Publications

2011
Other Unpublished Work

Networks as Covers: Evidence from On-Line Social Networks

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Sociologists have extensively documented that networks influence market exchange through improved matching and vouching. In this paper, I propose that networks can also blunt the signal of market participation, as actors who are on the market surrounded by their... View Details

Keywords: Job Search; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Market Participation; Market Transactions; Social and Collaborative Networks; Online Technology

13 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 13

intrinsic motivation for the cause and by facilitating social comparison among agents. Third, contrary to existing laboratory evidence, financial incentives do not crowd out intrinsic motivation in this... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Supplement

SA Taxi: A Vehicle for Empowerment? (B)

By: Nien-he Hsieh, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and F. Christopher Eaglin

SA Taxi was a vertically integrated business that operated in South Africa’s distinctive taxi industry. Despite being plagued by violence, informal structures, unsafe road practices and lack of government support, the taxi industry had grown to become South Africa’s... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Accountability; Ownership; Ownership Stake; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Equality and Inequality; Race; Situation or Environment; Transportation Industry; South Africa; Africa

2020
Working Paper

No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm

By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo

How do firms pair workers with managers, and which constraints affect the allocation of labor within the firm? We characterize the sorting pattern of managers to workers in a large readymade garment manufacturer in India and then explore potential drivers of the... View Details

Keywords: Assortative Matching; Productivity; Global Buyers; Readymade Garments; Management; Employees; Performance Productivity

Article

Experiments in Open Innovation at Harvard Medical School

By: Eva C. Guinan, Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

Harvard Medical School seems an unlikely organization to open up its innovation process. By most measures, the more than 20,000 faculty, research staff and graduate students affiliated with Harvard Medical School are already world class and at the top of the medical... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Boston

2010
Working Paper

Venture Capital Investment in the Clean Energy Sector

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Ramana Nanda

We examine the extent to which venture capital is adequately positioned for the rapid commercialization of clean energy technologies in the United States. While there are several startups in clean energy that are well-suited to the traditional venture capital... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Energy Generation; Venture Capital; Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Technological Innovation; Competition; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States

January 2010 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Savage Beast (A1)

By: Noam Wasserman and LP Maurice

For several months, things had been spiraling downwards at Savage Beast, the music-recommendation company started three years before by Tim Westergren. The company's founder-CEO recently left due to pressures both at home and within the venture. Dozens of investors... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Lawsuits and Litigation; Management Teams; Partners and Partnerships

09 Sep 2015
HBS Seminar

Judith A. Chevalier, Yale University

Research Summary

A Temporal View of the Costs and Benefits of Self-Deception

Researchers have documented many cases in which individuals rationalize their regrettable actions. Four experiments examine situations in which participants go beyond merely explaining away their misconduct to actively deceiving themselves. We find that those who... View Details

Article

Men as Cultural Ideals: Cultural Values Moderate Gender Stereotype Content.

By: Amy Cuddy, Elizabeth Baily Wolf, Peter Glick, Susan Crotty, Jihye Chong and Michael I. Norton

Four studies tested whether cultural values moderate the content of gender stereotypes, such that male stereotypes more closely align with core cultural values (specifically, individualism vs. collectivism) than do female stereotypes. In Studies 1 and 2, using... View Details

Keywords: Gender Stereotypes; Stereotype Content; Individualism; Collectivism; Prejudice and Bias; Values and Beliefs; Culture; Gender

January 2015
Article

Poker-faced Morality: Concealing Emotions Leads to Utilitarian Decision Making

By: Jooa Julia Lee and F. Gino

This paper examines how making deliberate efforts to regulate aversive affective responses influences people's decisions in moral dilemmas. We hypothesize that emotion regulation—mainly suppression and reappraisal—will encourage utilitarian choices in emotionally... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Moral Sensibility; Emotions

March 2016
Article

To Groupon or Not to Groupon: The Profitability of Deep Discounts

By: Benjamin Edelman, Sonia Jaffe and Scott Duke Kominers

We examine the profitability and implications of online discount vouchers, a relatively new marketing tool that offers consumers large discounts when they prepay for participating firms' goods and services. Within a model of repeat experience good purchase, we examine... View Details

Keywords: Voucher Discounts; Groupon; Experience Goods; Repeat Purchase; Internet and the Web; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications

May 2012 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Wikipedia: Project Esperanza

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Andreea Gorbatai and Tiona Zuzul

In October 2006, Wikipedia was the largest volunteer-run on-line encyclopedia which could be freely read and edited by anyone with internet access. Within almost six years of its founding in 2001, the project had attracted hundreds of thousands of editors who had... View Details

Keywords: Web-enabled Application; Internet; Information Publishing; Social and Collaborative Networks; Groups and Teams; Publishing Industry; United States

May 2011
Case

Baria Planning Solutions, Inc.: Fixing the Sales Process

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and William Schmidt

Baria Planning Solutions (BPS) is a consulting firm that specializes in using spend analysis to help companies identify savings through reduced procurement costs and improved supplier performance. Management is concerned about the disappointing performance of the sales... View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Analysis; Technology; Operations Management; Product Lines; Manufacturing; Capacity Planning; Production Planning; Production; Management Practices and Processes; Service Operations; Supply Chain Management; Salesforce Management; Planning; Consulting Industry; North and Central America

2014
Working Paper

~To Groupon or Not to Groupon: The Profitability of Deep Discounts

By: Benjamin G. Edelman

We examine the profitability and implications of online discount vouchers, a relatively new marketing tool that offers consumers large discounts when they prepay for participating firms' goods and services. Within a model of repeat experience good purchase, we examine... View Details

Keywords: Voucher Discounts; Groupon; Experience Goods; Repeat Purchase; Online Advertising; Price; Profit; Marketing Strategy; Retail Industry

SSRN

September 2010
Article

How Firms Respond to Being Rated

By: Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel

While many rating systems seek to help buyers overcome information asymmetries when making purchasing decisions, we investigate how these ratings also influence the companies being rated. We hypothesize that ratings are particularly likely to spur responses from firms... View Details

Keywords: System; Information; Decisions; Cost; Opportunities; Performance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Economics; Theory; System Shocks; Rank and Position