Publications

April 2021
Article

The Effects of Quota Frequency: Sales Performance and Product Focus

By: Doug J. Chung, Das Narayandas and Dongkyu Chang

This study investigates the comprehensive and multidimensional effects of quota (goal) frequency on sales force performance. We develop a theory of salespeople’s behavior—aggregate effort and the product type focus—in response to the temporal length of a sales-quota... View Details

Keywords: Sales Force Compensation; Field Experiment; Quotas; Quota Frequency; Commissions; Bonuses; Goals; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Goals and Objectives; Behavior; Performance

May–June 2019
Article

U-Shaped Conformity in Online Social Networks

By: Monic Sun, Michael Zhang and Feng Zhu

We explore how people balance their needs to belong and to be different from their friends by studying their choices of a virtual-house wall color on a leading Chinese social-networking site. The setting enables us to randomize both the popular color and the adoption... View Details

Keywords: Conformity; Normative Social Influence; Social Networks; Field Experiment; Social and Collaborative Networks; Behavior; Attitudes; Social Media

November–December 2023
Article

Iterative Coordination and Innovation: Prioritizing Value over Novelty

By: Sourobh Ghosh and Andy Wu

An innovating organization faces the challenge of how to prioritize distinct goals of novelty and value, both of which underlie innovation. Popular practitioner frameworks like Agile management suggest that organizations can adopt an iterative approach of frequent... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Novelty; Goals; Specialization; Coordination; Field Experiment; Software Development; Agile; Scrum; Iteration; Iterative; Organizations; Innovation and Invention; Value; Goals and Objectives; Integration; Applications and Software

Research Summary

Overview

By: Ayelet Israeli

Professor Israeli utilizes econometric methods and field experiments to study data driven decision making in marketing context. Her research focuses on data-driven marketing, with an emphasis on how businesses can leverage their own data, customer data, and market data... View Details

Keywords: Channel Management; Pricing; Pricing Policies; Online Marketing; E-commerce; Analytics; Econometrics; Field Experiments; Data Analytics; Artificial Intelligence; Value Of Data

30 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Donors Are Turned Off by Overhead Costs. Here’s What Charities Can Do

as a doctoral student at the University of California, San Diego, where she conducted a series of laboratory and field experiments with UCSD’s Uri Gneezy, a professor of economics and strategy, and Ayelet Gneezy, an associate professor of... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

Research Summary

Personal Selling and Sales Management

By: Das Narayandas

Das is currently investigating benchmark practices in personal selling and sales management across a variety of industries. He is also conducting field studies to understand how firms are leveraging interactive technologies to support their field sales efforts. View Details

September–October 2020
Article

The Air War Versus the Ground Game: An Analysis of Multi-Channel Marketing in U.S. Presidential Elections

By: Lingling Zhang and Doug J. Chung

This study jointly examines the effects of television advertising and field operations in U.S. presidential elections, with the former referred to as the “air war” and the latter as the “ground game.” Specifically, the study focuses on how different campaign... View Details

Keywords: Multi-channel Marketing; Ground Campaigning; Political Campaigns; Discrete-choice Model; Instrumental Variables; Political Elections; Marketing Channels; Advertising; United States

06 Aug 2014
Research & Ideas

Climbing Down from the Ivory Tower

entirely on faraway academics and organizations to solve local problems. This frustrates Ashraf, who for more than a decade has studied behavioral economics in the context of developing countries. She believes that global health... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education; Health

10 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

The Hard Numbers on Social Investments

In what is believed to be the largest study of its kind, MBA students at Harvard Business School recently analyzed the financial returns generated by 110 early-stage companies backed by Investors' Circle, a national network dedicated to... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

Research Summary

Women's Empowerment

"Female Empowerment: Further Evidence From a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines." (with Dean Karlan and Wesley Yin) April 2009, World Development 38, Issue 3, March... View Details

June 2002 (Revised October 2004)
Case

Entropia (A)

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Sameer Ahuja and Jason Tepperman

The Entropia management team and a Harvard Business School field study team look for applications for "grid computing" in the financial services industry, identifying a "go-to-market" plan for this new technology. View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Business Strategy; Financial Services Industry

Educators

Purchase

03 Mar 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Nominal and Opportunity Effects of Managerial Discretion

Keywords: by Wei Cai, Susanna Gallani, and Jee Eun Shin

December 2022
Article

The Rise of People Analytics and the Future of Organizational Research

By: Jeff Polzer

Organizations are transforming as they adopt new technologies and use new sources of data, changing the experiences of employees and pushing organizational researchers to respond. As employees perform their daily activities, they generate vast digital data. These data,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Analytics and Data Science; Technology Adoption; Employees

Research Summary

Overview

My current research focuses on the role of AI in shaping organizational knowledge production, learning, and innovation processes. I run field experiments to study early-stage idea generation and evaluation in entrepreneurial context. View Details

Keywords: Technology And Innovation Management; Entrepreneurship And Strategy; Nascent Industries; Natural Language Processing

Research Summary

Intra-Household Decision Making

Professor Ashraf's research in intra-household decision making examines how households make financial and health decisions, particularly in the presence of asymmetric information or benefits.

"View Details

2010
Book

Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice

By: Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana

The study of leadership suffers intellectual neglect and has yet to be considered a serious academic discipline. And though the mission statements of most business schools profess to "develop leaders who make a difference in the world," these same schools produce... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Interdisciplinary Studies; Leadership; Practice; Research; Theory