Publications

March 2021
Article

Last Place Aversion in Queues

By: Ryan W. Buell

This paper documents the effects of last place aversion in queues and its implications for customer experiences and behaviors as well as for operating performance. An observational analysis of customers queuing at a grocery store, and four online studies in which... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Operations; Queues; Reference Effects; Last Place Aversion; Transparency; Customers; Behavior; Satisfaction; Service Operations

Article

Are Self-service Customers Satisfied or Stuck?

By: Ryan W. Buell, Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

This paper investigates the impact of self-service technology (SST) usage on customer satisfaction and retention. Specifically, we disentangle the distinct effects of satisfaction and switching costs as drivers of retention among self-service customers. Our empirical... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Customer Satisfaction; Competition; Cost; Banks and Banking; Behavior; Market Transactions; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

Research Summary

Overview

By: Ryan L. Raffaelli

Professor Raffaelli's research focuses on the concept of reinvention. This work examines how organizations and leaders manage processes of innovation adoption, institutional change, and cognitive framing. View Details

June 2021
Article

From Predictions to Prescriptions: A Data-driven Response to COVID-19

By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Léonard Boussioux, Ryan Cory-Wright, Arthur Delarue, Vassilis Digalakis Jr, Alexander Jacquillat, Driss Lahlou Kitane, Galit Lukin, Michael Lingzhi Li, Luca Mingardi, Omid Nohadani, Agni Orfanoudaki, Theodore Papalexopoulos, Ivan Paskov, Jean Pauphilet, Omar Skali Lami, Bartolomeo Stellato, Hamza Tazi Bouardi, Kimberly Villalobos Carballo, Holly Wiberg and Cynthia Zeng

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges worldwide. Strained healthcare providers make difficult decisions on patient triage, treatment and care management on a daily basis. Policy makers have imposed social distancing measures to slow the disease, at... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Health Pandemics; AI and Machine Learning; Forecasting and Prediction; Analytics and Data Science

February 2021
Article

How Transparency into Internal and External Responsibility Initiatives Influences Consumer Choice

By: Ryan W. Buell and Basak Kalkanci

Amid growing calls for transparency and social and environmental responsibility, companies are employing different strategies to improve consumer perceptions of their brands. Some pursue internal initiatives that reduce their negative social or environmental impacts... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Operations; Corporate Social Responsibility; Operational Transparency; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Operations; Environmental Sustainability; Consumer Behavior; Perception

SSRN

12 Dec 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 12, 2017

in common? Why do their extraordinary stories continue to amaze and inspire? In delivering the answers to those questions, I offer a remarkable template by which to judge those in our own time to whom the public has given its trust. The... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Mar 2014
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Innovation

Raffaelli discovers new markets for old technologies. Organization Design for Distributed Innovation Designing organizations ready for distributed innovation, by Carliss Y. Baldwin. View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

2024
Working Paper

Transforming the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Outcome and Process Framing

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Tiona Zuzul, Ranjay Gulati and Jan Rivkin

This twelve-year qualitative study examines how Director Robert Mueller and his senior team profoundly transformed the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Drawing on 138 interviews within the FBI and Mueller’s... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Transformation; Government and Politics; Organizational Change and Adaptation

08 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 8

investigates the effect of pay for performance in firms, yet less is known about the effect of non-financial rewards, especially in organizations that hire individuals to perform tasks with positive social spillovers. We conduct a field experiment in which agents... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

February 2023 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Moleskine Foundation: Can Creativity Change the World?

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Alexandra C. Feldberg and Sarah Gulick

The Italy-based Moleskine Foundation worked with young adults in Africa and Europe to inspire social change through art and creative projects. Adama Sanneh, the newly appointed CEO of the Moleskine Foundation, faced several challenges: First, he had to make his own... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Social Enterprise; Leadership; Identity; Strategy; Education Industry; Italy; Africa; Europe; United States

Educators

14 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: February 14

today's companies face. I show that organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within those organizations work. In most organizations, the work that produces value for customers is carried out by teams,... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

April 2019
Article

Mitigating Malicious Envy: Why Successful Individuals Should Reveal Their Failures

By: Alison Wood Brooks, Karen Huang, Nicole Abi-Esber, Ryan W. Buell, Laura Huang and Brian Hall

People often feel malicious envy, a destructive interpersonal emotion, when they compare themselves to successful peers. Across three online experiments and a field experiment of entrepreneurs, we identify an interpersonal strategy that can mitigate feelings of... View Details

Keywords: Emotions; Perception; Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy

January 2016
Supplement

Toby Johnson: Leading After School

By: Boris Groysberg and Ryan Raffaelli

Video Supplement for Boris Groysberg's "Toby Johnson" suite of teaching products. View Details

November 2022
Teaching Note

Backstage at Boston Ballet

By: Ryan Raffaelli and Akshaya Varghese

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 420-005. View Details

2016
Chapter

Secondary Markets, Demand Revival, and Firm Performance: Exploratory Analyses in the Vintage Timepiece Auctions Market

By: Kim Claes and Ryan Raffaelli

11 Sep 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, September 11, 2018

process helps improve the dealer's profit by at least $269. These estimates suggest a potentially high return to taking the "information-based" approach to pricing idiosyncratic products. Publisher's link:... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

December 2018 (Revised February 2025)
Teaching Note

Faber-Castell (A) and (B)

By: Ryan Raffaelli and Akshaya Varghese

Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 417-010 and 417-030. View Details