Publications

29 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Super Bowl Ads for Multitaskers

looking at. Increasingly, viewers are doubling up on entertainment with a second media device in their hand or on their lap to complement—and compete—with the television. In 2012, Nielsen found that close to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising; Sports

15 Jul 2008
First Look

First Look: July 15, 2008

when the ratio of government debt to total debt is higher; and ii) by firms with stronger balance sheets. Our theory provides a new perspective on the apparent ability of firms to exploit bond-market return predictability with their... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

24 Jul 2014
Op-Ed

Reform Tax Law to Keep US Firms at Home

along partisan lines, from overhauling the US corporate tax to punishing companies who choose to move elsewhere. On July 22, 2014, Mihir A. Desai, Miuzho Financial Group Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School, testified before... View Details

Keywords: by Mihir Desai; Pharmaceutical

17 Nov 2015
Lessons from the Classroom

How Activist Investors Became Respectable

(Editor's Note. Carl Icahn is in the news again. On Monday, SEC filings revealed the militant investor has sold his entire stake in eBay, after successfully pushing the company to spin off its PayPal operation. Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph Fuller; Financial Services; Banking

July–August 2025
Article

Don’t Let an AI Failure Harm Your Brand

By: Julian De Freitas

How companies market their AI systems affects the repercussions they face when their products fail. Marketers must promote their AI products with potential failure in mind. To do that, they must first understand consumers’ unique attitudes toward AI. Marketers who... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Attitudes

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06 Mar 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Consumer Protection in an Online World: An Analysis of Occupational Licensing

Keywords: by Chiara Farronato, Andrey Fradkin, Bradley Larsen, and Erik Brynjolfsson; Service

22 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Control Your Inventory in a World of Lean Retailing

ensure that its highest variance SKUs have plenty of finished goods on hand — say nine times the expected weekly demand for those SKUs. Following that inventory policy, the other two groups of SKUs in that... View Details

Keywords: by Frederick H. Abernathy, John T. Dunlop, Janice H. Hammond & David Weil; Consumer Products

19 Nov 2013
First Look

First Look: November 19

Publications August 2013 American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics Accounting for Crises By: Nagar, Venky, and Gwen Yu Abstract—We provide one of the first empirical evidence consistent with recent macro global-game crisis models, which... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 May 2021
Blog Post

Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month at HBS

and New Year’s, and why I always had to bring back a bunch of gifts for family after travelling. Over the years, however, I have become less focused on differentiating the Filipino experience from the AAPI experience and, instead, have... View Details

10 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

American Auto’s Troubled Road

has a historic opportunity to recast itself, to meet the enormous impending demand for the new type of vehicles that a petroleum-deficient world will require. The dream machine that built America can once again help shape its future.... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Manufacturing; Transportation; Auto

September 2020
Article

Customer Supercharging in Experience-Centric Channels

By: David R. Bell, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno

We conjecture that for online retailers, experience-centric offline store formats do not simply expand market coverage, but rather, serve to significantly amplify future positive customer behaviors, both online and offline. We term this phenomenon “supercharging” and... View Details

Keywords: Retail Operations; Marketing-operations Interface; Omnichannel Retailing; Experience Attributes; Quasi-experimental Methods; Operations; Internet and the Web; Marketing Channels; Consumer Behavior; Retail Industry

November–December 2020
Article

Lifting the Veil: The Benefits of Cost Transparency

By: Bhavya Mohan, Ryan W. Buell and Leslie K. John

Firms do not typically disclose information on their costs to produce a good to consumers. However, we provide evidence of when and why doing so can increase consumers’ purchase interest. Specifically, building on the psychology of disclosure and trust, we posit that... View Details

Keywords: Cost Transparency; Disclosure; Field Experiment; Cost; Trust; Consumer Behavior

SSRN

February 2010 (Revised June 2012)
Case

"Plugging In" the Consumer: The Adoption of Electrically Powered Vehicles in the U.S.

By: Elie Ofek and Polly Ribatt

How will U.S. consumers respond to the proliferation of alternative-fuel vehicles, such as cars powered partially or completely by electricity, in the coming decade? After a century in which fossil fuel-powered vehicles dominated the market, it appeared consumers would... View Details

Keywords: Energy Sources; Policy; Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Business and Government Relations; Natural Environment; Pollutants; Adoption; Auto Industry; United States

01 Dec 2021
What Do You Think?

How Will the Metaverse Affect Productivity?

long ago that live streaming was thought to be a luxury possible only when the capacity of the internet could be expanded to accommodate storage and uploading capabilities demanded by the new services. Now it’s commonplace; we take it for... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2009
Working Paper

Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network?

By: Raghuram Iyengar, Sangman Han and Sunil Gupta

Social networks, such as Facebook and Myspace have witnessed a rapid growth in their membership. Some of these businesses have tried an advertising-based model with very limited success. However, these businesses have not fully explored the power of their members to... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Network Effects; Sales; Power and Influence; Social and Collaborative Networks; Web Sites; South Korea

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10 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

The State of the Markets

High on every agenda as well, of course, is the use and impact of technology, and that was the focus of a Global Alumni Conference session hosted by HBS professor Richard Nolan. Titled "Technology and the Future of the Financial... View Details

Keywords: by James E. Aisner

Article

Motivated Inferences of Price and Quality in Healthcare Decisions

By: Emily Prinsloo, Kate Barasz and Peter A. Ubel

Policy makers have increasingly advocated for healthcare price transparency, whereby prices are made salient before services are rendered. While such policies may empower consumers, they also bring price to the forefront of healthcare choices as never before, with yet... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Price Transparency; Health Care and Treatment; Price; Quality; Perception; Consumer Behavior; Decisions; Insurance

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November 2006 (Revised February 2007)
Case

Microsoft Xbox: Changing the Game?

By: Andrei Hagiu

In September 1999, the Microsoft Xbox team was wondering which strategic choices would give it the best chance against the upcoming Sony PlayStation 2. Initially called "Project Midway" within Microsoft, the console project was intended to counter the perceived threat... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Recruitment; Leadership; Management Teams; Multi-Sided Platforms; Two-Sided Platforms; Production; Strategy; Competition; Expansion; Video Game Industry; Texas

March 1996 (Revised February 2006)
Case

Arborite

Describes the competitive position of Arborite, a Canadian manufacturer of high-pressure laminates (HPL) (a product sold under the Formica name in the United States). Arborite's market share has slipped, and a new general manager must evaluate whether a change in... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Consumer Behavior; Manufacturing Industry; Canada