Publications

March 27, 2017
Article

How the Water Industry Learned to Embrace Data

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Amir Peleg

Most current talk about “big data” seems to assume the disintermediation or replacement of physical assets by digital technologies. But a bigger and more impactful trend is the use of online tools to improve physical asset utilization in many traditional off-line... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Analytics and Data Science; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Utilities Industry

Register to Read

February 2011 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Product Development at OPOWER

By: Thomas Eisenmann and Rob Go

OPOWER, a software startup that helps utilities engage their customers in ways that reduce energy consumption, is scaling rapidly. The company's new head of product management has designed a system to address a point of constant tension: whether to build custom... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Customer Relationship Management; Entrepreneurship; Growth Management; Product Development; Sales; Customization and Personalization; Energy Conservation; Environmental Sustainability; Information Technology Industry; Utilities Industry

April 2001 (Revised March 2003)
Background Note

Web and IT Hosting Facilities: Technology Note

Introduces students to the data centers where IT infrastructure is increasingly physically housed. These centralized hosting facilities represent in the information age the equivalent of power utilities in the industrial age. Students are introduced to issues of... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Information Technology; Infrastructure; Web Services Industry

July 1999
Background Note

Note on Statistical Tests for a Randomized Matched Pair Experimental Design, A

By: Alvin J. Silk

Concerns understanding the conditions under which an experimental design that employs matching and randomization may result in gains in precision as compared to a design that utilizes randomization and independent samples--i.e., no matching. An empirical example is... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Performance Efficiency; Mathematical Methods

Article

Experience Theory, or How Desserts Are Like Losses

By: Jolie M. Martin, Martin Reimann and Michael I. Norton

While many experiments have explored risk preferences for money, few have systematically assessed risk preferences for everyday experiences. We propose a conceptual model and provide convergent evidence from seven experiments that, in contrast to a typical “zero”... View Details

Keywords: Experiences; Monetary Gambles; Risk Preferences; Experience Theory; Risk and Uncertainty; Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions

December 2007
Article

Fair (and Not So Fair) Division

By: John W. Pratt

Drawbacks of existing procedures are illustrated and a method of efficient fair division is proposed that avoids them. Given additive participants' utilities, each item is priced at the geometric mean (or some other function) of its two highest valuations. The... View Details

Keywords: Price; Management Practices and Processes; Valuation

June 1995 (Revised February 1998)
Case

Welsh Water (A): General Information

This is a four-player negotiation simulation in which a newly-privatized British water utility must deal with contentious unions and national collective-bargaining agreements. Explores the question of coalitions and multi-lateral negotiations, and the value of... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Privatization; Labor Unions; Utilities Industry; Wales

2022
Working Paper

Machine Learning Models for Prediction of Scope 3 Carbon Emissions

By: George Serafeim and Gladys Vélez Caicedo

For most organizations, the vast amount of carbon emissions occur in their supply chain and in the post-sale processing, usage, and end of life treatment of a product, collectively labelled scope 3 emissions. In this paper, we train machine learning algorithms on 15... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Climate Change; Environment; Carbon Accounting; Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence; Digital; Data Science; Environmental Sustainability; Environmental Management; Environmental Accounting

SSRN

July 16, 2016
Article

A Game Theoretic Model for Resource Allocation Among Countermeasures with Multiple Attributes

By: Elisabeth C. Paulson, Igor Linkov and Jeffrey Keisler

We study a strategic, two-player, sequential game between an attacker and defender. The defender must allocate resources amongst possible countermeasures and across possible targets. The attacker then chooses a type of threat and a target to attack. This paper proposes... View Details

Keywords: Resource Allocation; Game Theory; Strategy

October 1996
Article

Assessing the Work Environment for Creativity

By: T. M. Amabile, R. Conti, H. Coon, J. Lazenby and M. Herron

We describe the development and validation of a new instrument, KEYS: Assessing the Climate for Creativity, designed to assess perceived stimulants and obstacles to creativity in organizational work environments. The KEYS scales have acceptable factor structures,... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Culture; Innovation and Invention; Groups and Teams; Performance; Research; Theory

August 2017 (Revised December 2017)
Case

Accounting for Nuclear Power Provisions at RWE

By: Paul Healy and Jonas Heese

In early 2016, RWE, a utility that operates nuclear power plants in Germany, came under scrutiny from regulators and the media over the adequacy of its provisions for costs of decommissioning and dismantling (D&D) its nuclear power plants. Accounting standards required... View Details

Keywords: Liabilities; Provisions For Long-term Obligations; Discounting; Accounting; Energy Generation; Energy Industry; Germany

July 1990 (Revised August 1994)
Case

U.S. Auto Industry: Scenarios and Choices for the 1990s

By: Malcolm S. Salter

Asks students to prepare a capacity utilization scenario for the U.S. auto industry in 1992 and to propose proper courses of action for Ford and General Motors in the face of globalizing competition. The subject is "corporate strategy in an overcapacitized world."... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Business or Company Management; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Auto Industry; United States

April 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Maersk: Betting on Blockchain

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

In March 2018, international shipping giant Maersk is getting ready to debut a trade digitization platform. Maersk hopes the platform will help streamline global trade since shipping goods internationally is an extraordinarily complicated and inefficient process.... View Details

Keywords: Maersk; IBM; Blockchain; Shipping; Shipping Line; Trade; Bitcoin; Digitization; Container Shipping; Joint Ventures; Ship Transportation; Transportation Networks; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Applications and Software; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry

Research Summary

Working Hard and Investing for an Early Retirement

I examine consumption, leisure, and portfolio choices made over the life-cycle using a model allowing for semi-flexible leisure and an endogenously chosen retirement date. Under a Cobb-Douglas utility specification, I present closed-form expressions for optimal... View Details

Winter 2014
Article

Retail Inventory: Managing the Canary in the Coal Mine!

By: Vishal Gaur, Saravanan Kesavan and Ananth Raman

Retail inventory is a statistic that is closely watched by retailers as well as their investors, lenders, and suppliers. Retailers not only benefit from inventory, but also bear the cost of excess inventory. Investors, lenders, and suppliers interpret this statistic... View Details

Keywords: Financial Condition; Retail Industry

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Israeli utilizes econometric methods and field experiments to study pricing and channel management. Her current research examines how the prevalence of the online channel affects both the interactions between manufacturers and their downstream channel... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Pricing Policies; Channel Management; Online Marketing; Online Retail; Field Experiment; Analytics; Econometric Analysis

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Israeli utilizes econometric methods and field experiments to study pricing and channel management. Her current research examines how the prevalence of the online channel affects both the interactions between manufacturers and their downstream channel... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Pricing Policies; Channel Management; Online Marketing; Online Retail; Field Experiment; Analytics; Econometric Analysis

Research Summary

The Economics of Search

Utilizing data on web searches, we characterize the economics of search and estimate the path of diffusion for information, allowing us to specify how choice sets are actually formed among consumers and examine the impact of cybergeography vs. spatial geography. Joint... View Details

March 2012
Article

How Early Adoption Has Increased Wealth--Until Now

By: Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn

Societies that are better at utilizing tools are likely to be more productive. The authors have studied when 161 countries adopted 104 technologies over the past 200 years, and they conclude that profound economic advantages-as measured by per capita income-accrue to... View Details

Keywords: Technology Adoption; Wealth; Development Economics; Performance Productivity; Competitive Advantage