Missing At Random - Publications - Faculty & Research

29 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

For Entrepreneurs, Blown Deadlines Can Crush Big Ideas

gain experience, they get worse at predicting timelines." Record venture capital investment and a surge of new businesses launched during the COVID-19 pandemic are raising the stakes for entrepreneurs. In a domain that prizes speed,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

15 Jul 2019
Book

Many Executives Are Afraid of Finance. Here's How They Can Gain Confidence

of those in finance as they benefit from the obfuscation; it creates more mystery about what they do. This is particularly true when one looks at the array of differing institutions that interact in capital markets. In one of the chapters... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

29 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 29, 2006

variable using dispersion among experts' forecasts. We test this methodology using three datasets, demand data at item level, sales data at firm level for retailers, and sales data View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

27 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

New Cluster Mapping Project Helps Companies Locate Facilities

linkages or externalities across industries. Regional economies and clusters are analyzed at various geographic levels including states, economic areas, and metropolitan areas. Access to top-level data on the CMP is free; more in-depth... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

06 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

John Kotter: Four Ways to Kill a Good Idea

"confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets." This excerpt looks at attack strategies used by naysayers: fear mongering, delay, confusion, ridicule. For more information, read Kotter's HBR.org blog post, Know Your... View Details

Keywords: by John Kotter & Lorne A. Whitehead

14 Feb 2017
Research & Ideas

A Strategy For Steady Leadership in an Unsteady World

Listening only to information sources and opinions that reinforce their own views carries great risk of missing alternate points of view. Instead, leaders need to tap into myriad sources covering the full spectrum of viewpoints by... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

08 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 8, 2008

estimating the variance of demand using dispersion among experts' forecasts and scale. We test this methodology using three datasets, demand data at item level, sales data at firm level for retailers, and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

02 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Not All M&As Are Alike—and That Matters

Voluntary agreement is best, but early agreement is necessary. Don't try to eradicate differences associated with country, religion, ethnicity, or gender. Scenario 2: The Geographic Roll-up M&a Geographic roll-ups, which appear at... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph L. Bower

14 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

The Business Case for Becoming a Jack-of-All-Trades

A few hundred years ago, it was considered a virtue to know a little bit about everything. They even had a word for it: “Renaissance man.” Now, with vast amounts of knowledge literally at our fingertips, generalists tend to be tarred with... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

04 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

The Real Cost of Bribery

that launch anticorruption efforts grow their businesses more slowly than firms that don't, especially in regions where bribery is the expected norm. “If you think of the cost [of bribery] as just fines and regulatory actions, you're View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

Research Summary

Overview

Over the last decade, technology companies like Amazon, Google, and Netflix have pioneered data-driven research and development processes centered on massive experimentation. However, as companies increase the breadth and scale of their experiments to millions of... View Details

10 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 10

the economy to organize production and innovation. We study individual contestant-level data from 2,796 contestants in 774 software algorithm design contests with random assignment. Precisely conforming to theory predictions, the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

29 Jan 2021
Op-Ed

How Influencers, Celebrities, and FOMO Can Win Over Vaccine Skeptics

is uncertain about what vaccine supplies, if any, are available or when they will be. The World Health Organization estimates that at least 60 to 70 percent of the population would need to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity. While... View Details

Keywords: by Rohit Deshpandé, Ofer Mintz, and Imran S. Currim

13 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

Managers, Here’s How to Bond with New Hires Remotely

For senior managers at many firms, the shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic came with a huge concern: Would the loss of in-person conversations keep them from mentoring or simply establishing rapport with employees,... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

03 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles of 2010

a new book, Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads, Harvard Business School's Srikant M. Datar, David A. Garvin, and Patrick G. Cullen suggest opportunities for innovation. Understanding Users of Social Networks Many... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

26 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers

When HBS professor Steven Spear recently released an abstract on problem solving at Toyota, HBS Working Knowledge staffer Sarah Jane Johnston e-mailed off some questions. Spear not only answered the questions, but also asked some of his... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston; Manufacturing; Transportation; Auto

06 Sep 2004
Research & Ideas

The Innovator’s Battle Plan

replacement to silver halide film in our core market?" By seeking to create high-priced, performance-competitive digital products, Kodak missed much of the disruptive growth driven by inexpensive digital imaging. Kodak eventually... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony & Erik A. Roth

13 Nov 2019
Research & Ideas

Don't Turn Your Marketing Function Over to AI Just Yet

how new products or services would perform at various prices or with different characteristics. The machine learning algorithms that might power such a device are, at least for now, incapable of producing... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

20 Jul 2021
Research & Ideas

Bankruptcy Spells Death for Too Many Businesses

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection is supposed to allow companies to shed debt and get a fresh start. Ideally, creditors recover most of what they’re owed as the restructured firm begins turning a profit. Yet, more companies are liquidated than rebuilt, giving up the... View Details