Publications

December 2022
Article

Shaping Nascent Industries: Innovation Strategy and Regulatory Uncertainty in Personal Genomics

By: Cheng Gao and Rory McDonald

In nascent industries—whose new technologies are often poorly understood by regulators—contending with regulatory uncertainty can be crucial to organizational survival and growth. Prior research on nonmarket strategy has largely focused on established firms in mature... View Details

Keywords: Technological Change; Innovation; Qualitative Methods; New Categories; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategy

2019
Working Paper

Using Technology to Augment Professionals, Instead of Replacing Them, for Innovative Problem Solving

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf, Felicia Ng, Aniket Kittur and Robert Kraut

While in some technological and scientific areas innovation is flourishing, in others it is stalling, leaving important problems unsolved for decades. One explanation is professionals’ limitations as problem solvers, as accumulating depth of knowledge enhances one’s... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Expertise; Future Of Work; Crowdsourcing; Artificial Intelligence; Problem Solving; Professionalism; Experience and Expertise; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development

March 2022 (Revised January 2025)
Technical Note

Prediction & Machine Learning

By: Iavor I. Bojinov, Michael Parzen and Paul Hamilton

This note provides an introduction to machine learning for an introductory data science course. The note begins with a description of supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning. Then, the note provides a brief explanation of the difference between traditional... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Data Science; Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Performance Evaluation

Educators

March 2022 (Revised January 2025)
Technical Note

Statistical Inference

By: Iavor I. Bojinov, Michael Parzen and Paul Hamilton

This note provides an overview of statistical inference for an introductory data science course. First, the note discusses samples and populations. Next the note describes how to calculate confidence intervals for means and proportions. Then it walks through the logic... View Details

Keywords: Data Science; Statistics; Mathematical Modeling; Mathematical Methods; Analytics and Data Science

Educators

2007
Working Paper

I'll Have the Ice Cream Soon and the Vegetables Later: A Study of Online Grocery Purchases and Order Lead Time

By: Katherine L. Milkman, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman

How do decisions made for tomorrow or two days in the future differ from decisions made for several days in the future? We use data from an online grocer to address this question. In general, we find that as the delay between order completion and delivery increases,... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Food; Decision Choices and Conditions; Conflict and Resolution; Emotions; Cognition and Thinking; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

July 2019
Article

Using Behavioral Science to Inform the Design of Sugary Drink Portion Limit Policies: Reply to Wilson and Stolarz-Fantino (2018)

By: Leslie John, Grant E. Donnelly and Christina A. Roberto

In their commentary, Wilson & Stolarz-Fantino argue that specific design features of our research mean that it cannot have policy implications and that researchers “need to consider profit maximization in menu design or studies are likely to suggest ill-informed... View Details

Keywords: Policy Implementation; Food; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy

16 Dec 2011
Research & Ideas

Reintroducing Intellectual Ambition to the Study of Business History

business but also as a determinant of wealth and poverty, they will find a way back to becoming leading participants in the debates over the fundamental question of what makes an economy grow. 2. Innovation. Business historians have long... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones & Walter Friedman

Article

Paradise Lost (and Restored?): A Study of Psychological Safety over Time

By: Derrick P. Bransby, Michaela Kerrissey and Amy C. Edmondson

Although prior research indicates that psychological safety can fluctuate, questions about when and why remain. To gain insights into the emergence and temporal dynamics of psychological safety, we explored longitudinal data representing more than 10,000 health care... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Research; Attitudes; Working Conditions; Well-being; Health Industry

16 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Technology Alone Can't Solve AI's Bias Problem

out to test, along with HBS research assistant Tom Sühr and Harvard computer science doctoral student Sophie Hilgard, in research published last year in the Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

October 2015
Article

Case Study: Is a Promotion Worth Hiding Who You Are?

By: Karthik Ramanna

A manager decides whether he should hide his sexual orientation for an overseas assignment. View Details

Keywords: Case Studies; Career Advancement; Leadership Development; Globalization; Technology Industry; Korean Peninsula; United States

Register to Read

1 Apr 2005 - 4 Apr 2005
Conference Presentation

Exploring the Structure of Complex Software Designs: An Empirical Study of Open Source and Proprietary Code

By: Alan MacCormack

Keywords: Applications and Software; Product Design; Complexity

June 2022 (Revised January 2025)
Technical Note

Causal Inference

By: Iavor I Bojinov, Michael Parzen and Paul Hamilton

This note provides an overview of causal inference for an introductory data science course. First, the note discusses observational studies and confounding variables. Next the note describes how randomized experiments can be used to account for the effect of... View Details

Keywords: Causal Inference; Causality; Experiment; Experimental Design; Data Science; Analytics and Data Science

Educators

June 2005 (Revised July 2006)
Background Note

Note on the Convergence Between Genomics & Information Technology

By: David B. Yoffie, Dharmesh M Mehta and Rachel Sha

Focuses on the convergence between the genomics and semiconductor industries, in particular organ printing, DNA computing, biomolecular sensory networks, and DNA microarrays. Explains what this newly converged world looks like based on current research and findings in... View Details

Keywords: Genetics; Information Technology; Business Model; Disruptive Innovation; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

10 Jul 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Making Economics More Useful: How Technological Eclecticism Could Help

Keywords: by Amar Bhidé

2024
Working Paper

Don’t Expect Juniors to Teach Senior Professionals to Use Generative AI: Emerging Technology Risks and Novice AI Risk Mitigation Tactics

By: Katherine C. Kellogg, Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, Steven Randazzo, Ethan Mollick, Fabrizio Dell'Acqua, Edward McFowland III, François Candelon and Karim R. Lakhani

The literature on communities of practice demonstrates that a proven way for senior professionals to upskill themselves in the use of new technologies that undermine existing expertise is to learn from junior professionals. It notes that juniors may be better able... View Details

Keywords: Rank and Position; Competency and Skills; Technology Adoption; Experience and Expertise

SSRN

July 2006
Article

Exploring the Structure of Complex Software Designs: An Empirical Study of Open Source and Proprietary Code

By: Alan MacCormack, John Rusnak and Carliss Y. Baldwin

Keywords: Applications and Software; Design; Information; Internet and the Web

01 Nov 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Patent Disclosures and Standard-Setting

Keywords: by Josh Lerner, Haris Tabakovic, and Jean Tirole

2022
Book

The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth

By: Michael J. Andrews, Aaron Chatterji, Josh Lerner and Scott Stern

We live in an era in which innovation and entrepreneurship seem ubiquitous, particularly in regions like Silicon Valley, Boston, and the Research Triangle Park. But many metrics of economic growth, such as productivity growth and business dynamism, have been at best... View Details

Keywords: Productivity Growth; Production Technologies; Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; Economic Growth; Competition; Organizational Design; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation

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July 2019
Teaching Note

AT&T, Retraining, and the Workforce of Tomorrow

By: William R. Kerr and Carl Kreitzberg

A Teaching Note for the "AT&T, Retraining, and the Workforce of Tomorrow" case study (HBS#820-017). The case describes how AT&T designed and implemented a program to retrain 100,000 of its workers. The case first reviews the technological forces that compelled AT&T to... View Details