Publications

2023
Working Paper

Operational Impact of Communication Channels: Evidence from Last-Mile Delivery Services

By: Natalie Epstein, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno

Communication channels are often used to improve customer satisfaction and behavior. This paper studies how they can be used to enhance operational performance.
We partner with a last-mile delivery company and, through natural and field experiments, explore... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Consumer Behavior; Logistics; Communication

SSRN

Winter 2016
Article

Analytics for an Online Retailer: Demand Forecasting and Price Optimization

By: Kris J. Ferreira, Bin Hong Alex Lee and David Simchi-Levi

We present our work with an online retailer, Rue La La, as an example of how a retailer can use its wealth of data to optimize pricing decisions on a daily basis. Rue La La is in the online fashion sample sales industry, where they offer extremely limited-time... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Price; Forecasting and Prediction; Revenue; Sales; Retail Industry

September 2013
Article

Great Leaders Who Make the Mix Work

By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly

Business leaders send a powerful message when they make a commitment to diversity that goes beyond rhetoric. But what motivates them to do so, and how do they actually create inclusive cultures? To find out, the authors interviewed 24 CEOs whose firms were known for... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Working Conditions; Leading Change; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Diversity; Gender

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Hawes Hall | About

Hawes Hall Rodney (MBA 1969) & Beverly Hawes Hawes Hall is named in honor of, and made possible through support from Beverly and Rodney A. Hawes Jr. (MBA 1969). Dedicated in 2002 and located adjacent to Aldrich Hall, Hawes Hall was built... View Details

08 Jul 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Delegation in Multi-Establishment Firms: Adaptation vs. Coordination in I.T. Purchasing Authority

Keywords: by Kristina McElheran

2021
Working Paper

Multiple Team Membership, Turnover, and On-Time Delivery: Evidence from Construction Services

By: Hise O. Gibson, Bradely R. Staats and Ananth Raman

Firms who want to compete in dynamic markets are finding that they must build more agile operations to ensure success. One way for a firm to increase organizational agility is to allocate employees to multiple project teams, simultaneously—a practice known as multiple... View Details

Keywords: Multiple Team Membership; Turnover; Fluid Teams; Project Management; Groups and Teams; Projects; Management; Performance

2019
Chapter

A Claim to Own Productive Property

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

BOOK ABSTRACT: The status of economic liberties remains a serious lacuna in the theory and practice of human rights. Should a minimally just society protect the freedoms to sell, save, profit, and invest? Is being prohibited to run a business a human rights violation?... View Details

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October 2016
Case

Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit?

By: Thomas Eisenmann, Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton

Sunil Nagaraj, Triangulate's founder had spent a few years trying to launch a dating application that matched users based on their behavior on social media. Based on input from advisors, the company changed its focus from a B2B site to a B2C dating site with a unique... View Details

Keywords: Early Stage; Pivot; Two Sided Markets; Business Model; Business Exit or Shutdown; Product Launch; Venture Capital; Failure; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Social and Collaborative Networks; United States; North America

Educators

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Article

Team Scaffolds: How Mesolevel Team Structures Enable Role-based Coordination in Temporary Groups

By: Melissa A. Valentine and Amy C. Edmondson

This paper shows how mesolevel structures support effective coordination in temporary groups. Prior research on coordination in temporary groups describes how roles encode individual responsibilities so that coordination between relative strangers is possible. We... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Health Care and Treatment; Cooperation; Health Industry

September–October 2013
Article

Learning from Customers: Individual and Organizational Effects in Outsourced Radiological Services

By: Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats

The ongoing fragmentation of work has resulted in a narrowing of tasks into smaller pieces that can be sent outside the organization and, in many instances, around the world. This trend is shifting the boundaries of organizations and leading to increased outsourcing.... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Medical Specialties; Health Care and Treatment; Customer Focus and Relationships; Learning; Customer Satisfaction; Health Industry

2011
Working Paper

From Single Deals to Negotiation Campaigns

By: David A Lax and James K. Sebenius

Negotiation scholars typically take the individual deal, or a few linked deals, as the unit of analysis. While analyzing one deal requires a familiar conceptual framework, doing the same for a broader "negotiation campaign" calls for a different focus and set of... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Deal; Framework; Business Subsidiaries; Agreements and Arrangements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Information Management; Finance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Business and Government Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues

Passion for work is highly coveted, but many employees report struggling to maintain their passion over time. In the current research, we explain the challenge of pursuing passion by conceptualizing passion as an attribute with temporal variation. Viewed through... View Details

01 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

First Minutes are Critical in New-Employee Orientation

that provides telephone and chat support for its global customers. Traditionally, Wipro's orientation for call center employees consisted of an informational session about the company, followed by several weeks of training in which new... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Web Services; Service; Telecommunications

2019
Article

Reflections on 25 Years of Building Social Enterprise Education

By: James E. Austin and V. Kasturi Rangan

Purpose—This paper aims to reflect on 25 years of the Social Enterprise Initiative at the Harvard Business School, examining the processes and thinking involved at key stages of this pioneering Initiative’s implementation and... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise Initiative; Harvard Business School; Social Enterprise; Education; Programs