Publications

September 2010 (Revised December 2010)
Case

Santander Consumer Finance

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull, Elena Corsi and Andrew Barron

A Spanish company has to decide if they should expand into the fragmented European consumer finance market and has to make important organizational strategy decisions in the midst of the world economic downturn that followed the 2007 U.S. credit crunch. Since 2002, the... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Financial Markets; International Finance; Personal Finance; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Financial Services Industry; European Union; Spain

August 2009 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Pandora: Royalties Kill the Web Radio Star? (A)

By: Robert C. Pozen and Alex Curtis Rosenfeld

Joe Kennedy, president and CEO of Pandora, one of the largest and most popular web (Internet) radio broadcasters, had just received bad news. The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) had announced its decision to increase the royalties required to be paid by the web radio... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Copyright; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Internet and the Web; Media and Broadcasting Industry

November 2008 (Revised August 2011)
Case

UnME Jeans: Branding in Web 2.0

By: Thomas J. Steenburgh and Jill Avery

This case introduces emerging Web 2.0 social media in virtual worlds, social networking sites, and video-sharing sites and encourages students to explore the opportunities and risks they present for brands. The case allows students to grapple with the strategic and... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Risk and Uncertainty; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet and the Web; Apparel and Accessories Industry

September 2001 (Revised October 2018)
Case

DIENA

By: Robert Simons and Indra Reinbergs

Requires students to draw a new organization structure diagram for a rapidly evolving business. A/S DIENA is a newspaper publisher founded during Latvia's 1990/91 struggle for independence from the USSR with a clear social mission to support democracy. With the help of... View Details

Keywords: Employee Ownership; Organizational Design; Marketing Strategy; Managerial Roles; Growth and Development; Economic Systems; Publishing Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Latvia

To get people to be more creative and productive, managers increase transparency with open workspaces and access to real-time data. But my research shows that less-transparent work environments can actually yield more-transparent employees who solve problems more... View Details

Using AI to Adjust Your Marketing and Sales in a Volatile World

Why are some firms better and faster than others at adapting their use of customer data to respond to changing or uncertain marketing conditions? A common thread across faster-acting firms is the use of AI models to predict outcomes at various stages of the customer... View Details

June 2020
Supplement

Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (B)

By: Tsedal Neeley and Briana Richardson

With the economy in a freefall, MetricStream is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash and struggling to make payroll. Several board members are threatening to quit. Others are pressing to sell the company even at dismally low valuations. It’s 2008 and lightning has... View Details

Keywords: Race; Gender; Leadership Style; Risk and Uncertainty; Change; Prejudice and Bias; Decision Making; Personal Development and Career; Technology Industry; California

September 2017
Case

Dr. William Carson— Intrapreneurial Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Industry

By: Steven Rogers and Alyssa Haywoode

Dr. William Carson, an African-American alum of Harvard University became the President and CEO of a multi billion dollar division of Otsuka, a Japan based pharmaceutical company. His ascension to this leadership position followed a thriving career in academic medicine... View Details

Keywords: Dr. Williams Carson; Otsuka America Pharmaceutical; Harvard; Abilify; Aripiprazole; Health Testing and Trials; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Japan

08 Jan 2019
News

HBX Rebrands to Harvard Business School Online to Help Extend Reach of Online Programs

Web

Accounting & Management Awards & Honors - Faculty & Research

Harvard Business School in 2011. Dennis Campbell : Won the 2011 Stan Hardy Award for Outstanding Paper published in the field of Operations Management from the Decision Sciences Institute for his paper with Ryan W. Buell and Frances X.... View Details

July 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

XM Satellite Radio (A)

By: David B. Godes and Elie Ofek

XM Satellite Radio is a radically new way to listen to radio. Management must develop a marketing strategy to launch the firm and the category. A crucial aspect of the strategy is to determine which of two business models the company will pursue. Should it focus... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cost Management; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Partners and Partnerships; Sales; Competitive Strategy; Communications Industry

03 Mar 2008
First Look

First Look: March 4, 2008

International, a company publishing 70 editions of its free newspaper in 20 countries. Metro had been a pioneer in the free newspaper market, fighting incumbent publishers distributing traditional paid-for newspapers. Looks at the View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Article

Heuristics Guide the Implementation of Social Preferences in One-Shot Prisoner's Dilemma Experiments

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Valerio Capraro and David G. Rand

Cooperation in one-shot anonymous interactions is a widely documented aspect of human behavior. Here we shed light on the motivations behind this behavior by experimentally exploring cooperation in a one-shot continuous-strategy Prisoner’s Dilemma (i.e. one-shot... View Details

Keywords: Human Behavior; Social Evolution; Behavior; Cooperation; Decision Making; Game Theory

2020
Working Paper

Topic Preference Detection: A Novel Approach to Understand Perspective Taking in Conversation

By: Michael Yeomans and Alison Wood Brooks

Although most humans engage in conversations constantly throughout their lives, conversational mistakes are commonplace— interacting with others is difficult, and conversation re-quires quick, relentless perspective-taking and decision making. For example: during every... View Details

Keywords: Natural Language Processing; Interpersonal Communication; Perspective; Decision Making; Perception

08 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team

hoc process at many firms. Most adopt a simple decision rule: look at the best reps, and try to hire more like them. But you'll never have enough stars for all sales positions and, in fact, don't want stars in all jobs. In any... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

19 Jul 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Government 'Nudges' Motivate Good Citizen Behavior

suitcases at the airport. But now agencies are finding that subtle “nudges” can motivate behavior much better than ads, fines, or deadlines. Nudges, or small changes to the context in which decisions are made, are the subject of a new... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

22 Jan 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Separating Homophily and Peer Influence with Latent Space

Keywords: by Joseph P. Davin, Sunil Gupta & Mikołaj Jan Piskorski

2009
Working Paper

Assess, Don't Assume, Part I: Etiquette and National Culture in Negotiation

By: James K. Sebenius

When facing a cross-border negotiation, the standard preparatory assessments -- of the parties, their interests, their no-deal options, opportunities for and barriers to creating and claiming value, the most promising sequence and process design, etc. -- should be... View Details

Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Negotiation Process; Societal Protocols; Competitive Advantage; Cooperation