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- 2025
- Working Paper
Emotional Manipulation by AI Companions
By: Julian De Freitas, Zeliha Oğuz-Uğuralp and Ahmet Kaan-Uğuralp
AI-companion apps such as Replika, Chai, and Character.ai promise relational benefits—yet many boast session lengths that rival gaming platforms while suffering high long-run churn. What conversational design features increase consumer engagement, and what trade-offs... View Details
- August 2025
- Case
Meta and the Superintelligence Talent Race
By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott
In June 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg upped the ante in the ongoing AI talent wars. Some analysts praised Zuckerberg’s aggressive approach to building Meta's AI capabilities, while others pointed to the high costs this strategy entailed and questioned how effectively... View Details
Keywords: AI; Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Talent Acquisition; Hiring; Technology; Metaverse; Competition; Compensation; Innovation; Talent Development; Competing To Win; Competitive Dynamics; AI and Machine Learning; Talent and Talent Management; Recruitment; Compensation and Benefits; Competency and Skills; Competitive Strategy; Technological Innovation; Technology Industry
- 2025
- Article
Difference-in-Differences Subset Scan
By: Will Stamey, Sriram Somanchi and Edward McFowland III
Difference-in-differences (DiD) has been extensively applied in the literature to elicit the average causal effect of an intervention or policy. Though researchers explore heterogeneity in the treatment effect with respect to time or some observed covariate (usually... View Details
- Working Paper
New Economic Forces Behind the Value Distribution of Innovation
By: Timothy F. Bresnahan, Shane Greenstein and Pai-Ling Yin
Advances in a general-purpose technology (GPT) enable many firms to invent complementary inventions, or co-inventions, making the GPT more valuable. This study examines the empirical implications of a straightforward model in which firms choose either incremental or... View Details
- July 2025
- Case
Elon Musk, 2025: The Master of Big Bets?
By: David B. Yoffie
This case explores Elon Musk’s influence across business and politics in 2025, as he navigates the challenges of simultaneously leading multiple companies, such as Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, while briefly serving in the U.S. government. It examines Musk’s high-stakes bets... View Details
- Article
Using Gen AI for Early-Stage Market Research
By: James Brand, Ayelet Israeli and Donald Ngwe
Generative AI, particularly large language models (LLMs), offers a promising new tool for early-stage market research by simulating customer responses to product concepts. This can allow companies to draw conclusions similar to those they’d obtain by surveying... View Details
- July 2025
- Case
Osteoboost: Go-To-Market Strategy in a Healthcare Startup
Osteoboost focuses on how a health care Medtech startup with a new device for treating osteopenia. The firm decides among alternative go-to-market strategies, including B2B (the firm to healthcare providers), DTC (directly to consumers), or some combination of the two... View Details
- June 2025
- Case
AI Wars in 2025
By: Andy Wu and Anna Yang
In June 2025, Google leaders in Mountain View, CA convened after its parent company Alphabet shed a quarter-trillion in market capitalization in a matter of months. The immediate spark—the quiet revelation that Google searches had dipped for the first time in 20... View Details
- June 2025
- Case
Scale AI Scales Up
By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott
Scale AI, the data labeling and AI infrastructure company, had grown rapidly since it was founded in 2016; however, as Scale’s generative AI business was taking off, Alexandr Wang, Scale’s founder and CEO, became concerned that Scale was slowing down. Wang and the... View Details
Keywords: Technology And Innovation Management; Entrepreneur; Managing Growth; Hiring; Generative Ai; Data Labeling; Scale; AI and Machine Learning; Entrepreneurship; Talent and Talent Management; Growth Management; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Business Startups; Selection and Staffing; Technology Industry; United States
- June 2025
- Article
Ideation with Generative AI—In Consumer Research and Beyond
By: Julian De Freitas, G. Nave and Stefano Puntoni
The use of large language models (LLMs) in consumer research is rapidly evolving, with applications including synthetic data generation, data analysis, and more. However, their role in creative ideation—a cornerstone of consumer research—remains underexplored. Drawing... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Trade and Industrial Policy in Supply Chains: Directed Technological Change in Rare Earths
By: Laura Alfaro, Harald Fadinger, Jay Schymik and Gede Virananda
