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- June 2018 (Revised January 2019)
- Background Note
Visualizing Data & Effective Communication
By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler
This note explores three specific ways an analyst can use visualization. Section 1 considers visualization to explore data. Section 2 discusses visualization as a tool for developing a deeper understanding of trends and phenomena encoded in the data. Section 3... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Learning to Become a Taste Expert
By: Kathryn A. Latour and John A. Deighton
Evidence suggests that consumers seek to become more expert about hedonic products to enhance their enjoyment of future consumption occasions. Current approaches to becoming an expert center on cultivating an analytic mindset. In the present research the authors... View Details
- June 2018
- Article
Personal and Social Usage: The Origins of Active Customers and Ways to Keep Them Engaged
By: Clarence Lee, Elie Ofek and Thomas Steenburgh
We study how digital service firms can develop an active customer base, focusing on two questions. First, how does the way that customers use the service postadoption to meet their own needs (personal usage) and to interact with one another (social usage) vary across... View Details
- May 2018 (Revised February 2019)
- Case
The Powers That Be (Internet Edition): Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Julia Kelley and Nathaniel Schwalb
As of early 2018, five U.S. technology companies—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft—were among the largest companies in the world. Similarly, three Chinese technology firms—Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, or BAT—had emerged as global players due in part to the... View Details
- May 2018 (Revised June 2018)
- Case
Cowen Inc.: Leveraging Data
By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah Abbott and Annelena Lobb
Cowen Inc.’s broker-dealer, Cowen and Company, LLC, boasted a number of analysts who had made prescient stock calls on the basis of creative data analysis. Now Cowen Inc. had opened a new subsidiary, Kyber, which would attempt to monetize new data science products.... View Details
- May 2018
- Case
The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation's Answer Fund
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Matthew G. Preble
Keywords: Data Analytics; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Relationship Management; Cost vs Benefits; Investment Return; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation Leadership; Intellectual Property; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Dissemination; Leadership; Leading Change; Resource Allocation; Goals and Objectives; Marketing Communications; Performance; Programs; Projects; Business and Community Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Networks; Partners and Partnerships; Research and Development; Genetics; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Social and Collaborative Networks; Nonprofit Organizations; Strategy; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry; United States
- May 2018
- Exercise
Data Visualization & Communication Exercise
By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler
This exercise uses the 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster to explore the relationship between data visualization, effective communication, and decision-making. Students review and analyze excerpts from the 13 charts engineers presented to NASA executives the night before... View Details
- Article
Space, the Final Economic Frontier
After decades of centralized control of economic activity in space, NASA and U.S. policymakers have begun to cede the direction of human activities in space to commercial companies. NASA garnered more than 0.7% of GDP in the mid-1960s but is only around 0.1% of GDP... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised August 2018)
- Case
Matching Markets for Googlers
By: Bo Cowgill and Rembrand Koning
This case describes how Google designed and launched an internal matching market to assign individual workers with projects and managers. The case evaluates how marketplace design considerations—and several alternative staffing models—could affect the company’s goals... View Details
- March 2018
- Case
TrustSphere: Building a Market for Relationship Analytics
By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden
Manish Goel was the CEO of TrustSphere, a seven-year-old company in the data analytics industry that focused squarely on relationship analytics, a space in which TrustSphere was pioneering a unique technology and solutions in the areas of sales, risk, and people... View Details
- February 2018 (Revised October 2019)
- Technical Note
The Art and Science of Brand Valuation
By: Jill Avery
Brand valuation, the art and science of calculating the economic value accruing to a firm from its use of an intangible brand asset, yields frustratingly inconsistent, discrepant, and, therefore, controversial results. While it is widely accepted that brands are... View Details
Keywords: Brand Valuation; Brand Value; Brand; Brand Management; Marketing ROI; Brand Equity; Analytics; Return On Investment; Brands and Branding; Valuation; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Investment Return; Consumer Behavior; Advertising Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Auto Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Electronics Industry; Fashion Industry; Food and Beverage Industry
- February 2018 (Revised December 2020)
- Supplement
People Analytics at Teach For America (Data Set)
This data set is a supplement to the People Analytics at Teach For America (A) case. View Details
- February 2018 (Revised December 2020)
- Case
People Analytics at Teach For America (A)
By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Julia Kelley
As of mid-2016, national nonprofit Teach For America (TFA) had struggled with three consecutive years of declining application totals, and senior management was re-examining the organization's strategy, including recruitment and selection. A few months earlier, former... View Details
- February 2018
- Supplement
People Analytics at Teach For America (B)
By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Julia Kelley
This is a supplement to the People Analytics at Teach For America (A) case. In this supplement, Managing Director Michael Metzger must decide how to extend his team’s predictive analytics work using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. View Details
- Article
How Did the Great Recession Affect Charitable Giving?
By: Arthur C. Brooks
A great deal of research has studied the effects of income and tax changes on charitable giving. However, little work has focused on how these relationships were affected by the Great Recession. This article estimates the tax and income effects using the 2009 Panel... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Machine Learning Approaches to Facial and Text Analysis: Discovering CEO Oral Communication Styles
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Dan Wang, Natalie A. Carlson and Tarun Khanna
We demonstrate how a novel synthesis of three methods—(1) unsupervised topic modeling of text data to generate new measures of textual variance, (2) sentiment analysis of text data, and (3) supervised ML coding of facial images with a cutting-edge convolutional neural... View Details
- January 2018 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
People Analytics at McKinsey
By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Olivia Hull
A private equity–backed fast food chain has hired McKinsey’s new People Analytics group to help it improve performance. As the final client workshop approaches, Associate Partner Alex DiLeonardo ponders the best way to present the team’s findings, especially those that... View Details
Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Customer Relationship Management; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost Management; Human Resources; Employees; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Measurement and Metrics; Performance; Performance Capacity; Performance Efficiency; Performance Evaluation; Performance Improvement; Consulting Industry; Service Industry
- January 2018
- Case
Viacom: Democratization of Data Science
By: Shane Greenstein and Christine Snively
In two short years, Viacom’s Data Science & Advanced Analytics team built a web platform called Science Central that allowed employees from Viacom’s 20+ cable networks to access television audience insights through three data science apps. In the past, employees would... View Details
- January–February 2018
- Article
Ads That Don't Overstep: How to Make Sure You Don't Take Personalization Too Far
By: Leslie John, Tami Kim and Kate Barasz
Data gathered on the web has vastly enhanced the capabilities of marketers. With people regularly sharing personal details online and internet cookies tracking every click, companies can now gain unprecedented insight into individual consumers and target them with... View Details
- January 2018
- Article
Big Data and Big Cities: The Promises and Limitations of Improved Measures of Urban Life
By: Edward L. Glaeser, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Luca and Nikhil Naik
New, "big" data sources allow measurement of city characteristics and outcome variables at higher frequencies and finer geographic scales than ever before. However, big data will not solve large urban social science questions on its own. Big data has the most value for... View Details