Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(871)
- Faculty Publications (156)
- May 2021
- Case
The International Space Station, Principal-Agent Problems, and NASA's Quest to Keep Humans in Space
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Mehak Sarang
In building the International Space Station (ISS), NASA opened the door to the development of a robust in-space economy in low-Earth Orbit, and yet the decision to build the station, and continue to extend its lifetime, placed a huge burden on NASA’s Human Spaceflight... View Details
- February 2021
- Background Note
Jobs to Be Done: A Toolbox
By: Derek C. M. van Bever, Bob Moesta, Iuliana Mogosanu, Shaye Roseman and Katie Zandbergen
The Jobs to Be Done methodology is both a theory and a practical approach for understanding customer behavior and why people make the choices they make. Many practitioners, whether they work for startups or incumbent businesses, find Jobs to Be Done useful because it... View Details
- January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Technical Note
Strategy and Strategic Thinking
This note gives managers a concrete perspective on what ‘a strategy’ really is, what makes a decision ‘strategic,’ and what ‘strategic thinking’ means. It also gives them practical frameworks to assess whether some set of decisions is really a strategy and how to... View Details
- January 2021
- Case
The FIRE Savings Calculator
By: Michael Parzen and Paul Hamilton
This case follows Carol Muñoz, a member of the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) lifestyle movement. At the age of 45, Carol is considering retiring and living off the $1 million she has accumulated. Using Monte Carlo simulation, Carol forecasts the... View Details
- Winter 2021
- Article
Dealmaking Disrupted: The Unexplored Power of Social Media in Negotiation
By: James K. Sebenius, Ben Cook, David A. Lax, Isaac Silberberg and Paul Levy
While social media has had profound effects in many realms, the theory and practice of negotiation have remained relatively untouched by this potent phenomenon. In this article, we survey existing research in this area and develop a broader framework for understanding... View Details
- December 2020 (Revised December 2022)
- Case
The Dance of Dharma: On the Difficulty of Being Good
By: Arthur I. Segel and Tyler M. Richard
When deciding how to be good and act well, we often seek outside help. Many of our oldest and most frequently consulted sources of ethical guidance are our religious traditions. Just as one might consult a thoughtful friend, countless people seek direction from their... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 3 Transaction Free Zones
In Chapter 2 we saw that the most economical locations for transactions in a task network are the so-called thin crossing points—places where transfers are easy to define, count and pay for. However, in many places in the task network, transfers of material, energy,... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
On the Representativeness of Voter Turnout
By: Louis Kaplow and Scott Duke Kominers
Prominent theory research on voting uses models in which expected pivotality drives voters' turnout decisions and hence determines voting outcomes. It is recognized, however, that such work is at odds with Downs's paradox: in practice, many individuals turn out for... View Details
- November 2019
- Supplement
Hapag-Lloyd AG: Complying with IMO 2020
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej and Emer Moloney
A new environmental regulation known as IMO 2020 was creating what one industry analyst called “the biggest shakeup for the oil and shipping industries in decades.” According to the new regulation, all ocean-going ships would have to limit their sulfur emissions by... View Details
- November 2019
- Case
Hapag-Lloyd AG: Complying with IMO 2020
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej and Emer Moloney
A new environmental regulation known as IMO 2020 was creating what one industry analyst called “the biggest shakeup for the oil and shipping industries in decades.” According to the new regulation, all ocean-going ships would have to limit their sulfur emissions by... View Details
- August 2019
- Teaching Note
Back to the Roots
By: Elizabeth A. Keenan and Leslie K. John
Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.
This Teaching Note explains the theory of the case and teaching plan for the case: Back to the Roots HBS case No. 518-073. Back to the Roots (BTTR) is a start-up with a... View Details
This Teaching Note explains the theory of the case and teaching plan for the case: Back to the Roots HBS case No. 518-073. Back to the Roots (BTTR) is a start-up with a... View Details
- 2019
- Article
Can Big Data Improve Firm Decision Quality? The Role of Data Quality and Data Diagnosticity
By: Maryam Ghasemaghaei and Goran Calic
Anecdotal evidence suggests that, despite the large variety of data, the huge volume of generated data, and the fast velocity of obtaining data (i.e., big data), quality of big data is far from perfect. Therefore, many firms defer collecting and integrating big data as... View Details
- Article
Optimality Bias in Moral Judgment
By: Julian De Freitas and Samuel G.B. Johnson
We often make decisions with incomplete knowledge of their consequences. Might people nonetheless expect others to make optimal choices, despite this ignorance? Here, we show that people are sensitive to moral optimality: that people hold moral agents accountable... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Machine Learning for Pattern Discovery in Management Research
Supervised machine learning (ML) methods are a powerful toolkit for discovering robust patterns in quantitative data. The patterns identified by ML could be used as an observation for further inductive or abductive research, but should not be treated as the result of a... View Details
- Article
Raiffa Transformed the Field of Negotiation—and Me
By: Max Bazerman
Howard Raiffa was a role model, friend, and inspiration. He transformed the field of negotiation, and he transformed my career. This brief article provides a recollection of how Howard revolutionized the field of negotiation and how those insights are now affecting... View Details
- Article
The Effects of Media Slant on Firm Behavior
By: Vishal P. Baloria and Jonas Heese
The media can impose reputational costs on firms because of its important role as an information intermediary and its ability to negatively slant coverage. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment that holds constant the information event across firms, but varies the... View Details
- March 2018
- Teaching Note
ISRO: Explore Space or Exploit CubeSats?
ISRO, India’s space agency, established to address domestic challenges with space technology, is one of the six largest space agencies in the world. Through its 59 missions, ISRO has launched numerous satellites for communication, disaster management, navigation,... View Details
- February 2018
- Article
Maintaining Beliefs in the Face of Negative News: The Moderating Role of Experience
By: Bradley R. Staats, Diwas S. KC and F. Gino
Many models in operations management involve dynamic decision making that assumes optimal updating in response to information revelation. However, behavioral theory suggests that rather than updating their beliefs, individuals may persevere in their prior beliefs. In... View Details
- 2018
- Chapter
Transportation Cost and the Geography of Foreign Investment
By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Chen
Falling transportation costs and rapid technological progress in recent decades have precipitated an explosion of cross-border flows in goods, services, investments, and ideas led by multinational firms. Extensive research has sought to understand the geographic... View Details
- Article
Default Neglect in Attempts at Social Influence
By: Julian Zlatev, David P. Daniels, Hajin Kim and Margaret A. Neale
Current theories suggest that people understand how to exploit common biases to influence others. However, these predictions have received little empirical attention. We consider a widely studied bias with special policy relevance: the default effect, which is the... View Details