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Article

Fighting Bias on the Front Lines

By: Alexandra C. Feldberg and Tami Kim

Most companies aim for exceptional customer service, but too few are attentive to the subtle discrimination by frontline employees that can alienate customers, lead to lawsuits, or even cause lasting brand damage by going viral.
This article presents research... View Details

Keywords: Customer Service; Customer Focus and Relationships; Service Delivery; Diversity; Prejudice and Bias; Organizational Change and Adaptation

2021
Conference Presentation

An Algorithmic Framework for Fairness Elicitation

By: Christopher Jung, Michael J. Kearns, Seth Neel, Aaron Leon Roth, Logan Stapleton and Zhiwei Steven Wu

We consider settings in which the right notion of fairness is not captured by simple mathematical definitions (such as equality of error rates across groups), but might be more complex and nuanced and thus require elicitation from individual or collective stakeholders.... View Details

Keywords: Algorithmic Fairness; Machine Learning; Fairness; Framework; Mathematical Methods

2020
Working Paper

What Can Economics Say About Alzheimer's Disease?

By: Amitabh Chandra, Courtney Coile and Corina Mommaerts

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) affects one in ten people aged 65 or older and is the most expensive disease in the United States. We describe the central economic questions raised by AD. While there is overlap with the economics of aging, the defining features of the... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Economics

2010
Article

I May Not Agree With You, but I Trust You: Caring About Social Issues Signals Integrity

By: Julian Zlatev

What characteristics of an individual signal trustworthiness to other people? I propose that individuals who care about contentious social issues signal to observers that they have integrity and thus can be trusted. Critically, this signal conveys trustworthiness... View Details

Keywords: Personal Characteristics; Moral Sensibility; Perception; Trust

July 2016
Article

Do Prices Determine Vertical Integration?

By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Harald Fadinger and Andrew F. Newman

What is the relationship between product prices and vertical integration? While the literature has focused on how integration affects prices, this paper provides evidence that prices can affect integration. Many theories in organizational economics and industrial... View Details

Keywords: Price; Vertical Integration; Product

2014
Working Paper

Islam, Inequality, and Pre-Industrial Comparative Development

By: Stelios Michalopoulos, Alireza Naghavi and Giovanni Prarolo

This study explores the interaction between trade and geography in shaping the Islamic economic doctrine and in turn the comparative development of the Muslim world. We build a model where an unequal distribution of land quality in presence of trade opportunities... View Details

Keywords: Islam; Inequality In Land Quality; Wealth Accumulation; Public Good Investment; Conflict; Wealth; Geography; Religion; Trade

May 2011 (Revised January 2012)
Supplement

OPOWER: Increasing Energy Efficiency through Normative Influence (B)

By: Maarten W. Bos, Amy J.C. Cuddy and Kyle Todd Doherty

The case profiles OPOWER, an energy efficiency software company that applies Cialdini's principles of social influence to successfully encourage consumers to reduce their energy usage. OPOWER was co-founded in 2008 by two young Harvard graduates, Dan Yates and Alex... View Details

Keywords: Energy Conservation

Forthcoming
Chapter

Racism, Causal Explanations, and Affirmative Action

By: Theresa K. Vescio, Amy Cuddy, Faye Crosby and Kevin Weaver

BOOK ABSTRACT: In recent decades, research in political psychology has illuminated the psychological processes underlying important political action, both by ordinary citizens and by political leaders. As the world has become increasingly engaged in thinking about... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Race; Complexity

February 2000
Case

E2M Health Services

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer and Naomi Atkins

Outlines the growth of an innovative diabetes disease management organization from 1994-99. Having demonstrated the success of their model in managing diabetes populations in Texas and New York State, the CEO and president must decide the future strategy of the company... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Markets; Revenue; Innovation and Invention; Business or Company Management; Marketing Strategy; Internet; Health Industry

Educators

Personal selling represents one of the most important elements in the marketing mix, and appropriate management of the sales force is vital to achieving the organization’s objectives. Among the various instruments of sales management, compensation plays a pivotal... View Details

24 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

Passion at Work Is a Good Thing—But Only If Bosses Know How to Manage It

growing. Indeed, the appearance of the word “passion” in US job listings increased nearly tenfold from 2007 to 2019, according to the study, published in Research in Organizational Behavior by HBS assistant professor Jon M. Jachimowicz... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

01 Dec 2023
News

Endless Possibilities

Faye Iosotaluno (MBA 2008) met her husband through friends when she was only 19 years old. It was 1999, and the mobile-first app Tinder—which launched in 2012 and where Iosotaluno is currently COO—was not even a distant glimmer on the dating horizon. While the app... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

18 Jul 2023
News

The First Five Years: Brooke Biederman (MBA 2019)

What inspired you to launch Forby Entertainment Partners? I started working on film and TV shoots in New York City during college. My first boss, an executive producer, recommended Edward Jay Epstein’s book, The Hollywood Economist: The Hidden Financial Reality Behind... View Details

Keywords: Robert Bochnak

Rajiv Lal

Rajiv Lal, is the Stanley Roth, Sr. Professor of Retailing at Harvard Business School. He is currently teaching an elective MBA course on the Business of Smart Connected Products/IOT. He has been responsible for the retailing curriculum and has served as the course... View Details

April 2024
Article

Detecting Routines: Applications to Ridesharing CRM

By: Ryan Dew, Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer and Nachum Sicherman

Routines shape many aspects of day-to-day consumption. While prior work has established the importance of habits in consumer behavior, little work has been done to understand the implications of routines—which we define as repeated behaviors with recurring, temporal... View Details

Keywords: Ride-sharing; Routine; Machine Learning; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Segmentation

Web

Privacy Notice | About

performing marketing, promotions and advertising, either directly or through third-parties. These activities may include interest-based advertising, targeted advertising and online behavioral advertising in order to increase the... View Details

2008
Working Paper

Etiquette and Process Puzzles of Negotiating Business in China: A Questionnaire

By: James K. Sebenius and Cheng (Jason) Qian

Cultural differences can affect negotiations in many ways, from influencing the basic motivations and perceptions of the players to guiding the surface aspects, such as etiquette, protocol, and process, of business interactions. Navigating the challenges of these... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governance; Questionnaires; Negotiation Process; Behavior; China