Publications

2018
Working Paper

Shipping Fees and Product Assortment in Online Retail

By: Chaoqun Chen and Donald Ngwe

Shipping fees are an important aspect of online retail for both consumers and sellers. A common fee structure is contingent free shipping, in which consumers are granted free shipping for basket sizes above a minimum value and are charged a flat fee for orders below... View Details

Keywords: Shpping Fee; E-commerce; Multi-category Demand; Search Costs; Shipping Membership; Spending; Consumer Behavior; Retail Industry

April 2017
Case

The Future of Patent Examination at the USPTO

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna and Sarah Mehta

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the federal government agency responsible for evaluating and granting patents and trademarks. In 2015, the USPTO employed approximately 8,000 patent examiners who granted nearly 300,000 patents to inventors. As of April... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Telework; Collaborating With Unions; Human Resources; Recruitment; Retention; Intellectual Property; Copyright; Patents; Trademarks; Knowledge Sharing; Technology Adoption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Productivity; Performance Improvement; District of Columbia

Educators

24 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Part-Time Employees Want More Hours. Can Companies Tap This ‘Hidden’ Talent Pool?

“The main onus is on businesses to make more hours available to part-time employees. That will enable employers to utilize workers they already have with company-specific experience, bolstering their income and reducing the odds that they... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

April 2023
Article

Performance on Patient Experience Measures of Former Chief Medical Residents as Physician Exemplars Chosen by the Profession

By: Lucy Chen and J. Michael McWilliams

OBJECTIVE To compare care for patients of primary care physicians (PCPs) who were former chiefs with care for patients of nonchief PCPs.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Using 2010 to 2018 Medicare Fee-For-Service Consumer Assessment of Healthcare... View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Forecasting and Prediction; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Competency and Skills; Surveys; Health Industry

23 Jun 2023
HBS Case

This Company Lets Employees Take Charge—Even with Life and Death Decisions

be tantalizing to consider non-nurse hierarchical layers to relieve nurses of some of their non-patient work and increase utilization from 62 percent to something much higher. That could also ensure that geographically dispersed employees... View Details

Keywords: by Annelena Lobb; Health

Research Summary

4. Collaborative Brokerage, Generative Creativity, and Creative Success

Joint work with Lee Fleming (Technology and Operations Management Unit, Harvard Business School) and David Chen (Doctoral Candidate, Harvard Business School and Harvard School of... View Details

Forthcoming
Article

You've Got Mail! The Late 19th-Century U.S. Postal Service Expansion, Firm Creation, and Firm Performance

By: Astrid Marinoni and Maria P. Roche

This paper examines the impact of the expansion of the US Postal Service in the late 19th century on firm creation and performance. Utilizing newly digitized archival data on historic business establishments, post office locations, and road networks in California,... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Innovation; Knowledge Exchange; US Postal Service; Firm Performance; Infrastructure; Expansion; Government Administration; Communication; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Public Administration Industry; California

21 Mar 2019
HBS Case

The Ferrari Way

competitors, including Porsche and Lamborghini, responded by adding cutting-edge technologies, increasing production, and venturing into untraditional models, such as (gasp!) sport utility vehicles. Ferrari so far has remained true to its... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Auto

Forthcoming
Article

Slowly Varying Regression Under Sparsity

By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Vassilis Digalakis Jr, Michael Lingzhi Li and Omar Skali Lami

We consider the problem of parameter estimation in slowly varying regression models with sparsity constraints. We formulate the problem as a mixed integer optimization problem and demonstrate that it can be reformulated exactly as a binary convex optimization problem... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Analytics and Data Science

February 2017
Article

How Much Is a Win Worth? An Application to Intercollegiate Athletics

By: Doug J. Chung

Intercollegiate athletics in the United States have become a multibillion-dollar industry over the past several decades. In this study, we investigate the short- and long-term direct monetary effects of operating a winning athletics program for an academic institution... View Details

Keywords: Dynamic Panel Data; Heterogeneity; Instrumental Variables; Intercollegiate Athletics; Educational Finance; Entertainment Marketing; Higher Education; Marketing; Sports; Revenue; Education Industry; United States

Research Summary

Institutions and Innovation

Henry Chesbrough's research interests lie at the intersection of organizations and innovation. His research to date falls into two tracks.

The first track examines the effect of the firm's institutional environment upon its ability to respond to innovation... View Details

2019
Working Paper

Optimal Interventions for Increasing Healthy Food Consumption Among Low Income Households

By: Retsef Levi, Elisabeth Paulson and Georgia Perakis

The federal government currently spends over $100 billion per year on policies aimed to increase fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption among low income households. These include price-, nutrition education-, and access-related interventions. Currently, the government... View Details

Keywords: Bi-level Optimization; Optimal Subsidies; Public Policy; Food Policy; Central Planner; Government Administration; Poverty; Food; Nutrition

SSRN

2019
Working Paper

Does Apple Anchor a Shopping Mall? The Effect of the Technology Stores on the Formation of Market Structure

By: Doug J. Chung, Kyoungwon Seo and Reo Song

This study examines the effect of technology stores—company-owned Apple and Microsoft retail stores—on mall configuration. We formulate a structural model that considers the endogenous location decisions of retail stores, taking into account both market characteristics... View Details

Keywords: Apple Store; New Anchor Store; Discrete Game; Complete Information; Multiple Equilibria; GPGPU Technology; Simulator; Bayesian Estimation; Shopping Mall; Spillover

Article

Prosocial Spending and Buying Time: Money as a Tool for Increasing Subjective Well-Being

By: Elizabeth Dunn, A.V. Whillans, Michael I. Norton and Lara B. Aknin

Researchers have long been interested in the relationship between income and happiness, but a newer wave of work suggests that how people use their money also matters. We discuss the three primary areas in which psychologists have explored the relationship... View Details

Keywords: Wellbeing; Money; Spending; Decision Making; Happiness; Well-being

Article

Understanding Boards of Directors: A Systems Perspective

By: Jay W. Lorsch

In this essay, my goal is to explore why, despite the tireless efforts of talented people, research on corporate governance has been slow and uneven, and where that research should turn to next to be most valuable to practitioners. My belief is that the most fruitful... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Boards; Business Admnistration; Social Systems; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; System

January 2015
Article

Competing with Privacy

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Andres Hervas-Drane

We analyze the implications of consumer privacy for competition in the marketplace. We consider a market where firms set prices and disclosure levels for consumer information, and consumers observe both before deciding which firm to patronize and how much information... View Details

Keywords: Information Acquisition; Information Disclosure; Online Privacy; Privacy Regulation; Information; Rights; Internet and the Web; Competition; Internet and the Web; Corporate Disclosure; Ethics; Knowledge Acquisition

July 2011
Article

Kidney Paired Donation

By: C. Bradley Wallis, Kannan P. Samy, Alvin E. Roth and Michael A. Rees

Kidney paired donation (KPD) was first suggested in 1986, but it was not until 2000 when the first paired donation transplant was performed in the U.S. In the past decade, KPD has become the fastest growing source of transplantable kidneys, overcoming the barrier faced... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Success; Problems and Challenges; Programs; System; United States