Publications

May 1988 (Revised June 2023)
Case

National Cranberry Cooperative, 1996

By: Roy D. Shapiro

Describes the continuous flow process used to process cranberries into juice and/or sauce. Requires student to analyze process flows to determine where the bottlenecks are and to decide how, and whether, to expand capacity. Original version written by J.G. Miller and... View Details

Keywords: Logistics; Performance Capacity; Performance Improvement; Supply Chain; Mathematical Methods; Cost vs Benefits; Production

20 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Getting the Marketing Mix Right

firms; and by using direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA). First, they employed the complex mathematical formulas of traditional models to study different marketing strategies used by the drug companies. They found that the IPS property... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

01 Jan 2004
News

D. Ronald Daniel, MBA 1954

Director & Former Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company, Inc. Former Treasurer, Harvard University Return to Alumni Achievement Awards main page EARLIER EDUCATION Wesleyan University, 1952 B.A., Mathematics LIFELONG LESSON FROM HBS "HBS... View Details

March 2012 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Boston Children's Hospital: Measuring Patient Costs

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Mary L. Witkowski and Jessica A. Hohman

The case describes two pilot projects on applying activity-based costing to measuring the cost of treating patients. It presents process maps and financial data relating to the processes used during (1) an office visit to a plastic surgeon for three different diagnoses... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Costing; Hospitals; Activity Based Costing and Management; Mathematical Methods; Health Industry

September 1986 (Revised February 1990)
Background Note

A Note on Quality: The Views of Deming, Juran, and Crosby

By: David A. Garvin

Describes the three distinct approaches to quality management represented by W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, and Philip B. Crosby. Designed to introduce students to the elements of statistical quality control, structured approaches to quality improvement, and zero... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Improvement; Mathematical Methods

07 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

The Better Way to Forecast the Future

are broader. When Grushka-Cockayne refers to averaging the forecasts, she is not necessarily referring to a mathematical average but any number of ways to combine them. Various methods can include weighting certain ones or trimming... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Air Transportation; Transportation

05 Sep 2014
News

Keeping Education in Check

South resulted in increased academic abilities across the board, from spatial analysis to mathematics scores to reasoning. In 2003, William Bart and Michael Atherton of the University of Minnesota wrote a paper that discussed the... View Details

Keywords: Maureen Harmon

26 May 2016
News

Mary Callahan Erdoes, MBA 1993

stay-at-home mom. She cites her family, including four grandparents, as major influences. “There weren’t a lot of dolls in our house,” says Erdoes, who rode horses competitively until she went to Georgetown University. Erdoes majored in View Details

Keywords: Susan Young; Monetary Authorities-Central Bank; Finance

Web

Entrepreneurial Management Awards & Honors - Faculty & Research

Finance for his paper with Christopher Malloy and Andrea Frazzini, “Sell-Side School Ties” (August 2010). Scott Duke Kominers : Winner of the 2010 Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research by an Undergraduate Student, given jointly by the American View Details

Forthcoming
Article

Reputation Burning: Analyzing the Impact of Brand Sponsorship on Social Influencers

By: Mengjie Cheng and Shunyuan Zhang

The growth of the influencer marketing industry warrants an empirical examination of the effect of posting sponsored videos on influencers' reputations. We collected a novel dataset of user-generated YouTube videos created by prominent English-speaking influencers in... View Details

Keywords: Reputation; Mathematical Methods; Marketing Reference Programs; Social Media; Brands and Branding

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September–October 2021
Article

Frontiers: Can an AI Algorithm Mitigate Racial Economic Inequality? An Analysis in the Context of Airbnb

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Nitin Mehta, Param Singh and Kannan Srinivasan

We study the effect of Airbnb’s smart-pricing algorithm on the racial disparity in the daily revenue earned by Airbnb hosts. Our empirical strategy exploits Airbnb’s introduction of the algorithm and its voluntary adoption by hosts as a quasi-natural experiment. Among... View Details

Keywords: Smart Pricing; Pricing Algorithm; Machine Bias; Discrimination; Racial Disparity; Social Inequality; Airbnb Revenue; Revenue; Race; Equality and Inequality; Prejudice and Bias; Price; Mathematical Methods; Accommodations Industry

SSRN

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01 Jun 2001
News

Richard Pechter: Learning New Lessons

national training program geared toward recent college graduates. He was eventually placed as a mathematics teacher at Jersey City, New Jersey’s Liberty High, an ethnically diverse high school for students who have struggled in... View Details

Keywords: Lory Hough; Elementary and Secondary Schools; Educational Services

Fall 2012
Article

How 'Big Data' Is Different

Many people today in the information technology world and in corporate boardrooms are talking about "big data." Many believe that, for companies that get it right, big data will be able to unleash new organizational capabilities and value. But what does the term "big... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Analytics; Mathematical Methods; Information Management; Information Technology Industry

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2010
Book

The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics Are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance

By: Marshall Fisher and Ananth Raman

Retailers today are drowning in data but lacking in insight: They have huge volumes of information at their disposal. But they're unsure of how to sort through it and use it to make smart decisions. The result? They're struggling with profit-sapping supply chain... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Logistics; Supply Chain Management; Mathematical Methods; Retail Industry

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Profile

Kiran Gandhi

don’t plan on working for a bank or for Ideo after school, but I want to apply the design skills I learn to the music industry in the long term. What might people find surprising about you? That I was a math major in college. I guess because people think View Details

Keywords: Entertainment/Media

07 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

What Drives Supply Chain Behavior?

provide prescriptive recommendations, many of these papers pursue an optimizing approach given the assumption of a completely rational decision maker. Testament to the complexity of these activities is the high level of mathematical... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston

2013
Book

Keeping Up with the Quants: Your Guide to Understanding and Using Analytics

By: Thomas H. Davenport and Jinho Kim

Managers today need to be able to analyze and make sense of data. They need to be conversant with analytical technology and methods and to make decisions on quantitative analysis. This book offers a variety of practical tools and examples to improve a manager's... View Details

Keywords: Statistics; Business Analytics; Big Data; Analytics and Data Science; Management Practices and Processes; Mathematical Methods; Information Management

October 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Cost of Capital at Ameritrade

By: Mark L. Mitchell and Erik Stafford

Ameritrade Holding Corp. is planning large marketing and technology investments to improve the company's competitive position in deep-discount brokerage by taking advantage of emerging economies of scale. In order to evaluate whether the strategy would generate... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Asset Pricing; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Investment; Marketing; Mathematical Methods; Competition; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Financial Services Industry