Difficult Decisions - Publications - Faculty & Research

1998
Working Paper

Some Evidence on the Optimal Welfare State Based on Subjective Data

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch

It is often difficult to evaluate all the costs and benefits of the welfare state. This paper suggests an alternative approach based on surveys of citizen satisfaction with welfare programs. In the first part of the paper we estimate the level of unemployment benefits... View Details

Keywords: Personal Characteristics; Employment; Surveys; Programs; Government and Politics; Age; Income; Residency; Welfare; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Cost vs Benefits; Satisfaction; United Kingdom

Citation

November 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Tim Ferriss: What Might This Look like If It Were Easy?

By: Reza Satchu and Denise Koller

In April 2024, writer-podcaster Tim Ferriss—celebrated as the “Oprah of audio” for his billion-download show and known for NYT-bestsellers like The 4-Hour Workweek—found himself at a crossroads. Despite generating a multi-million-dollar annual revenue with just three... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Personal Development and Career; Business Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Media and Broadcasting Industry

Citation

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07 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

those who are less familiar with them. For some companies, visualization tools have been key to getting everyone (even those who fear numbers and math) to use data to inform their decisions and actions. Unfortunately, the consensus among... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

April 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Exercise

Raptor Oil Company: An Exercise

The exercise, which adapts a famous experiment by experimental psychologist Thomas Gilovich, is designed to show both the ubiquity of analogy or associative thinking more generally and its potential perils. Students are presented with a scenario in which an oil company... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Cognition and Thinking; Prejudice and Bias; Strategy

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2019
Working Paper

Judgment Aggregation in Creative Production: Evidence from the Movie Industry

By: Hong Luo, Jeffrey T. Macher and Michael Wahlen

This paper studies a novel, light-touch approach to aggregate judgment from a large number of industry experts on ideas that they encounter in their normal course of business. Our context is the movie industry, in which customer appeal is difficult to predict and... View Details

Keywords: Judgment Aggregation; Creativity; Film Entertainment; Judgments; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

Citation

SSRN

19 Nov 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Management and the Financial Crisis (We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us …)

Keywords: by William A. Sahlman

23 Nov 2021
Book

What It Takes to Build an Organizational Culture That Wins

turnaround of dysfunctional aspects of Microsoft’s culture. But at the same time, he was leading a major change in strategy away from the domination of Windows software, a change made more difficult by the market share and huge wealth... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

23 Dec 2014
First Look

First Look: December 23

the sense that research can be directed to either clean or dirty technologies. If dirty technologies are more advanced to start with, the potential transition to clean technology can be difficult both because clean research must climb... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

25 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 25

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/articles/2010/fall/52118/how-to-do-well-and-do-good/ Corporate Governance When Founders Are Directors Authors:Feng Li and Suraj Srinivasan Publication:Journal of Financial Economics (forthcoming) Abstract We examine CEO... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

16 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

As AI Upends Recruiting, Job Seekers Need a Waze App for Careers

Artificial intelligence is changing the nature of work on a scale some predict will be as transformative as the Industrial Revolution. It’s also exposing the yawning gaps in a fractured US employment system that many companies and workers find View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology; Technology

November 2010
Article

Stress-Test Your Strategy: The 7 Questions to Ask

By: Robert Simons

An economic downturn can quickly expose the shortcomings of your business strategy. But can you identify its weak points in good times as well? And can you focus on those weak points that really matter? I identify seven questions all executives should ask in order to... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Creativity; Success; Customers; Employees; Business and Shareholder Relations; Performance; Risk and Uncertainty; Decision Choices and Conditions

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18 Mar 2014
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First Look: March 18

Wasserman Abstract—This paper examines the division of founder shares in entrepreneurial ventures, focusing on the decision of whether or not to divide the shares equally among all founders. To motivate the empirical analysis we develop a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

09 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

It’s Time to Reset Decision-Making in Your Organization

[Editor’s note: This is the third installment of a continuing series on issues that 600 CEOs told us keeps them awake at night. Today's topic: The challenges of making organizational decisions in this uncertain environment.] While we may... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

16 Nov 2021
HBS Case

How a Company Made Employees So Miserable, They Killed Themselves

start, the company encouraged additional voluntary departures and offered to help people find new jobs, but got few takers. Many workers were civil servants who expected job security for life. And, at the time, unemployment was also high in the country—between 7 and 12... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

03 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 3, 2007

Working PapersNone this week Cases & Course MaterialsCommon Agricultural Policy and the Future of French Farming Harvard Business School Case 707-027 Presents the history and evolution of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, from early price supports to the 2003... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Supplement

Fleet Oil Company: An Exercise

The exercise, which adapts a famous experiment by experimental psychologist Thomas Gilovich, is designed to show both the ubiquity of analogy or associative thinking more generally and its potential perils. Students are presented with a scenario in which an oil company... View Details

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Crime and Corruption; Decisions; Non-Renewable Energy; Cost; Production; Performance Productivity; Research and Development; Energy Industry; Atlanta; Houston

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04 Feb 2014
First Look

First Look: February 4

This exercise reveals that international capital flows are mainly shaped by government decisions and sovereign-to-sovereign transactions. Specifically, we show (i) international capital flows net of government debt are positively... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthlorne

Web

Business & Environment - Faculty & Research

to the letter and, if so, how. What made this decision difficult was that several relatively small and unknown activist investors had won important victories against large corporations in recent years.... View Details

Web

Entrepreneurship - Faculty & Research

the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed, and unknowable until an investment is made. At a macro level, experimentation by new firms underlies the Schumpeterian notion of creative destruction. However, at a micro level, investment and continuation View Details

2017
Working Paper

Digital Agility: The Impact of Software Portfolio Architecture on IT System Evolution

By: Alan MacCormack, Robert Lagerström, Martin Mocker and Carliss Y. Baldwin

The modern industrial firm increasingly relies on software to support its competitive position. However, the uncertain and dynamic nature of today’s global marketplace dictates that this software be continually evolved and adapted to meet new business challenges. This... View Details