Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,517)
- Faculty Publications (677)
- May 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Market by Met Council: Revolutionizing Food Pantries in the Digital Age
By: Elisabeth Paulson and Michael W. Toffel
In fall 2023, the Food Program of Met Council—America’s largest Jewish charity dedicated to fighting poverty—completed the rollout of the newest version of its digital pantry platform to twelve food pantries in the Met Council food pantry network. The digital... View Details
- May 2024
- Article
The Effect of Configural Processing on Mentalization
By: Katrina Fincher, Ting Zhang, Asteya Percaya, Adam Galinsky and Michael W. Morris
Eight studies (N = 2,561) reveal that how we perceptually process a person’s face affects our capacity to understand their mind. Studies 1A and B indicate this relationship functions via two separate pathways: (a) indirectly by increasing our sensitivity to the... View Details
- April 2024 (Revised October 2024)
- Case
New Belgium Brewing and Climate Change
By: Michael W. Toffel, Kenneth P. Pucker and Michael Norris
In 2023, Colorado-based craft brewery New Belgium Brewing was considering how best to meet its emissions reduction targets. After decades of growth, the beermaker had grown to become one of the largest craft brewers in the U.S., and was purchased in 2019 by Japanese... View Details
- April 2024
- Article
A Machine Learning Algorithm Predicting Risk of Dilating VUR among Infants with Hydronephrosis Using UTD Classification
By: Hsin-Hsiao Scott Wang, Michael Lingzhi Li, Dylan Cahill, John Panagides, Tanya Logvinenko, Jeanne Chow and Caleb Nelson
Backgrounds: Urinary Tract Dilation (UTD) classification has been designed to be a more objective grading system to evaluate antenatal and post-natal UTD. Due to unclear association between UTD classifications to specific anomalies such as vesico-ureteral reflux (VUR),... View Details
- April 2024
- Article
Decision Authority and the Returns to Algorithms
By: Hyunjin Kim, Edward L. Glaeser, Andrew Hillis, Scott Duke Kominers and Michael Luca
We evaluate a pilot in an Inspections Department to explore the returns to a pair of algorithms that varied in their sophistication. We find that both algorithms provided substantial prediction gains, suggesting that even simple data may be helpful. However, these... View Details
- March 2024 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Coursera's Foray into GenAI
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Michael Parzen and Radhika Kak
In early 2023, Maggioncalda, CEO of US EdTech firm Coursera, launched Project Genesis to develop a strategy for incorporating GenAI capabilities into the firm's offerings, asking his teams to focus on value to the firm and cost of implementation. The team identified... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Greenlighting Innovative Projects: How Evaluation Format Shapes the Perceived Feasibility of Novel Ideas
By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Tianxi Cai, Michael Menietti, Griffin Weber and Eva C. Guinan
Evaluation of novel projects is essential for scientific and technological advancement. However,
evaluator bias toward a project’s potential can obscure its limitations. This study investigates
evaluation formats by contrasting combined assessments of novelty and... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
The Cram Method for Efficient Simultaneous Learning and Evaluation
By: Zeyang Jia, Kosuke Imai and Michael Lingzhi Li
We introduce the "cram" method, a general and efficient approach to simultaneous learning and evaluation using a generic machine learning (ML) algorithm. In a single pass of batched data, the proposed method repeatedly trains an ML algorithm and tests its empirical... View Details
Keywords: AI and Machine Learning
- March 2024
- Case
Nomad: A License to Bank
By: Paul A. Gompers and Pedro Levindo
In late 2023, Lucas Vargas, CEO and co-founder of Nomad, a fintech that offered financial services in the United States for Brazilian residents, had to decide what to do to ensure the company’s continued expansion. Nomad launched its first product, a U.S. digital bank... View Details
Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Startups; Customer Satisfaction; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Banks and Banking; Initial Public Offering; Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Organizational Culture; Going Public; Ownership Stake; Innovation and Invention; Strategic Planning; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Vertical Integration; Leadership; Law; Banking Industry; Technology Industry; Service Industry; Brazil; United States; North America; Latin America
- March 2024
- Article
Do Safety Management System Standards Indicate Safer Operations? Evidence from the OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Standard
By: Kala Viswanathan, Matthew S. Johnson and Michael W. Toffel
Problem definition: Given the enormous disruptions and costs of occupational injuries, companies and buyers are increasingly looking to voluntary occupational health and safety standards to improve worker safety. Yet because these standards only require... View Details
- February 26, 2024
- Article
Making Workplaces Safer Through Machine Learning
By: Matthew S. Johnson, David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
Machine learning algorithms can dramatically improve regulatory effectiveness. This short article describes the authors' scholarly work that shows how the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) could have reduced nearly twice as many occupational... View Details
- February 9, 2024
- Article
Addressing Climate Change with Behavioral Science: A Global Intervention Tournament in 63 Countries
By: Madalina Vlasceanu, Kimberly C. Doell, Joseph B. Bak-Coleman, Boryana Todorova, Michael M. Berkebile-Weinberg, Amit Goldenberg, Eric Shuman and et al.
Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Generation Investment Management: Sustainable Investing in a Warming World
By: Vikram S. Gandhi, Michael Norris and David Allen
In September 2021, the sustainable investment firm Generation Investment Management (Generation) considered whether to add Schneider Electric to the focus list of companies in which it was prepared to invest. Dedicated to promoting a sustainable world through its... View Details
Keywords: Sustainable Investing; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Governance; Private Equity; Public Equity; Financial Markets; Investment Return; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Institutional Investing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom; England; London
- January 2024 (Revised October 2024)
- Case
DO & CO: Crafting Luxury in the Fast Lane (A)
By: Juan Alcácer, Esel Cekin, Michael Lee and Noah Roberson
In July 2023, Attila Dogudan, the chairman of DO & CO, a renowned international catering firm, found himself in a deep conversation with his two sons about a potential new venture: catering for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a significant step beyond their 31-year history... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Supplement
BigBank: Confidential Information Educator Supplement
By: Michael Luca and Jesse M. Shapiro
- December 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
21Seeds: Taking Shots at Breakout Growth
21Seeds, a female-founded flavor-infused tequila startup launched in 2019, had made inroads into the alcoholic beverage industry by focusing on an underserved consumer segment in spirits—women, primarily in their 30s and 40s, many of whom were moms—and by following a... View Details
- November 2023
- Article
Algorithmic Mechanism Design with Investment
By: Mohammad Akbarpour, Scott Duke Kominers, Kevin Michael Li, Shengwu Li and Paul Milgrom
We study the investment incentives created by truthful mechanisms that allocate resources using approximation algorithms. Some approximation algorithms guarantee nearly 100% of the optimal welfare, but have only a zero guarantee when one bidder can invest before... View Details
- December 2023
- Article
Brokerage Relationships and Analyst Forecasts: Evidence from the Protocol for Broker Recruiting
By: Braiden Coleman, Michael Drake, Joseph Pacelli and Brady Twedt
In this study, we offer novel evidence on how the nature of brokerage-client relationships can influence the quality of equity research. We exploit a unique setting provided by the Protocol for Broker Recruiting to examine whether relaxed broker non-compete agreement... View Details
Keywords: Brokers; Analysts; Forecasts; Bias; Protocol; Investment; Research; Forecasting and Prediction
- November 2023 (Revised February 2025)
- Background Note
Corporate Climate Targets
By: Willy C. Shih, Michael W. Toffel and Kelsey Carter
Companies that are addressing climate change by mitigating their greenhouse gas emissions often set reduction targets. This note describes several types of widely used carbon reduction targets, including carbon neutral, science based, net zero, real zero, and carbon... View Details
- November 2023
- Article
Brokerage House Initial Public Offerings and Analyst Forecast Quality
By: Mark Bradshaw, Michael Drake, Joseph Pacelli and Brady Twedt
We examine how brokerage firm initial public offerings (IPOs) influence the research quality of sell-side analysts employed by the brokerage. Our main results focus on earnings forecast bias and absolute forecast errors as proxies for research quality. Using a... View Details