Publications

2009
Article

Modeling Expert Opinions on Food Healthfulness: A Nutrition Metric

By: Jolie M. Martin, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman, Max H. Bazerman and Lisa Sutherland

Research over the last several decades indicates the failure of existing nutritional labels to substantially improve the healthiness of consumers' food and beverage choices. The difficulty for policy-makers is to encapsulate a wide body of scientific knowledge in a... View Details

Keywords: Judgments; Food; Nutrition; Labels; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Demand and Consumers; Measurement and Metrics; Mathematical Methods

25 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The Importance of Teaming

effective teams. Teaming is teamwork on the fly. It involves coordinating and collaborating without the benefit of stable team structures, because many operations like hospitals, power plants, and military installations require a level of staffing View Details

Keywords: Re: Amy C. Edmondson

2016
Working Paper

Diversified Business Groups in the West: History and Theory

By: Asli M. Colpan and Takashi Hikino

This working paper examines the historical origins, evolutionary paths, and long-term resilience of diversified business groups in contemporary developed economies of Western Europe, North America, and Oceania. It aims to come up with a new theoretical understanding of... View Details

Keywords: History; Diversification; Business Divisions; Theory; Oceania; North America; Europe

Article

Matriarch: A Python Library for Materials Architecture

By: Tristan Giesa, Ravi Jagadeesan, David I. Spivak and Markus J. Buehler

Biological materials, such as proteins, often have a hierarchical structure ranging from basic building blocks at the nanoscale (e.g., amino acids) to assembled structures at the macroscale (e.g., fibers). Current software for materials engineering allows the user to... View Details

Keywords: Building Block; Category Theory; Hierarchical Protein Materials; Molecular Design; Open-Source Software; Structure Creation

2016
Working Paper

Who Gets Hired?: The Importance of Finding an Open Slot

By: Edward P. Lazear, Kathryn L. Shaw and Christopher Stanton

Despite seeming to be an important requirement for hiring, the concept of a slot is absent from virtually all of economics. Macroeconomic studies of vacancies and search come closest, but the implications of slot-based hiring for individual worker outcomes has not been... View Details

Keywords: Hiring; Selection and Staffing; Employment

Article

Team Scaffolds: How Mesolevel Structures Enable Role-based Coordination in Temporary Groups

By: M. Valentine and A. C. Edmondson

This paper shows how meso-level structures support effective coordination in temporary groups. Prior research on coordination in temporary groups describes how roles encode individual responsibilities so that coordination between relative strangers is possible. We... View Details

Keywords: Fluid Personnel; Team Scaffolds; Team Effectiveness; Role-based Coordination; Multi-method; Service Delivery; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Performance Efficiency

2014
Working Paper

Team Scaffolds: How Meso-Level Structures Support Role-based Coordination in Temporary Groups

By: Melissa A. Valentine and Amy C. Edmondson

This paper shows how meso-level structures support effective coordination in temporary groups. Prior research on coordination in temporary groups describes how roles encode individual responsibilities so that coordination between relative strangers is possible. We... View Details

Keywords: Fluid Personnel; Team Scaffolds; Team Effectiveness; Role-based Coordination; Multi-method; Health Care and Treatment; Analytics and Data Science; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Organizational Structure; Outcome or Result; Performance Effectiveness; Groups and Teams; Networks; Behavior; Balance and Stability; Health Industry

July 2000 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Madison Avenue: Digital Media Services (A)

Introduces a "new-economy" company, Madison Avenue, facing challenges of mega-success. In the two years since its founding, the company's revenues have grown from zero to nearly $30 million, head count has swollen from the start-up handful to more than 200, and the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Online Advertising; Advertising Industry

Educators

25 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Rapport: The Hidden Advantage That Women Managers Bring to Teams

shifts, when needed. Roughly three times the sales gains, compared to stores where men predominantly supervised female workers. In addition, stores with female-heavy management also had better rapport, more highly trained and flexible... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Food & Beverage

