Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,791)
- Faculty Publications (362)
- 2017
- Working Paper
A Welfarist Role for Nonwelfarist Rules: An Example with Envy
I propose and formalize an argument for why economists working in the welfarist normative tradition should include nonwelfarist principles in how they judge economic policy. The key idea behind this argument is that the world is too complex, and our ability to model it... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised March 2020)
- Teaching Note
Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model
By: Feng Zhu
Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride, as opposed to the 20%–30%... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised July 2018)
- Case
United Airlines: More Out-and-Back Flying?
This case looks at United Airlines when it is facing a decision on whether to shift its aircraft routing to more "out-and-back" routing in order to try to improve its on-time performance. As one of the world's largest airlines, United had a very large fleet and... View Details
Keywords: Service Excellence; Service Management; Service Quality; Service Quality Competition; Services; Airline Industry; Airlines; Operational Complexity; Operational Disruptions; Operational Effectiveness; Operations Improvement; Operations Management; Operations Strategy; Air Transportation; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Improvement; Complexity; Air Transportation Industry; United States
- 2016
- Article
Peer-to-Peer Markets
By: Liran Einav, Chiara Farronato and Jonathan Levin
Peer-to-peer markets such as eBay, Uber, and Airbnb allow small suppliers to compete with traditional providers of goods or services. We view the primary function of these markets as making it easy for buyers to find sellers and engage in convenient, trustworthy... View Details
- September 2016
- Article
The Effect of Target Difficulty on Target Completion: The Case of Reducing Carbon Emissions
By: Ioannis Ioannou, Shelley Xin Li and George Serafeim
Targets are an integral component of management control systems and play a significant role in achieving desirable performance outcomes. We focus on a key environmental performance objective—reduction of carbon emissions—as a setting in which to examine how target... View Details
- May 2016 (Revised March 2020)
- Case
Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model
By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella
Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride as opposed to the 20-30%... View Details
- 2016
- Chapter
Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration
By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit and William R. Kerr
The propagation of macroeconomic shocks through input-output and geographic networks can be a powerful driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences, there is a specific pattern... View Details
- November 2015
- Article
Cannibalization and Option Value Effects of Secondary Markets: Evidence from the U.S. Concert Industry
By: Victor Manuel Bennett, Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu
We examine how reducing search frictions in secondary markets affects the value appropriated by firms in primary markets. We characterize two effects on primary market firms caused by intermediaries entering secondary markets: the "cannibalization" and "option value"... View Details
- October 2015
- Case
Facebook: The First Ten Years
By: Shane Greenstein, Marco Iansiti and Christine Snively
Facebook celebrated its ten year anniversary in February 2014. Over the past decade it has grown into the largest social network in the world with one billion users. After filing an IPO in 2012 at a $104 billion valuation (the third largest IPO in U.S. history), the... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Cohort Turnover and Operational Performance: The July Phenomenon in Teaching Hospitals
By: Hummy Song, Robert S. Huckman and Jason R. Barro
We consider the impact of cohort turnover—the planned simultaneous exit of a large number of experienced employees and a similarly sized entry of new workers—on operational performance in the context of teaching hospitals. Specifically, we examine the impact of the... View Details
- September–October 2015
- Article
Facts and Figuring: An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces
By: Jesse Shore, Ethan Bernstein and David Lazer
Using data from a novel laboratory experiment on complex problem solving in which we varied the structure of 16-person networks, we investigate how an organization's network structure shapes performance of problem-solving tasks. Problem solving, we argue, involves both... View Details
Keywords: Networks; Experiments; Clustering; Problem Solving; Exploration And Exploitation; Knowledge; Search; Collaboration; Collaboration Structures; Transparency; Communication; Communication Technology; Information; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance Effectiveness; Theory; Information Industry; Information Technology Industry; Public Administration Industry; Technology Industry; Service Industry
- 2016
- Working Paper
Through the Grapevine: Network Effects on the Design of Executive Compensation Contracts
By: Susanna Gallani
Effective design of executive compensation contracts involves choosing and weighting performance measures, as well as defining the mix between fixed and incentive-based pay components, with a view to fostering talent retention and goal congruence. The variability in... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration
By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit and William Kerr
The propagation of macroeconomic shocks through input-output and geographic networks can be a powerful driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences there is a specific pattern... View Details
- Article
How Local Context Shapes Digital Business Abroad
By: William R. Kerr
This article identifies how digital businesses need to be adapted to the local environment in which they are being applied. Core ideas include the development of strong barriers to entry, the types of network effects encountered, and the localization of business... View Details
- Article
Team Scaffolds: How Mesolevel Structures Enable Role-based Coordination in Temporary Groups
By: M. Valentine and A. C. Edmondson
This paper shows how meso-level structures support effective coordination in temporary groups. Prior research on coordination in temporary groups describes how roles encode individual responsibilities so that coordination between relative strangers is possible. We... View Details
- Article
Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization
By: Shoshana Zuboff
This article describes an emergent logic of accumulation in the networked sphere, 'surveillance capitalism,' and considers its implications for 'information civilization.' The institutionalizing practices and operational assumptions of Google Inc. are the... View Details
- April 2015
- Article
Incentivizing Calculated Risk-Taking: Evidence from an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers
By: Shawn Cole, Martin Kanz and Leora Klapper
This paper uses a series of experiments with commercial bank loan officers to test the effect of performance incentives on risk assessment and lending decisions. We first show that while high-powered incentives lead to greater screening effort and more profitable... View Details
- February 2015
- Article
'Open' Disclosure of Innovations, Incentives and Follow-on Reuse: Theory on Processes of Cumulative Innovation and a Field Experiment in Computational Biology
By: Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani
Most of society's innovation systems―academic science, the patent system, open source, etc.―are "open" in the sense that they are designed to facilitate knowledge disclosure among innovators. An essential difference across innovation systems is whether disclosure is of... View Details
- January 2015 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)
By: George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Shannon Gombos
The sustainable investing market was a recent phenomenon in the first decade of the 21st century. However, an increasing number of investors began to integrated Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues in investment decisions. At Barclays Capital, Omar Selim... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; ESG; Social Business; Entrepreneurs; Scaling; Emerging Market Entrepreneurship; Not For Profit; Entrepreneurial Finance; Mentoring; Business Networks; Hybrid Nonprofit Funding; Investing; Investment Management; Asset Management; Values and Beliefs; Religion; Personal Development and Career; Business Startups; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry; Europe; Germany; United Kingdom
- January 2015 (Revised April 2015)
- Case
Zeal: Launching Personalized and Social Learning
By: John J-H Kim and Christine S. An
Set in 2014, this case follows John Danner and his team at Zeal as they consider their product development strategy. In February 2013, serial entrepreneurs John Danner and Sanjay Noronha co-found Zeal, an education technology start up providing a web-based, mobile... View Details