Publications

April 2025
Article

Serving with a Smile on Airbnb: Analyzing the Economic Returns and Behavioral Underpinnings of the Host’s Smile

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Elizabeth Friedman, Kannan Srinivasan, Ravi Dhar and Xupin Zhang

Non-informational cues, such as facial expressions, can significantly influence judgments and interpersonal impressions. While past research has explored how smiling affects business outcomes in offline or in-store contexts, relatively less is known about how smiling... View Details

Keywords: Sharing Economy; Airbnb; Image Feature Extraction; Machine Learning; Facial Expressions; Prejudice and Bias; Nonverbal Communication; E-commerce; Consumer Behavior; Perception

Read Now

April 2008
Case

TerraCog Global Positioning Systems: Conflict and Communication on Project Aerial

By: Michael Beer and Sunru Yong

TerraCog, a successful privately held high-tech firm that develops GPS (global positioning system) and similar products for consumer markets, has recently been caught off-guard by a competitor's new product that makes novel use of satellite imagery. When TerraCog... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Meetings; Decision Making; Group Dynamics; Human Resource Management; Conflict; Information Technology; Leadership; Conflict Management; Competition; Groups and Teams; Organizational Culture; Human Resources; Communication; Decision Choices and Conditions; Crisis Management; Technology Industry

November 2013
Teaching Note

8 Spruce Street

By: Arthur I Segel

The case begins in March 2009 during the depths of the recession with Forest City Ratner (FCR) Companies, a New York City based developer, facing the decision to halt construction half-way on 8 Spruce Street, the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere, or... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Investment; Real Estate Industry; Japan

04 May 2023
Blog Post

Sustainability: Career Advice from HBS Career Coach Hillary Mann

passionate about, whether it’s by eating a primarily plant-based diet or using clean products in my home. I am interested in the psychology of what will drive consumer decisions to make thoughtful choices so... View Details

John Beshears

John Beshears is the Albert J. Weatherhead Jr. Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit, teaching the second-year MBA course "Negotiation." He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.... View Details

07 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 7

as bacon ice cream. We propose that such choices are driven by consumers' continual striving to use time productively, make progress, and reach accomplishments (i.e., a productivity orientation). We argue that View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2001 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Consumer-Driven Health Care: Medtronic's Health Insurance Options

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, John Hurwitch and Seth Bokser

Describes the variety of health insurance plans that this medical device company offers, including a high-deductible, consumer-driven health plan with a health reimbursement account that also enables health care providers to quote their own prices. Asks students to... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Decision Choices and Conditions; Compensation and Benefits; Demand and Consumers

24 Jul 2019
Lessons from the Classroom

Can These Business Students Motivate Londoners to Do the Right Thing?

choices are presented—can encourage people to change their behavior in pursuit of policy goals, says Michael Luca, the Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Luca has been bringing... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

winter 2003
Article

Massively Categorical Variables: Revealing the Information in Zip Codes

We introduce the idea of a massively categorical variable, a variable such as zip code that takes on too many values to be treated in the standard manner, and show how to use it directly as explanatory variables in an econometric model. In an application of this... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Analytics and Data Science; Behavior; Marketing; Standards; Finance

Find at Harvard

Read Now

April 2021 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Social Media War 2021: Snap vs. Facebook vs. TikTok

By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

This case explores the competitive war between Snap, Facebook, and TikTok in 2021. The strategic focus is on Snapchat: how should it respond to the emergence of TikTok, and how should it compete with the dominant competitor in its space—Facebook. The case examines... View Details

Keywords: Strategy Development; Competitor Analysis; Strategy; Network Effects; Competitive Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Social Media

29 Jan 2025
Blog Post

Finding Professional Purpose: Building an Impactful Career that Reflects your Values with Lisa Tanzer (MBA 1993)

undergraduate background with limited exposure to business, I began my career as an Associate Consultant at one of the Big Four accounting firms (PwC), focusing on strategic planning in financial services, business services, telecommunications, and View Details

15 May 2007
First Look

First Look: May 15, 2007

economic models predict that they do not systematically differ. With online grocery data, we show that people are decreasingly impatient the further in the future their choices will take effect. In general, as the delay between order... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2016
Teaching Note

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Laurent Adamowicz and Bon'App

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Tessa Natanay Hamilton and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

After a successful career as Chairman and CEO of Paris-based luxury food company, Fauchon, Laurent Adamowicz sought to provide a solution to a large scale complex problem. Ultimately, Adamowicz created a mobile application to provide consumers with more accessible and... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Change Management; Social Entrepreneurship; Nutrition; Business and Community Relations