Publications

October 2017 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Improving Worker Safety in the Era of Machine Learning (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Dan Levy, Jose Ramon Morales Arilla and Matthew S. Johnson

Managers make predictions all the time: How fast will my markets grow? How much inventory do I need? How intensively should I monitor my suppliers? Which potential customers will be most responsive to a particular marketing campaign? Which job candidates should I... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Policy Implementation; Empirical Research; Inspection; Occupational Safety; Occupational Health; Regulation; Analysis; Forecasting and Prediction; Policy; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Safety; Manufacturing Industry; Construction Industry; United States

April 2020
Article

Regulatory Oversight, Causal Inference, and Safe and Effective Health Care Machine Learning

By: Ariel Dora Stern and W. Nicholson Price, II

In recent years, the applications of Machine Learning (ML) in the health care delivery setting have grown to become both abundant and compelling. Regulators have taken notice of these developments and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been engaging... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Causal Inference; Health Care and Treatment; Safety; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

July 1989 (Revised August 1990)
Background Note

New Theories of International Trade

By: David B. Yoffie and Heather A. Hazard

Explores the "new" theories of international trade--also called strategic trade policy--which were developed in the 1980s. Examines why economists and policy makers thought new approaches were necessary to explain international trade, the contributions of industrial... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Theory; Policy; Trade

March 2015
Article

Institutional Theory and the Natural Environment: Research in (and on) the Anthropocene

By: Andrew J. Hoffman and P. Devereaux Jennings

This review article summarizes the main tenets of institutional theory as they apply to the topic of the Anthropocene in the domain of organization and the natural environment. But our review is distinctive for two reasons: First, it is focused on providing avenues... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Theory; Natural Environment; Society

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January 2021
Article

Machine Learning for Pattern Discovery in Management Research

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Ryan Allen and Michael G. Endres

Supervised machine learning (ML) methods are a powerful toolkit for discovering robust patterns in quantitative data. The patterns identified by ML could be used for exploratory inductive or abductive research, or for post-hoc analysis of regression results to detect... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Supervised Machine Learning; Induction; Abduction; Exploratory Data Analysis; Pattern Discovery; Decision Trees; Random Forests; Neural Networks; ROC Curve; Confusion Matrix; Partial Dependence Plots; AI and Machine Learning

February 2021
Tutorial

Assessing Prediction Accuracy of Machine Learning Models

By: Michael Toffel and Natalie Epstein

This video describes how to assess the accuracy of machine learning prediction models, primarily in the context of machine learning models that predict binary outcomes, such as logistic regression, random forest, or nearest neighbor models. After introducing and... View Details

Keywords: Statistics; Experiments; Forecasting and Prediction; Performance Evaluation; AI and Machine Learning

July 2012
Case

Owen's Precision Machining

By: Ramana Nanda and James McQuade

For the second time in fourteen months, Christopher Owen, the second-generation owner of Owen's Precision Machining (OPM), found himself running out of cash. Owen wondered what he was doing wrong. How much additional money would he need to raise to get OPM through the... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Cash Flow; Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Making; Problems and Challenges; Business Strategy; Corporate Finance; Manufacturing Industry; Massachusetts

2010
Chapter

A Contingency Theory of Leadership

By: Jay W. Lorsch

The idea of a contingency theory of leadership is not novel. In the 1960s several scholars conducted research and proposed such an approach arguing that the style of leadership that would be most effective depended upon the situation (Fiedler, Tannenbaum and Schmidt,... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Situation or Environment; Behavior; Theory

June 2004
Article

A Catering Theory of Dividends

By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler

We propose that the decision to pay dividends is driven by prevailing investor demand for dividend payers. Managers cater to investors by paying dividends when investors put a stock price premium on payers, and by not paying when investors prefer nonpayers. To test... View Details

Keywords: Dividends; Catering; Financial Instruments; Investment Return; Business and Shareholder Relations

06 Apr 2020
Working Paper Summaries

A General Theory of Identification

Keywords: by Iavor Bojinov and Guillaume Basse

October 2021
Article

Overcoming the Cold Start Problem of CRM Using a Probabilistic Machine Learning Approach

By: Nicolas Padilla and Eva Ascarza

The success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs ultimately depends on the firm's ability to understand consumers' preferences and precisely capture how these preferences may differ across customers. Only by understanding customer heterogeneity, firms can... View Details

Keywords: Customer Management; Targeting; Deep Exponential Families; Probabilistic Machine Learning; Cold Start Problem; Customer Relationship Management; Programs; Consumer Behavior; Analysis

February 2013
Article

An Activity-Generating Theory of Regulation

By: Joshua Schwartzstein and Andrei Shleifer

We propose an activity-generating theory of regulation. When courts make errors, tort litigation becomes unpredictable and as such imposes risk on firms, thereby discouraging entry, innovation, and other socially desirable activity. When social returns to activity are... View Details

Keywords: Courts and Trials; Lawsuits and Litigation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Theory

2020
Working Paper

A General Theory of Identification

By: Iavor Bojinov and Guillaume Basse

What does it mean to say that a quantity is identifiable from the data? Statisticians seem to agree on a definition in the context of parametric statistical models — roughly, a parameter θ in a model P = {Pθ : θ ∈ Θ} is identifiable if the mapping θ 7→ Pθ is injective.... View Details

Keywords: Identification; Econometric Models; Analytics and Data Science; Theory

The Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice seeks to bridge this disconnect. Based on the Harvard Business School Centennial Colloquium "Leadership: Advancing an Intellectual Discipline" and edited by HBS professors Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana, this volume... View Details

31 Dec 2012
News

Big Data: Rise of the Machines

2020
Working Paper

Overcoming the Cold Start Problem of CRM Using a Probabilistic Machine Learning Approach

By: Eva Ascarza

The success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs ultimately depends on the firm's ability to understand consumers' preferences and precisely capture how these preferences may differ across customers. Only by understanding customer heterogeneity, firms can... View Details

Keywords: Customer Management; Targeting; Deep Exponential Families; Probabilistic Machine Learning; Cold Start Problem; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Consumer Behavior; Analytics and Data Science; Mathematical Methods; Retail Industry

SSRN

April 1980 (Revised December 1991)
Case

Hampton Machine Tool Co.

A bank lending officer must decide whether to extend and increase a loan to a small machine tool company. Case provides sufficient data for preparation of cash budgets and pro forma financial statements in order to analyze the lending officer's problem. Other issues... View Details

Keywords: Machinery and Machining; Financing and Loans; Financial Statements; Manufacturing Industry