Meaning In Life - Publications - Faculty & Research

07 Jun 2016
Op-Ed

Can Brand Trump Win a Presidency?

In the marketplace, Brand Trump is authentic. It stands for aspiration and success, but more the ostentatious and flashy success that appeals to the newly wealthy, the entrepreneur, the outsider. For these consumers, brand Trump clearly... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Advertising; Media & Broadcasting

02 Dec 2013
Research & Ideas

Companies Choreograph Earnings Calls to Hide Bad News

computer algorithm. Bad News Bears What they discovered was surprising. This wasn't a small number of companies manipulating their earnings calls. "Instead, it seems that nearly every firm finds it useful to choreograph or 'cast' a call at some point View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Financial Services

22 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Balancing the Future Against Today’s Needs

balance internal resources. On the one hand, they need to focus some of their people on continually improving and growing the core business. On the other hand, they must free others to break all the rules in the name of growth and... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Michelman

02 Jun 2008
Research & Ideas

Spending on Happiness

additional income to suddenly make this person fulfilled, without a care in the world? (You can also think about whether such changes in your own income really make you happier with your View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

07 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

How an African History Scholar Became a Modern Righter of Wrongs

at once validating, exciting, and maddening for Elkins. “I had spent years of my life trying to put these pieces together, and they had been sitting on these files all this time,” she says. As expert witness, Elkins was charged with... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

31 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

State and Local Governments Peer Into the Pandemic Abyss

state and local governments, balanced budget requirements force them to save up in advance or beg Congress for federal support.” Most states are required by law to carry balanced budgets and can only borrow to fund capital projects, such... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

20 Mar 2000
Research & Ideas

No Place Like Home: America’s Housing Crisis and Its Impact on Business

for eleven years at MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning and was director of research at MIT's Center for Real Estate Development. "Housing in any form is relatively more expensive for municipalities than most other uses of... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Construction; Real Estate

06 Sep 2005
Research & Ideas

The Best Place for Retirement Funds

size means that analysis using the survey has much more precision than would otherwise be the case. The survey has an incredibly high response rate. Somehow, people are very responsive to a personal letter from Alan Greenspan telling them... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

13 Apr 2016
Research Event

What Does 'Diversity' Really Mean?

year showed that the number of women and African-Americans saw little to no change from the year before. The numbers were so bleak that in August 2015, President Obama called on the industry to try harder. “Trying harder, to some, View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

26 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Women Entrepreneurs Use Springboard for Funding

co-founder, CFO, etc.—with a "significant equity position." The companies must be considered high-growth businesses, and indeed, aside from a whole-foods business, most were in traditionally fast-track fields such as technology,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

13 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

How Government Can Restore the Faith of Citizens

be because we mostly notice the things that government gets wrong. "You drive for miles on perfectly paved roads but are outraged when you run into one pothole," says Michael I. Norton, an associate professor in the Marketing... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

03 Dec 2008
What Do You Think?

Can Housing and Credit be “Nudged” Back to Health?

Summing Up The current global recession has, judging from responses to this month's column, many origins, among them housing and credit. All, of course, are traceable to human responses to both perceived opportunities and calamities, which View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

06 May 2015
What Do You Think?

Are You Ready for Personalized Predictive Analytics?

effect helps us to achieve." Casandra Levine agreed, but introduced a cautionary note. The promise of what can be accomplished by predictive analytics in raising the quality of life and functionality... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

13 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

Can We Get To Where We Need To Go?

transportation infrastructure. In addition, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., announced a plan to rework the tax code and dedicate $126.5 billion to fund highway and infrastructure... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Transportation; Air Transportation; Auto

23 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Historically Speaking: A Roundtable at HBS

commercialize remarkable technological breakthroughs like the genome. There are also enormous questions about what the proper regulatory structure will be: Who owns a gene? Who owns the right to determine what I can do with my genes? These kinds of questions get to the... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner

19 May 2014
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Should Compete for Your Privacy

practices are presented and how consumers may communicate their preferences. The consequence has been a chilling of the market for personal information, with consumers less willing to provide their information in the first place. This is... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products

13 Feb 2017
Research & Ideas

Paid Search Ads Pay Off for Lesser-Known Restaurants

For business executives trying to decide where exactly in the digital realm to invest their advertising dollars, new research indicates that paid search ads on review sites such as Yelp can be a good way to go—at least for small,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

28 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

Improving Accountability at the World Bank

implies: Promoting better oversight by national parliaments, who frequently have little information on what the Bank is doing in their countries. The World Bank's founding articles of agreement prohibit it from involvement View Details

Keywords: by Alnoor Ebrahim

11 Apr 2018
Research & Ideas

Sexual Harassment: What Employers Should Do Now

PeopleImages In 2012, federal court jurors listened as Ani Chopourian described the sexual harassment she endured as a cardiac surgery physician assistant at a Sacramento hospital. One surgeon greeted her each morning with “I’m horny” and... View Details