Publications

July 2022 (Revised October 2024)
Case

3G Capital

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In June 2022, 3G Capital Co-Managing Partners Alex Behring and Daniel Schwartz were in a partners’ meeting. On the agenda were three potential investments. Code named “Alpha,” “Bravo,” and “Charlie” (real target companies that have been disguised), they were the... View Details

Keywords: Investment Decisions; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts

Educators

17 May 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

You Probably Have a Bias for Making Bad Decisions. Here's Why.

beliefs (confirmation bias), to give ourselves too much credit or not enough blame (self-serving bias), or to place more value on losing $100 than making $100 (loss aversion). In business, a bias-clouded View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

March 2021 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Making Impact Investing Markets: IFC (A)

By: Shawn A. Cole, John Masko and T. Robert Zochowski

In 2017, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) faced the first big investment decision in its new Scaling Solar project. Founded in 1956, IFC was an international investment body with national governments as shareholders, whose mission was to promote economic... View Details

Educators

02 Dec 2010
What Do You Think?

Making Right Choices: Art or Science?

of information one can access through "hookup density" in the brain. Paul Nicholas agreed, "We tend to make choices and decisions based on feelings; our... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

spring 1987
Article

Facilitating Group Creativity: Experience with a Group Decision Support System

By: J. Nunamaker, L. M. Applegate and B. Konsynski

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Creativity; Decision Making

12 Feb 2017
News

Harvard Business School makes a case for diversity

October 2013
Article

How Much to Make and How Much to Buy? An Analysis of Optimal Plural Sourcing Strategies

By: Phanish Puranam, Ranjay Gulati and Sourav Bhattacharya

While many theories of the firm seek to explain when firms make rather than buy, in practice, firms often make and buy the same input—they engage in plural sourcing. We argue that explaining the mix of external procurement and internal sourcing for the same input... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain; Forecasting and Prediction; Framework; Prejudice and Bias; Mathematical Methods

March 2019
Article

Consuming Together (versus Separately) Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

By: Ximena Garcia-Rada, Lalin Anik and Dan Ariely

Across three studies, we investigate how consumers in romantic relationships make decisions when choosing an item to share with their partner. We show that consumers will forgo their preferred alternative for an option that is more aligned with the preferences of their... View Details

Keywords: Shared Consumption; Close Relationships; Conflicting Preferences; Spending; Decision Making; Relationships; Motivation and Incentives

01 Sep 2023
News

Research Brief: Making Way for Moonshots

Josh Krieger (Courtesy subject) Josh Krieger (Courtesy subject) Many innovations in modern medicine have come about due to cutting-edge drugs—advances that required both a scientific leap and a willingness to take risks. View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint

2002
Other Unpublished Work

Impact of Costing Systems on Pricing Decisions in a Duopoly

By: V.G. Narayanan and Jytte Grambo Larsen

Keywords: Duopoly and Oligopoly; Decision Making; Cost Accounting; Price

1999
Article

The "Shopping Basket": A Model for Multi-Category Purchase Incidence Decision

By: Puneet Manchanda, Asim Ansari and Sunil Gupta

Keywords: Decision Making; Sales

February 1990
Teaching Note

Dual-Career Couple Decision Making: A Class Assignment, Instructor's Note

By: Shoshana Zuboff

Keywords: Family and Family Relationships; Decision Making

February 2001
Article

Transaction Decoupling: How Price Bundling Affects the Decision to Consume

By: Dilip Soman and J. T. Gourville

Keywords: Price; Decision Making

Read Now

14 Nov 2014
News

Obama's Former SBA Chief Is Making Angel Investments and Teaching at Harvard

02 Apr 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Making the Move to General Manager

gets people to take risks, try new things, and envision something better. In the end, participants leave with the skills to identify, frame, and solve complex business problems View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

08 Feb 2016
News

CEOs Make Room For Bold And Beautiful In Harvard Business Of Entertainment, Media and Sports Course

July 2017
Article

The Impact of 'Display-Set' Options on Decision-Making

By: Uma R. Karmarkar

The way a choice set is constructed can have a significant influence on how individuals perceive and evaluate their options and make decisions between them. Here, I examine whether a “display set” of visible but unavailable options can exert these same types of... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making Process; Heuristics; Similarity; Categorization; Marketing Insight; Marketing; Choice; Choice Architecture; Choice Sets; Display; Retail; Consumer Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Decision Making; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry