Publications

September 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Zurich Insurance: Global Job Structure and Data Analysis

By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly

Zurich Insurance was undergoing organizational change after implementing five new people practices focused on manager development, diversity and inclusion, job model and data analytics, recruitment, and talent pipeline. The case “Zurich Insurance: Fostering Key People... View Details

Keywords: Managing Change; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Architecture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Human Capital; Change Management; Organizational Structure; Insurance; Organizational Culture; Globalization; Human Resources; Insurance Industry

2016
Book

Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless Questions for Resolving Your Toughest Problems at Work

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

Part of a manager's job is making tough calls, and the hardest challenge can be resolving "gray area” problems—situations in which analysis of the numbers, facts, and data fails to provide a clear answer. Gray areas test not only managers’ skills but also their... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Decision Choices and Conditions

September 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 3: Using Information for Performance Measurement and Control

By: Robert Simons

This module reading explains how managers use information to control critical business processes and outcomes. The analysis begins by illustrating how managers use information to communicate goals and track performance. Then the focus turns to the choices that managers... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Strategy Execution; Organization Process; Feedback Model; Innovation; Uses Of Information; Big Data; Benchmarking; Decision Making; Information; Performance Evaluation; Analytics and Data Science

August 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Oversight Systems

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Amram Migdal

The case, set in May 2016, discusses sales strategy and managing sales and service at Oversight Systems, an Atlanta, Georgia–based software firm that developed analytics for organizations to monitor their data for errors, fraud, and operational inefficiencies. Included... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Sales Strategy; Entrepreneurial Sales; Entrepreneurial Sales And Marketing; Software Sales; Marketing; Marketing Management; Pricing; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Marketing Strategy; Technology Industry; North America; United States; Atlanta; Georgia (state, US)

2016
Working Paper

Venture Capital Data: Opportunities and Challenges

By: Steven N. Kaplan and Josh Lerner

This paper describes the available data and research on venture capital investments and performance. We comment on the challenges inherent in those data and research as well as possible opportunities to do better. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Analytics and Data Science; Investment

May 2016 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Building the Digital Manufacturing Enterprise of the Future at Siemens

By: Willy Shih

This case describes the motivation for and the development of Siemens' digital manufacturing enterprise vision, which became the foundation for its implementation of Industrie 4.0. While the effort started with a purely defensive move by Anton Huber, head of the... View Details

Article

Crowdsourcing City Government: Using Tournaments to Improve Inspection Accuracy

By: Edward Glaeser, Andrew Hillis, Scott Duke Kominers and Michael Luca

The proliferation of big data makes it possible to better target city services like hygiene inspections, but city governments rarely have the in-house talent needed for developing prediction algorithms. Cities could hire consultants, but a cheaper alternative is to... View Details

Keywords: User-generated Content; Operations; Tournaments; Policy-making; Machine Learning; Online Platforms; Analytics and Data Science; Mathematical Methods; City; Infrastructure; Business Processes; Government and Politics

Article

Gathering Data for Archival, Field, Survey, and Experimental Accounting Research

By: Robert Bloomfield, Mark W. Nelson and Eugene F. Soltes

In the published proceedings of the ﬁrst Journal of Accounting Research Conference, Vatter (1966) lamented that “Gathering direct and original facts is a tedious and difﬁcult task, and it is not surprising that such work is avoided.” For the 50th JAR Conference,... View Details

Keywords: Archival; Data; Experiment; Empirical Methods; Field Study; Analytics and Data Science; Surveys; Financial Reporting

Article

Making Private Data Accessible in an Opaque Industry: The Experience of the Private Capital Research Institute

By: Josh Lerner and Leslie Jeng

Private markets are becoming an increasingly important way of financing rapidly growing and mature firms, and private investors are reputed to have far-reaching economic impacts. These important markets, however, are uniquely difficult to study. This paper explores... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Research; Entrepreneurship; Private Sector

Article

Beyond Statistics: The Economic Content of Risk Scores

By: Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, Raymond Kluender and Paul Schrimpf

"Big data" and statistical techniques to score potential transactions have transformed insurance and credit markets. In this paper, we observe that these widely-used statistical scores summarize a much richer heterogeneity, and may be endogenous to the context in which... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Risk and Uncertainty; Insurance Industry

Spring 2016
Article

Has Social Science Taken Over Electoral Campaigns and Should We Regret It?

By: Vincent Pons

Keywords: Data Analytics; Elections; Electoral Campaigns; Persuasion; Randomized Experiments

Spring 2016
Article

The Billion Prices Project: Using Online Prices for Inflation Measurement and Research

By: Alberto Cavallo and Roberto Rigobon

New data-gathering techniques, often referred to as “Big Data” have the potential to improve statistics and empirical research in economics. In this paper we describe our work with online data at the Billion Prices Project at MIT and discuss key lessons for both... View Details

Keywords: Billion Prices Project; Online Scraped Data; Online Price Index; Economics; Research; Price; Analytics and Data Science

March 2016 (Revised April 2017)
Teaching Note

Bridj and the Business of Urban Mobility (A): Introducing a New Model

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

This note is for the purpose of aiding classroom instructors in the use of the Harvard Business School case "Bridj and the Business of Urban Mobility: Introducing a New Model." Instructors may use it to help students understand the challenges that come with disrupting... View Details

March 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Transition at DataCo?

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Carin-Isabel Knoop

The founder of a data analytics company, Stefan Brecht, has several issues with his key business developer and head of marketing and sales, Tamara Smithson. Smithson, an early hire who had been instrumental in building the firm; operates as an individual contributor;... View Details

Keywords: Sales Management; Selling; Entrepreneurial Ventures; Performance Management; Professional Services; Salesforce Management; Sales; Marketing; Performance; Consulting Industry; United States; France

March 2016
Supplement

Advertising Experiments at RestaurantGrades

By: Weijia Dai, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca

This exercise provides students with a data set consisting of results from a hypothetical experiment, and asks students to make recommendations based on the data. Through this process, the exercise teaches students to analyze, design, and interpret experiments. The... View Details

Keywords: Experimental Methods; Analytics; Web Technology; Marketing; Digital Marketing; Analysis; Performance Effectiveness; Social Media

February 25, 2016
Article

The Hodgepodge Principle in U.S. Privacy Policy

By: John A. Deighton

Data, says Professor Lawrence Summers, is the new oil, "a hugely valuable asset essential to economic life." Personal data, the kind of data that invites thoughts of privacy, is a big part of that. The European Union saw this economic fuel source coming long ago and... View Details

Keywords: Data; Privacy; Technology; Big Data; Personal Data; Marketing; Information Technology; Analytics and Data Science

February 2016 (Revised February 2017)
Case

The Climate Corporation

By: David E. Bell, Forest Reinhardt and Mary Shelman

Climate Corporation is a San Francisco–based data analytics company focused on agricultural applications. It was acquired by Monsanto in 2013. In 2015, Climate's decision support platform was used on 75 million acres of farmland in the U.S.; however, most of those... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness Industry; Farming; Big Data; Data Analytics; Agriculture; Agribusiness; Decision Making; Analytics and Data Science; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

January 2016
Case

Acxiom

By: John Deighton

Acxiom built the market for personal data, yet sales have been flat for a decade during which marketing's appetite for data has exploded. Will the acquisition of a digital data onboarder LiveRamp give marketers what they want from a data broker? View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Direct Marketing; Personal Data; Privacy; Digital Marketing; Retargeting; Rights; Analytics and Data Science; Ethics; Marketing; United States

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