Publications

February 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

TikTok in 2020: Super App or Supernova?

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Dan Maher and Dan O'Brien

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was launched in 2012 around a simple idea – helping users entertain themselves on their smartphones while on the Beijing Subway. In less than a decade, it had become one of the world’s most valuable private companies, with investors... View Details

Educators

October 2008 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Lawrence Trinh: Venturing to Vietnam

By: Joshua D. Margolis and Rachel Gordon

Should Lawrence Trinh pursue his aspiration of working in Vietnam—and if so, what set of principles and practices should he adopt if he encounters corruption? These are questions that reverberate for many students who wish to work in emerging markets and other contexts... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Ethics; Investment; Leadership Development; Emerging Markets; Personal Development and Career; Welfare; Financial Services Industry

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Why the gender gap persists and how we can close it. For years women have made up the majority of college-educated workers in the United States. In 2019, the gap between the percentage of women and the percentage of men in the workforce was the smallest on... View Details

17 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 17

determines the optimal number of customers to target. The resulting optimal customer ranking and target size selection leads to, on average, a 115% improvement in profit compared to current methods. Remarkably, the improvement in profit... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Evaluating and Managing Tramp Shipping Lines Performances: A New Methodology Combining Balanced Scorecard and Network DEA

By: Ying-Chen Hsu, Cheng-Chi Chung, Hsuan-Shih Lee and H. David Sherman

The shipping industry is essential for the economic development of nations like Taiwan as a means delivering and receiving cargo. Shipping has been depressed since 2008 as a result of the financial crisis increasing pressure for the shipping lines to operate more... View Details

Keywords: Network Data Envelopment Analysis; Shipping Line; Centralized Approach; Cross-efficiency; Balanced Scorecard; Performance Evaluation

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2002
Other Unpublished Work

The Effect of Editorial Discretion Book Promotion on Sales at Amazon.com

By: Benjamin Edelman

A new dataset collected by the author allows estimation of the effect on book sales of promotional listing on Amazon's editorial discretion pages. Following Goolsbee and Chevalier (2001), sales quantities are inferred from sales rank data freely available on Amazon's... View Details

Keywords: Online Advertising; Sales; Marketing Strategy; Web Sites; Competition; Books

31 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Where Can Digital Transformation Take You? Insights from 1,700 Leaders

their organizations merely sell the products and services they have rather than develop new offerings based on evolving customer needs and desires. Interestingly, only 55 percent of survey respondents ranked customer focus as one of the... View Details

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

29 Aug 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Unraveling Yields Inefficient Matchings: Evidence from Post-Season College Football Bowls

Keywords: by Guillaume R. Fréchette, Alvin E. Roth & M. Utku Ünver; Sports; Entertainment & Recreation; Media & Broadcasting

February 2021
Supplement

HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics (C)

By: William C. Kirby, Billy Chan and John P. McHugh

July 2017 was supposed to be a triumphant month for HNA Group. The latest Fortune Global 500 list showed the company had again skyrocketed in its ranking to no. 170, an improvement of over 200 positions from the year prior. Yet earlier that same July, the mysterious... View Details

Keywords: Conglomerate; Airline Industry; Coronavirus; Financial Risk; Debt; Bankruptcy; Global Strategy; Restructuring; Health Pandemics; Financial Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Condition; Globalized Firms and Management; Business and Government Relations; Air Transportation Industry; Financial Services Industry; China

2011
Article

A Choice Prediction Competition for Social Preferences in Simple Extensive Form Games: An Introduction

By: Eyal Ert, Ido Erev and Alvin E. Roth

Two independent, but related, choice prediction competitions are organized that focus on behavior in simple two-person extensive form games: one focuses on predicting the choices of the first mover and the other on predicting the choices of the second mover. The... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions; Competition; Motivation and Incentives; Game Theory; Fairness

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Fast Answer

Investment analyst reports (equity research reports)

securities; however, they can provide a useful model to students in understanding how investment professionals analyze an industry and what data points they find of most interest. Please note: analyst reports from several highly View Details

09 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Unilever—A Case Study

1929 by a merger of British and Dutch soap and margarine companies, 1 it has ranked as one of Europe's, and the world's, largest consumer-goods companies. Its sales of $45,679 million in 2000 ranked it... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation; Food & Beverage; Manufacturing; Retail

04 Oct 2011
First Look

First Look: October 4

Authors:Auden Schendler and Michael Toffel Publication:MIT Sloan Management Review 53, no. 1 (fall 2011) Abstract There's a problem with most major environmental rankings of businesses: too often, the ratings fail to incorporate advocacy... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Jun 2023
Research & Ideas

Want to Leave a Lasting Impression on Customers? Don't Forget the (Proverbial) Fireworks

patterns emerged, with participants ranking journeys the least desirable when they remained low or decreased over time, even when they started from a high point. The next-most desirable journeys were those with big fluctuations, implying... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Entertainment & Recreation

Web

Organizational Behavior - Faculty & Research

to women and work, some of the most ubiquitous beliefs are the most mistaken. More Information 2015 Thinkers50 Innovation Award By: Linda A. Hill Professor Linda Hill won the 2015 Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award for Innovation. She was also View Details

14 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Curiosity, Not Coding: 6 Skills Leaders Need in the Digital Age

important leadership quality in these times. Roundtable discussions with about 200 executives echoed those findings. Our survey respondents also ranked creativity, curiosity, and comfort with ambiguity as highly desirable traits. "It’s... View Details

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

May 2024 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Choosing the Course of Passion: Brooke Boyarsky Pratt at knownwell

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz and Alexis Lefort

Brooke Boyarsky Pratt (HBS ’13) enjoyed considerable success in her early career, quickly climbing the ranks to associate partner at McKinsey, and later becoming an executive vice president at Berkadia, a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio company. Throughout these years,... View Details

Keywords: Passion; Career; Career Planning; Purpose; Personal Development and Career; Mission and Purpose; Identity; Business Startups; Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Health Industry; United States

Educators

15 Feb 2022
Book

When Working Harder Doesn’t Work, Time to Reinvent Your Career

want.” And a piece of advice for corporations: Value and hire for wisdom in the C-suite and on boards. Companies should elevate “modern elders” to the highest ranks of companies, Brooks says. As for his first passion, the French horn,... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

2008
Working Paper

Concentration Levels in the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services Industry: Myth vs. Reality

By: Alvin J. Silk and Charles King III

This paper analyzes changes in concentration levels in the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services (A&MS) industry using publicly released data that have been largely ignored in past discussions of the industrial organization of this industry, namely those available... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Mergers and Acquisitions; Revenue; Analytics and Data Science; Surveys; Marketing; Measurement and Metrics; Rank and Position; Competition; Advertising Industry; Service Industry; United States