probability - Publications - Faculty & Research

Research Summary

Experience and description-based decision making.

Prof. Barron and his co-authors study the effect of the economic environment on decision making. One example involves the effect of rare (low probability) events. People behave as if they overweight these events in some settings (e.g., when buying insurance and... View Details

01 Jun 2023
HBS Case

A Nike Executive Hid His Criminal Past to Turn His Life Around. What If He Didn't Have To?

Jordan brand and served as president of the Portland Trail Blazers NBA team? Probably not, says HBS Professor Francesca Gino, who coauthored the case with HBS Senior Lecturer Hise Gibson and HBS Professor Frances X. Frei, as well as... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Apparel & Accessories

24 Oct 2016
Research & Ideas

Bernie Madoff Explains Himself

I couldn’t attain,” Madoff recalls in the recording. The “slippery slope” that enables a small transgression to grow into a bigger one: “I started to go off the tracks, and I was able to convince myself that this was, you know, a temporary situation,” Madoff says. Lack... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

It Came in the First Ships: Capitalism in America

one long entrepreneurial adventure. Even down to the present day, more Americans have probably made fortunes from the appreciation of real estate values than from any other source. But land is only the starting place for the epochal drama... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas K. McCraw

24 Oct 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

Startup or Established Company? Which Is Best for You?

roles that have outgrown their experience. Read more about the impact of Hypergrowth situations written by my friend at Reboot, Khalid Halim, for First Round. Mature companies with experienced leadership. These organizations have all the standard things you’d expect.... View Details

Keywords: by Julia B. Austin

12 Sep 2023
What Do You Think?

Who Gets the Loudest Voice in DEI Decisions?

medium-sized, for-profit retailing organization. You have been asked to approve changes to the company’s orientation program that probably would not have crossed your desk several years ago. Your human resources group has proposed changes... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

22 Feb 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Consumer Demand for Prize-Linked Savings: A Preliminary Analysis

Keywords: by Peter Tufano, Nick Maynard & Jan-Emmanuel De Neve; Financial Services

02 Sep 2015
What Do You Think?

What's Wrong With Amazon’s Low-Retention HR Strategy?

low-retention HR strategy, its customers probably regard it as a highly successful application of that idea. Advocates of a high-retention strategy may wonder why Amazon hasn’t learned something from online retailer Zappos, a... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Web Services; Retail; