Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,676)
- Faculty Publications (1,067)
- October 2016
- Article
Technical Debt and System Architecture: The Impact of Coupling on Defect-related Activity
By: Alan MacCormack and Daniel J. Sturtevant
Technical debt is created when design decisions that are expedient in the short-term increase the costs of maintaining and adapting this system in future. An important component of technical debt relates to decisions about system architecture. As systems grow and... View Details
- Working Paper
How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?
By: Paul A. Gompers, William Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan and Ilya A. Strebulaev
We survey 885 institutional venture capitalists (VCs) at 681 firms to learn how they make decisions across eight areas: deal sourcing, investment selection, valuation, deal structure, post-investment value-added, exits, internal firm organization, and relationships... View Details
- 2016
- Book
Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless Questions for Resolving Your Toughest Problems at Work
Part of a manager's job is making tough calls, and the hardest challenge can be resolving "gray area” problems—situations in which analysis of the numbers, facts, and data fails to provide a clear answer. Gray areas test not only managers’ skills but also their... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised March 2017)
- Module Note
Strategy Execution Module 3: Using Information for Performance Measurement and Control
By: Robert Simons
This module reading explains how managers use information to control critical business processes and outcomes. The analysis begins by illustrating how managers use information to communicate goals and track performance. Then the focus turns to the choices that managers... View Details
- August 2, 2016
- Article
Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Martin A. Nowak and David G. Rand
Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an... View Details
- Article
Can Analysts Assess Fundamental Risk and Valuation Uncertainty? An Empirical Analysis of Scenario-Based Value Estimates
By: Peter R. Joos, Joseph D. Piotroski and Suraj Srinivasan
We use a dataset of sell-side analysts' scenario-based valuation estimates to examine whether analysts reliably assess the risk surrounding a firm's fundamental value. We find that the spread in analysts' state-side contingent valuations captures the riskiness of... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Experimental Evidence on Policies Aimed at Closing the Gender Gap in Willingness to Guess on Multiple-Choice Tests
Research has shown that women skip more questions than men on multiple-choice tests with penalties for wrong answers. We propose and test five policy changes aimed at eliminating this source of gender bias in test scores. Our data show that simply removing the penalty... View Details
- August 2016
- Article
The Role of (Dis)similarity in (Mis)predicting Others' Preferences
By: Kate Barasz, Tami Kim and Leslie K. John
Consumers readily indicate liking options that appear dissimilar—for example, enjoying both rustic lake vacations and chic city vacations or liking both scholarly documentary films and action-packed thrillers. However, when predicting other consumers’ tastes for the... View Details
- June 24, 2016
- Other Article
Why Brexit Is a Big Deal
By: John A. Quelch
The consequences of yesterday's vote by the British people to leave the European Union will be far-reaching, but there is no reason for global markets to panic.
