Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,856)
- Faculty Publications (660)
- Article
The Perils of Proactive Churn Prevention Using Plan Recommendations: Evidence from a Field Experiment
By: Eva Ascarza, Raghuram Iyengar and Martin Schleicher
Facing the issue of increasing customer churn, many service firms have begun recommending pricing plans to their customers. One reason behind this type of retention campaign is that customers who subscribe to a plan suitable for them should be less likely to churn... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
What Factors Drive Director Perceptions of Their Board's Effectiveness?
By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Richard Ellis Crum
We use a survey of directors to collect data on their ratings of board effectiveness as well as board internal dynamics and key processes. Controlling for many of the governance metrics examined by prior research, we find that directors’ ratings of their boards’... View Details
- January 2016
- Article
Making Do with Less: Working Harder During Recessions
By: Edward P. Lazear, Kathryn L. Shaw and Christopher Stanton
Why did productivity rise during recent recessions? One possibility is that average worker quality increased. A second is that each incumbent worker produced more. The second effect is termed "making do with less." Using data from 2006 to 2010 on individual worker... View Details
- 2016
- Chapter
Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration
By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit and William R. Kerr
The propagation of macroeconomic shocks through input-output and geographic networks can be a powerful driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences, there is a specific pattern... View Details
- December 2015
- Article
Harnessing Productive Tensions in Hybrid Organizations: The Case of Work Integration Social Enterprises
By: Julie Battilana, Metin Sengul, Anne-Claire Pache and Jacob Model
We examine the factors that influence the social performance of hybrid organizations that pursue a social mission, and sustain their operations through commercial activities, by studying work integration social enterprises (WISEs). We argue that social imprinting and... View Details
- October 26, 2015
- Article
Measuring and Communicating Health Care Value with Charts
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Robin P. Blackstone, Derek A. Haas and Nikhil G. Thaker
The goal of a health care system should be to deliver the most value to patients: the outcomes achieved for treating a medical condition relative to the costs incurred over a complete care cycle. We have found that a radar (spider web) chart is an effective means to... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services
By: Maria Ibanez, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats
Work scheduling research typically prescribes task sequences implemented by managers. Yet employees often have discretion to deviate from their prescribed sequence. Using data from 2.4 million radiological diagnoses, we find that doctors prioritize similar tasks... View Details
Keywords: Discretion; Scheduling; Queue; Healthcare; Learning; Experience; Decentralization; Delegation; Behavioral Operations; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Efficiency; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Decisions; Time Management; Cost vs Benefits; Health Industry
- October 2015
- Case
Facebook: The First Ten Years
By: Shane Greenstein, Marco Iansiti and Christine Snively
Facebook celebrated its ten year anniversary in February 2014. Over the past decade it has grown into the largest social network in the world with one billion users. After filing an IPO in 2012 at a $104 billion valuation (the third largest IPO in U.S. history), the... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Corporate Sponsorship in Culture—A Case of Partnership in Relationship Building and Collaborative Marketing by a Global Financial Institution and a Major Art Museum
By: Ragnar Lund and Stephen A. Greyser
Purpose: This paper examines cultural sponsorship from a partnership and relationship marketing perspective. It studies a case of how a partnership between two international institutions, a bank and a museum, adds value to both in terms of interaction with... View Details
- October 2015 (Revised September 2016)
- Technical Note
Flight: Now without Humans Aboard
By: Mitchell Weiss, Karim Lakhani, HT Kung and Kerry Herman
This note provides an overview of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) industry in September 2015. UAVs offered many potential applications in industries as diverse as aerial imaging and photography, agriculture, construction, infrastructure inspection and... View Details
- October 2015
- Article
How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Companies
By: Michael E. Porter and James E. Heppelmann
The evolution of products into intelligent, connected devices is revolutionizing business. In a November 2014 article, "How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition," Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter and PTC president and CEO James... View Details
- October 2015
- Article
The Value of Bosses
By: Edward P. Lazear, Kathryn L. Shaw and Christopher Stanton
How and by how much do supervisors enhance worker productivity? Using a company-based data set on the productivity of technology-based services workers, supervisor effects are estimated and found to be large. Replacing a boss who is in the lower 10% of boss quality... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
The Wisdom of Crowds in Operations: Forecasting Using Prediction Markets
By: Achal Bassamboo, Ruomeng Cui and Antonio Moreno
Prediction is an important activity in various business processes, but it becomes difficult when historical information is not available, such as forecasting demand of a new product. One approach that can be applied in such situations is to crowdsource opinions from... View Details
- September–October 2015
- Article
Facts and Figuring: An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces
By: Jesse Shore, Ethan Bernstein and David Lazer
Using data from a novel laboratory experiment on complex problem solving in which we varied the structure of 16-person networks, we investigate how an organization's network structure shapes performance of problem-solving tasks. Problem solving, we argue, involves both... View Details
Keywords: Networks; Experiments; Clustering; Problem Solving; Exploration And Exploitation; Knowledge; Search; Collaboration; Collaboration Structures; Transparency; Communication; Communication Technology; Information; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance Effectiveness; Theory; Information Industry; Information Technology Industry; Public Administration Industry; Technology Industry; Service Industry
- Article
Visualizing and Measuring Software Portfolio Architecture: A Power Utility Case
By: Robert Lagerström, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Alan MacCormack
In this paper, we test a Design Structure Matrix (DSM) based method for visualizing and
measuring software portfolio architectures. Our data is drawn from a power utility company, comprising 192 software applications with 614 dependencies between them. We
show that the... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Through the Grapevine: Network Effects on the Design of Executive Compensation Contracts
By: Susanna Gallani
Effective design of executive compensation contracts involves choosing and weighting performance measures, as well as defining the mix between fixed and incentive-based pay components, with a view to fostering talent retention and goal congruence. The variability in... View Details
- August 2015
- Article
Hospital Board and Management Practices Are Strongly Related to Hospital Performance on Clinical Quality Metrics
By: Thomas C Tsai, Ashish K. Jha, Atul A. Gawande, Robert S. Huckman, Nicholas Bloom and Raffaella Sadun
National policies to improve health care quality have largely focused on clinical provider outcomes and, more recently, payment reform. Yet the association between hospital leadership and quality, although crucial to driving quality improvement, has not been explored... View Details
- August 2015
- Article
Poultry in Motion: A Study of International Trade Finance Practices
By: Pol Antràs and C. Fritz Foley
This paper analyzes the financing terms that support international trade and sheds light on how these terms shape the impact of economic shocks on trade. Analysis of transaction-level data from a U.S.-based exporter of frozen and refrigerated food products, primarily... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration
By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit and William Kerr
The propagation of macroeconomic shocks through input-output and geographic networks can be a powerful driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences there is a specific pattern... View Details
- Article
How Local Context Shapes Digital Business Abroad
By: William R. Kerr
This article identifies how digital businesses need to be adapted to the local environment in which they are being applied. Core ideas include the development of strong barriers to entry, the types of network effects encountered, and the localization of business... View Details