised February 1999)
Case

Interactive Insurance Services: Redefining Insurance Distribution

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Marla Malcom-Nagler

Founded in July 1995, Interactive Insurance Services provided personal lines of insurance over the World Wide Web. In June 1996, the company was acquired by Intuit for $7.5 million. The case details the competitive and organizational issues faced by this rapidly... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Restructuring; Growth and Development; Distribution; Business Processes; Competitive Strategy; Web; Insurance Industry