Brexit is a vote against the European Union. Once heralded as the engine of a one-for-all and... View Details
Brexit is a vote against the European Union. Once heralded as the engine of a one-for-all and... View Details
Keywords: British Vote; Brexit; European Union; Impact; Historical Result; Governing Rules, Regulations, And Reforms; Disruption; Transition; Volatility; Decision Making; Globalization; Government and Politics; History; Leadership; Outcome or Result; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategy; European Union; Republic of Ireland; United Kingdom
- 2016
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Organizational Behavior Reading: Decision Making
By: Francesca Gino, Max Bazerman and Katherine Shonk
This Reading argues that decision making is systematically flawed and introduces methods to improve decision-making effectiveness. The Essential Reading section covers the rational decision-making model and three important ideas that challenge it: Herbert Simon's... View Details
- Article
Wisdom or Madness? Comparing Crowds with Expert Evaluation in Funding the Arts
By: Ethan Mollick and Ramana Nanda
In fields as diverse as technology entrepreneurship and the arts, crowds of interested stakeholders are increasingly responsible for deciding which innovations to fund, a privilege that was previously reserved for a few experts, such as venture capitalists and... View Details
- May 20, 2016
- Comment
World Health Organization Lacks Leadership to Combat Pandemics
By: John A. Quelch
When it comes to emergency preparedness for pandemics, the World Health Organization is falling short. It has not provided prompt and clear leadership to the world in combating either the Ebola or Zika viruses. Its leadership has been low energy, its representatives... View Details
Keywords: Global Health; World Health Organization; World Bank; Pandemics; Emergency Preparedness; Experience and Expertise; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Communication Strategy; Nonverbal Communication; Framework; Governance; Government and Politics; Health; Management; Practice; Problems and Challenges; Projects; Risk and Uncertainty; Human Needs; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Welfare or Wellbeing; Journalism and News Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America; South America; West Indies
- May 2016
- Article
When Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint Versus Separate Evaluation
By: Iris Bohnet, Alexandra van Geen and Max Bazerman
We examine a new intervention to overcome gender biases in hiring, promotion, and job assignments: an "evaluation nudge," in which people are evaluated jointly rather than separately regarding their future performance. Evaluators are more likely to focus on individual... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Economic Uncertainty and Earnings Management
By: Luke C.D. Stein and Charles C.Y. Wang
In the presence of managerial short-termism and asymmetric information about skill and effort provision, firms may opportunistically shift earnings from uncertain to more certain times. We document empirically that when financial markets are less certain about a firm's... View Details
- March 2016 (Revised January 2023)
- Teaching Note
Carla Ann Harris at Morgan Stanley
This case follows Carla Ann Harris, an African-American executive on Wall Street, from her childhood to the eve of her 20th year at Morgan Stanley. In addition to her professional identity as an investment banker, Harris is also an accomplished gospel singer, an... View Details
- March 2016 (Revised March 2022)
- Teaching Note
Express Scripts: Promoting Prescription Drug Home Delivery (A) and (B)
By: John Beshears
The pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) sector processes prescription drug claims on behalf of companies that offer a prescription drug benefit to their employees. The case associated with this teaching note follows Bob Nease, chief scientist at Express Scripts, as he... View Details
Keywords: Pharmaceuticals; Prescription Drugs; Pharmacy Benefit Manager; PBM; Healthcare; Behavioral Economics; Choice Architecture; Active Choice; Service Delivery; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Distribution Channels; Health Care and Treatment; Service Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry
- Article
Representative Democracy and the Implementation of Majority-Preferred Alternatives
In this paper, we contrast direct and representative democracy. In a direct democracy, individuals have the opportunity to vote over the alternatives in every choice problem the population faces. In a representative democracy, the population commits to a candidate ex... View Details
- February 2016
- Case
Express Scripts: Promoting Prescription Drug Home Delivery (A)
By: John Beshears, Patrick Rooney and Jenny Sanford
The pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) sector processes prescription drug claims on behalf of companies that offer a prescription drug benefit to their employees. This case follows Bob Nease, Chief Scientist at Express Scripts, as he considers methods to promote home... View Details
Keywords: Pharmaceuticals; Prescription Drugs; Pharmacy Benefit Manager; PBM; Healthcare; Behavioral Economics; Choice Architecture; Active Choice; Service Delivery; Decision Choices and Conditions; Health Care and Treatment; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Compensation and Benefits; Pharmaceutical Industry
- February 2016 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Express Scripts: Promoting Prescription Drug Home Delivery (B)
By: John Beshears, Patrick Rooney and Jenny Sanford
The pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) sector processes prescription drug claims on behalf of companies that offer a prescription drug benefit to their employees. This case follows Bob Nease, Chief Scientist at Express Scripts, as he considers methods to promote home... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised July 2017)
- Case
A Nation Divided: The United States and the Challenge of Secession
By: David Moss and Marc Campasano
Americans elected Abraham Lincoln as the nation's first Republican president in November of 1860. Northern political leaders had formed the Republican Party only a few years before, in large measure to combat the spread of slavery. Southerners had long been wary of... View Details