Publications

2019
Working Paper

Managing Churn to Maximize Profits

By: Aurelie Lemmens and Sunil Gupta

Customer defection threatens many industries, prompting companies to deploy targeted, proactive customer retention programs and offers. A conventional approach has been to target customers either based on their predicted churn probability, or their responsiveness to a... View Details

Keywords: Churn Management; Defection Prediction; Loss Function; Stochastic Gradient Boosting; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Profit

SSRN

Forthcoming
Article

The Effect of a System for Sharing Best Practices Within Pre-existing Peer Networks

By: Shelley Xin Li and Tatiana Sandino

Peer networks, such as enterprise social networks (ESNs), can facilitate knowledge transfer across employees. However, such systems can also lead to information overload or difficulty in finding useful information. We examine data from a natural field experiment where... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Best Practices; Enterprise Social Media; Management Accounting And Control Systems; Social and Collaborative Networks; Communication Technology; Knowledge Sharing; Sales; Social Media; Retail Industry

August 2021
Article

Hoping for the Worst? A Paradoxical Preference for Bad News

By: Kate Barasz and Serena Hagerty

Nine studies investigate when and why people may paradoxically prefer bad news—e.g., hoping for an objectively worse injury or a higher-risk diagnosis over explicitly better alternatives. Using a combination of field surveys and randomized experiments, the research... View Details

Keywords: Decision Avoidance; Difficult Decisions; Judgment And Decision Making; Medical Decision-making; Decision Making; Behavior

Register to Read

September–October 2020
Article

Managing Churn to Maximize Profits

By: Aurelie Lemmens and Sunil Gupta

Customer defection threatens many industries, prompting companies to deploy targeted, proactive customer retention programs and offers. A conventional approach has been to target customers either based on their predicted churn probability or their responsiveness to a... View Details

Keywords: Churn Management; Defection Prediction; Loss Function; Stochastic Gradient Boosting; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Profit

SSRN

2016
Working Paper

Do Network Dynamics Undermine Idea-based Network Advantages? Experimental Results from an Entrepreneurship Bootcamp

By: Rembrand Koning

Do networks plentiful in ideas provide early stage startups with performance advantages? On the one hand, network positions that provide access to a multitude of ideas are thought to increase team performance. On the other hand, research on network formation argues... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Performance; Business Startups; Business Strategy

November 7, 2017
Article

Temporary Sharing Prompts Unrestrained Disclosures That Leave Lasting Negative Impressions

By: Reto Hofstetter, Roland Rüppell and Leslie John

With the advent of social media, the impressions people make on others are based increasingly on their digital disclosures. Yet digital disclosures can come back to haunt, making it challenging for people to manage the impressions they make. In field and online... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure; Privacy; Self-presentation; Impression Formation; Behavior; Perspective; Internet and the Web; Social Media

16 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Driven by Social Comparisons: How Feedback about Coworkers’ Effort Influences Individual Productivity

Keywords: by Francesca Gino & Bradley R. Staats; Banking

Research Summary

Resource-Based Entrepreneurship

By: Myra M. Hart

Myra M. Hart is investigating the relationship between an entrepreneur's industry-specific experience and the success of large-scale startups. Her work focuses on the links between the entrepreneur's knowledge and reputation resources-developed in the same or a... View Details

March 2022
Article

How Much Does Your Boss Make? The Effects of Salary Comparisons

By: Zoë B. Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

The vast majority of the pay inequality in an organization comes from differences in pay between employees and their bosses. But are employees aware of these pay disparities? Are employees demotivated by this inequality? To address these questions, we conducted a... View Details

Keywords: Salary; Inequality; Managers; Career Concerns; Pay Transparency; Wages; Equality and Inequality; Perception; Behavior

August 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

Busbud: Building a Data Company

By: Srikant M. Datar, Alistair Croll and Caitlin N. Bowler

The case features the work of LP Maurice (HBS '08) as he decides to take on the fragmented bus travel industry and launch an online business that aggregates and shares bus schedules for routes around the world. His first challenge: finding that the data he needs is... View Details

Keywords: Data Science; Analytics and Data Science; Business Startups; Knowledge Acquisition; Customers; Measurement and Metrics; Transportation Industry

Educators

Purchase

09 Jan 2023
Blog Post

How I Spent My HBS 2+2 Deferral: Sam Perez Diarte

The HBS 2+2 program is a deferred admission process for current students in their final year of study, either in college or a full-time master’s degree program. If you are admitted through 2+2, you work for two to four years in a field of... View Details

13 Sep 2019
Blog Post

An Uncommon Summer: Project Management at an Education Non-Profit

my military background, they were intrigued by my experience in project and change management, especially while leading teams. After months of conversations and interviews, I was matched with the Human Resources team at Uncommon Schools... View Details

John F. Batter

John Batter is a retired Litigation Partner in the Boston Office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP where his practice focussed on on the defense of public and private companies and their directors and management against breach of fiduciary duty claims and... View Details

James K. Sebenius

JAMES K. (“Jim”) SEBENIUS, is the Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he founded the Negotiation unit and teaches advanced... View Details

23 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

How to Break the Expert’s Curse

a beginner, that could actually have powerful implications for how advising takes place in an organization. It has implications for how experts can better understand those who have less experience than they do." Note to managers: If your... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education

06 Dec 2022
HBS Seminar

Elizabeth Lyons, UC San Diego

May–June 2024
Article

Setting Gendered Expectations? Recruiter Outreach Bias in Online Tech Training Programs

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Karim R. Lakhani and Roberto Fernandez

Competence development in digital technologies, analytics, and artificial intelligence is increasingly important to all types of organizations and their workforce. Universities and corporations are investing heavily in developing training programs, at all tenure... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Gender; Training; Recruitment; Personal Development and Career