Trade and industrial policies, while primarily intended to support domestic industries, may unintentionally stimulate technological progress abroad. We document this mechanism in the case of rare earth elements (REEs)—critical inputs for manufacturing at the knowledge... View Details
- May 2025
- Case
'Net Zero in Action': Impact Investing at the McKnight Foundation
By: Lauren Cohen, Christina R. Wing and Sophia Pan
Elizabeth McGeveran, Vice President of Investments at the McKnight Foundation, reflected on how to effectively advance the organization’s net-zero strategy. The foundation had committed 10% of its endowment to building a portfolio of impact investments and was among... View Details
Keywords: Foundation; Impact Investing; ESG; Family Business; Forecasting and Prediction; Private Sector; Renewable Energy; Social Entrepreneurship; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Institutional Investing; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Private Ownership; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Social Issues; Sustainable Cities; Financial Services Industry; Minnesota; United States
- Working Paper
Shifting Work Patterns with Generative AI
By: Eleanor W. Dillon, Sonia Jaffe, Nicole Immorlica and Christopher T. Stanton
We present evidence on how generative AI changes the work patterns of knowledge workers using
data from a 6-month-long, cross-industry, randomized field experiment. Half of the 7,137 workers
in the study received access to a generative AI tool integrated into the... View Details
- May 2025 (Revised July 2025)
- Case
The Video-Streaming Wars in 2025: Can Anyone Catch Netflix?
By: Anita Elberse and Javiera Larenas
On January 21, 2025, Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive officer of video-streaming service Netflix, presented the company’s quarterly earnings. He had every reason to be upbeat: Netflix added 19 million new subscribers in the final quarter of 2024, ended the year with a... View Details
- 2024
- Case
EPCorp: Convincing the C-Suite
By: Jacob M. Cook
In EPCorp: Convincing the C-Suite, Shivani Bahl is attempting to sell EPCorp's CEO, Debbie Sullivan, on her ideas for not only a new website upgrade but also a more expansive vision on how data and Generative AI can be used to grow the company. Debbie is understandably... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Race, Rental Yields, and Housing Decay in Manhattan
By: Tom Nicholas and Christophe Spaenjers
We develop a new dataset on real estate transactions in Manhattan (1912–1939), linked to federal Census records (1930 and 1940) and property images used for tax assessment purposes (around 1940 and 1980). We analyze investor returns and incentives to maintain... View Details
- May–June 2025
- Article
Slowly Varying Regression Under Sparsity
By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Vassilis Digalakis Jr, Michael Lingzhi Li and Omar Skali Lami
We consider the problem of parameter estimation in slowly varying regression models with sparsity constraints. We formulate the problem as a mixed integer optimization problem and demonstrate that it can be reformulated exactly as a binary convex optimization problem... View Details
- May 2025
- Case
Windsurf and the AI Code Assistant Market
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Sudhanshu Nath Mishra and Radhika Kak
In April 2025, the founding team of Windsurf, an AI start-up specializing in code generation gathered in Mountain View, California, to assess its remarkable year of growth. The company had scaled from a niche GitHub Copilot alternative to a breakout player with over... View Details
- April 2025 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
Adobe: GenAI Opportunity or Threat?
By: Sunil Gupta, Rajiv Lal and Allison Ciechanover
In December 2022, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen faced a pivotal strategic decision due to the rapid rise of generative AI image models from OpenAI, Midjourney, and StabilityAI. Adobe, a leader in digital media and marketing software with a 40-year legacy of innovation and... View Details
- April 2025
- Case
Lisa Su and AMD (A)
By: Joshua D. Margolis, Matthew Preble and Dave Habeeb
This multimedia case study focuses on CEO Lisa Su’s turnaround and subsequent transformation of the technology company Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD). When Su accepted the top position in 2014, AMD was on the verge of collapse. Su focused on the company’s culture,... View Details
Keywords: Turnaround; Change Management; Transformation; Decision Making; Globalized Markets and Industries; Government and Politics; AI and Machine Learning; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Innovation Leadership; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Management; Product Design; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Strategic Planning; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Research and Development; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Semiconductor Industry; Computer Industry; United States; California; Texas