19 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

The 10 Most Popular Articles of 2023

BalanceYounger workers are rejecting the idea of sticking with one employer for the long haul and are instead finding happiness by job-hopping and creating dramatically different boundaries with work. In a new book, Christina M. Wallace maps out a step-by-step guide to... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

30 Sep 2002
Research & Ideas

Your Crisis Response Plan: The Ten Effective Elements

extreme heat, loss of the Web or telephone lines, disruption in the water supply). 2. A flexible set of response modules. Leaders should be able to pull combinations of pre-set response "modules" off the shelf. Modularizing the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Watkins

October 2015 (Revised October 2016)
Case

Building Watson: Not So Elementary, My Dear! (Abridged)

By: Willy C. Shih

This case is set inside IBM Research's efforts to build a computer that can successfully take on human challengers playing the game show Jeopardy! It opens with the machine named Watson offering the incorrect answer "Toronto" to a seemingly simple question during the... View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Big Data; Business Analytics; Product Development Strategy; Machine Learning; Machine Intelligence; Artificial Intelligence; Product Development; AI and Machine Learning; Information Technology; Analytics and Data Science; Information Technology Industry; United States

Educators

2010
Working Paper

Substitution Patterns of the Random Coefficients Logit

By: Thomas J. Steenburgh and Andrew Ainslie

Previous research suggests that the random coefficients logit is a highly flexible model that overcomes the problems of the homogeneous logit by allowing for differences in tastes across individuals. The purpose of this paper is to show that this is not true. We prove... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Mathematical Methods; Behavior; Prejudice and Bias

June 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Supplement

Vanguard Retail Operations (B)

By: Willy C. Shih and Antonio Moreno

The first two cases in this series are set in the financial services industry, and explore whether it is better for back-office workers to be generalists who provide the flexibility of being able to handle the complete range of transactions that the company faces or... View Details

Keywords: Pooling; Generalist Model; Specialist Model; Service Operations; Management; Financial Services Industry; United States

April 2002 (Revised September 2002)
Case

Transformation of Seattle Public Schools, 1995-2002

Investigates the reform of the Seattle Public Schools from 1995 to 2002. To initiate reform in 1995, the district hired John Stanford, an Army general, and Joseph Olchefske, an investment banker, as the district's superintendent and chief financial officer,... View Details

Keywords: Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Organizational Structure; Education; Business Strategy; Public Administration Industry; Education Industry; Seattle

12 Mar 2024
HBS Case

How Used Products Can Unlock New Markets: Lessons from Apple's Refurbished iPhones

Some of Apple’s most loyal customers think nothing of upgrading to the latest iPhone every time one comes out. But what about consumers who can’t splurge on a $1,000 iPhone 15 Pro? And what about the electronic waste that would accrue if people threw away functional... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Electronics; Information Technology

14 Oct 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The Cost of Capital for Alternative Investments

Keywords: by Jakub W. Jurek & Erik Stafford

2014
Working Paper

Sharing Design Rights: A Commons Approach for Developing Infrastructure

By: Nuno Gil and Carliss Y. Baldwin

This study empirically investigates the relationship between design structure and organization structure in the context of new infrastructure development projects. Our research setting is a capital program to develop new school buildings in the city of Manchester, UK.... View Details

Keywords: Design; Buildings and Facilities; Education

2023
Article

Dynamic HTA for Digital Health Solutions: Opportunities and Challenges for Patient-Centered Evaluation

By: Jan B. Brönneke, Annika Herr, Simon Reif and Ariel D. Stern

Germany’s 2019 Digital Healthcare Act (Digitale-Versorgung-Gesetz, or DVG) created a number of opportunities for the digital transformation of the health care delivery system. Key among these was the creation of a reimbursement pathway for patient-centered digital... View Details

Keywords: Digital Transformation; Applications and Software; Product Development; Insurance; Policy; Health Industry; Germany