Publications

2011
Working Paper

The Impact of Forward-Looking Metrics on Employee Decision Making

By: Pablo Casas-Arce, F. Asis Martinez-Jerez and V.G. Narayanan

This paper analyzes the effects of providing forward-looking metrics on employee decision making. We use data from a southern European bank that, in April 2002, started providing its branch managers with customer lifetime value (CLV) information about mortgage... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Decision Choices and Conditions; Mortgages; Employees; Information; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Service Delivery; Banking Industry; Europe

Article

Nudging: Progress to Date and Future Directions

By: John Beshears and Harry Kosowsky

Nudges influence behavior by changing the environment in which decisions are made, without restricting the menu of options and without altering financial incentives. This paper assesses past empirical research on nudging and provides recommendations for future work in... View Details

Keywords: Nudge; Choice Architecture; Behavioral Economics; Behavioral Science; Behavior; Change; Situation or Environment; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decision Making

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January 2013
Case

Cabot Corporation: The Fuel Cell Decision (A)

By: Willy Shih and Ying Zhou

Managers at Cabot Corporation are faced with deciding the future of its fuel cell program. The (A) case recounts the view of the business manager and the technical project lead, and the (B) case describes the perspective of a senior manager who is the head of the New... View Details

January 2011
Article

Let the Right One In: A Microeconomic Approach to Partner Choice in Mutualisms

By: Marco Archetti, Francisco Ubeda, Drew Fudenberg, Jerry R. Green, Naomi E. Pierce and Douglas W. Yu

One of the main problems impeding the evolution of cooperation is partner choice. When information is asymmetric (the quality of a potential partner is known only to himself), it may seem that partner choice is not possible without signaling. Many mutualisms, however,... View Details

Keywords: Microeconomics; Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; System; Problems and Challenges; Information; Economics; Theory; Cost; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cooperation

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04 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Is Government Just Stupid? How Bad Decisions Are Made

In "You Can't Enlarge the Pie," the authors argue that barriers to effective government decision making result in poor decisions about critical issues like the environment, organ transplants, View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman, Jonathan Baron & Katherine Shonk

18 Dec 2015
News

Sleeping on it actually won’t help you make better decisions in the morning

1998
Book

Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions

By: John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney and Howard Raiffa

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Decision Making; Information

Article

Managing the Unknowable: The Effectiveness of Early-stage Investor Gut Feel in Entrepreneurial Investment Decisions

By: Laura Huang and Jone L. Pearce

Using an inductive theory-development study, a field experiment, and a longitudinal field test, we examine early-stage entrepreneurial investment decision making under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Building on existing literature on decision making and risk in... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Risk and Uncertainty; Decision Making; Emotions; Performance Effectiveness

02 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Managing the Open Source vs. Proprietary Decision

same choices in terms of open source and proprietary software. There is no simple ranking of open source and proprietary software, either in terms of the full costs of adoption... View Details

Keywords: by Josh Lerner & Mark Schankerman; Technology

March 2018
Supplement

Sandra Brown Goes Digital (B): The Commitment Decision

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

Sandra Brown, a middle manager at a biotech company who has led internal and external movements for change over the last few years, faces a decision. Whether to continue to work for change at the company or move on to pursue new opportunities elsewhere, where her new... View Details

Keywords: Digital; Stakeholder Engagement; Managing Change; Career Path; Health Care Industry; Quality; Leading Change; Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Personal Development and Career; Decision Choices and Conditions

Article

A Brand's Eye View of Response Segmentation in Consumer Choice Behavior

By: Randolph E. Bucklin, Sunil Gupta and Sangman Han

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Segmentation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Customers; Behavior

February 2021
Case

The Tulsa Massacre and the Call for Reparations

By: Mihir Desai, Ruth Page, Suzanne Antoniou and Leanne Fan

How should historic social injustices be addressed? Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants, including Representative Regina Goodwin of Tulsa, believe they should be addressed through reparations and have consequently continued to push the government... View Details

Book Review

Review of Implementing New Technologies: Choice, Decision and Change in Manufacturing, edited by E. Rhodes and D. Wield

By: Dorothy A. Leonard

Keywords: Information Technology; Decision Choices and Conditions; Change; Production

August 2015
Article

Cost Conscious? The Neural and Behavioral Impact of Price Primacy on Decision-Making

By: Uma R. Karmarkar, Baba Shiv and Brian Knutson

Price is a key factor in most purchases, but it can be presented at different stages of decision making prior to a purchase. We examine the sequence-dependent effects of price and product information on the decision-making process at both neural and behavioral levels.... View Details

Keywords: fMRI; Retail Promotion; Purchase Decisions; Price; Value; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Product Marketing; Retail Industry

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25 May 2023
News

3 Strategies for Making Better, More Informed Decisions

09 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

Chance Encounters: What's at Stake in Return-to-Office Decisions

office. They don’t want to fight with their employees and risk losing people. They will end up being remote or hybrid as a consequence of that tension but, again, that is often not a strategic decision in... View Details

Keywords: by Jen McFarland Flint, HBS Alumni Bulletin

Article

Modelling the Effect of Purchase Quantity on Consumer Choice of Product Assortment

By: Randolph E. Bucklin, Sunil Gupta and S. Siddarth

Keywords: Sales; Decision Choices and Conditions; Customers; Product

February 2018
Case

EmQuest: Travel Distribution in the Digital Era

By: Karim R. Lakhani and Gamze Yucaoglu

EmQuest, Emirates Group’s travel distribution company, must decide what to do with its contract with the global distribution system it uses, Sabre. Since its founding in 1988, EmQuest was servicing travel agents in the MENA region by providing a connection to over 400... View Details

Keywords: UAE; Decision; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Change Management; Emerging Markets; For-Profit Firms; Competitive Advantage; Travel Industry; United Arab Emirates