Publications
Publications
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(3,844)
- Faculty Publications (695)
- 2017
- Working Paper
Lessons Unlearned? Corporate Debt in Emerging Markets
By: Laura Alfaro, Gonzalo Asis, Anusha Chari and Ugo Panizza
This paper documents a set of new stylized facts about leverage and financial fragility for emerging market firms following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Corporate debt vulnerability indicators during the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) attributed to corporate... View Details
- May 2017
- Article
Psychologically Informed Implementations of Sugary-Drink Portion Limits
By: Leslie John, Grant Donnelly and Christina Roberto
In 2012, the New York City Board of Health prohibited restaurants from selling sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces. Although a state court ruled that the Board of Health did not have the authority to implement such a policy, it remains a legally viable... View Details
- Article
The Impact of Forward-Looking Metrics on Employee Decision-Making: The Case of Customer Lifetime Value
By: Pablo Casas-Arce, Asis Martinez Jerez and V.G. Narayanan
This paper analyzes the effects of forward-looking metrics on employee decision-making. We use data from a bank that started providing branch managers with the customer lifetime value (CLV)—an estimate of the future value of the customer relationship—of mortgage... View Details
- Article
Gains from Foreign Direct Investment: Macro and Micro Approaches
By: Laura Alfaro
This paper discussed the importance of an “integrated approach” to the study of the effects of FDI on host countries. Macro-level work that examines countries at different stages of development and institutional capacity is needed to surface the role of local... View Details
- Article
The Effects of Product Line Breadth: Evidence from the Automotive Industry
By: Antonio Moreno and Christian Terwiesch
Using a detailed data set from the U.S. automotive industry, we enrich the existing literature on product line breadth with new results that highlight previously unexplored operational aspects of its benefits and costs. We find that expanding product line breadth has a... View Details
- 2017
- Case
Uncommon Schools (A): A Network of Networks
By: John J-H Kim and Sarah McAra
In 2013, Brett Peiser, CEO of the charter school management organization (CMO) Uncommon Schools, is reassessing the nonprofit’s strategy. For nearly 10 years, Uncommon had fulfilled its mission to bring high-quality education to students in low-income, urban areas... View Details
- February 2017 (Revised August 2018)
- Case
Sarah Powers at Automated Precision Products
By: Jeffrey T. Polzer, Michael Norris, Julia Kelley and Kristina Tobio
In 2017, Sarah Powers, VP of Sales at an automation hardware firm, is trying to understand why some members of her sales team have been underperforming. She is tasked with analyzing her firm’s email and calendar data to try to find relationships between communications... View Details
- February 2017
- Case
BlaBlaCar: The Road Ahead...
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Arun Sundararajan, Emilie Billaud and Caroline Caltagirone
In 2017, the co-founders of BlaBlaCar—the world’s largest long-distance carpooling company—reflected on the evolution of their venture and the way forward. BlaBlaCar had reached critical mass and size; yet staying still was not going to be enough to be relevant and... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Transformation; Decision Making; Values and Beliefs; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Network Effects; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Transportation Networks; Transportation Industry; Web Services Industry; France; Europe
- 2017
- Working Paper
Seeking to Belong: How the Words of Internal and External Beneficiaries Influence Performance
By: Paul Green, Francesca Gino and Bradley R. Staats
In this paper, we examine how connecting to beneficiaries of one’s work increases performance and argue that beneficiaries internal to an organization (i.e., one’s own colleagues) can serve as an important source of motivation, even in jobs that—on the surface—may seem... View Details
- Article
Does 'Liking' Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand's Social Network on Marketing Outcomes
Does “liking” a brand on Facebook cause a person to view it more favorably? Or is “liking” simply a symptom of being fond of a brand? We disentangle these possibilities and find evidence for the latter: brand attitudes and purchasing are predicted by consumers’... View Details
- February 2017
- Article
Resident Networks and Corporate Connections: Evidence from World War II Internment Camps
By: Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun and Christopher J. Malloy
We demonstrate that simply by using the ethnic makeup surrounding a firm’s location, we can predict, on average, which trade links are valuable for firms. Using customs and port authority data on the international shipments of all U.S. publicly traded firms, we show... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
The Microstructure of Work: How Unexpected Breaks Let You Rest, but Not Lose Focus
By: Pradeep Pendem, Paul Green, Bradley R. Staats and Francesca Gino
How best to structure the work day is an important operational question for organizations. A key structural consideration is the effective use of breaks from work. Breaks serve the critical purpose of allowing employees to recharge, but in the short term, translate to... View Details
- November 2016
- Article
Spatial Organization of Firms and Location Choices Through the Value Chain
By: Juan Alcacer and Mercedes Delgado
We explore the impact of geographically bounded, intra-firm linkages (internal agglomerations) and geographically bounded, inter-firm linkages (external agglomerations) on firms' location strategies. Using data from the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Business Database,... View Details
- October 2016
- Case
Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit?
By: Thomas Eisenmann, Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton
Sunil Nagaraj, Triangulate's founder had spent a few years trying to launch a dating application that matched users based on their behavior on social media. Based on input from advisors, the company changed its focus from a B2B site to a B2C dating site with a unique... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised February 2019)
- Module Note
Strategy Execution Module 5: Building a Profit Plan
By: Robert Simons
This module reading describes how to build a profit plan to reflect the strategy of a business in economic terms. After introducing the profit wheel, cash wheel, and ROE wheel, the module illustrates how to use a profit plan to assess the viability of different... View Details
Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Profit Planning; Cash Flow Analysis; Asset Utilization; Return On Equity; Business Planning; Testing Strategy; Analyzing Strategic Alternative; Strategy; Asset Management; Cash Flow; Investment Return; Management Systems; Profit
- October 2016
- Article
Looking Across and Looking Beyond the Knowledge Frontier: Intellectual Distance and Resource Allocation in Science
By: Kevin J. Boudreau, Eva Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani and Christoph Riedl
Selecting among alternative innovative projects is a core management task in all innovating organizations. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation of frontier scientific research projects. We argue that the "intellectual distance" between the knowledge embodied in... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised May 2018)
- Case
Zurich Insurance: Fostering People Management Practices
By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly
Zurich Insurance was undergoing organizational change after implementing five new people practices focused on manager development, diversity and inclusion, job model and data analytics, recruitment, and talent pipeline. The case provides background for the company, as... View Details
Keywords: Managing Change; Organizational Behavior; Diversity Management; Organizational Architecture; Recruiting; Succession Planning; Management; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Human Capital; Human Resources; Insurance; Leadership; Diversity; Organizational Structure; Recruitment; Management Succession; Insurance Industry
- September 2016 (Revised July 2018)
- Case
United Airlines: More Out-and-Back Flying?
This case looks at United Airlines when it is facing a decision on whether to shift its aircraft routing to more "out-and-back" routing in order to try to improve its on-time performance. As one of the world's largest airlines, United had a very large fleet and... View Details
Keywords: Service Excellence; Service Management; Service Quality; Service Quality Competition; Services; Airline Industry; Airlines; Operational Complexity; Operational Disruptions; Operational Effectiveness; Operations Improvement; Operations Management; Operations Strategy; Air Transportation; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Improvement; Complexity; Air Transportation Industry; United States
- September 2016
- Article
Do Display Ads Influence Search?: Attribution and Dynamics in Online Advertising
By: Pavel Kireyev, Koen Pauwels and Sunil Gupta
As firms increasingly rely on online media to acquire consumers, marketing managers feel comfortable justifying higher online marketing spending by referring to online metrics such as click-through rate (CTR) and cost per acquisition (CPA). However, these standard... View Details
- 2016
- Article
Peer-to-Peer Markets
By: Liran Einav, Chiara Farronato and Jonathan Levin
Peer-to-peer markets such as eBay, Uber, and Airbnb allow small suppliers to compete with traditional providers of goods or services. We view the primary function of these markets as making it easy for buyers to find sellers and engage in convenient, trustworthy... View Details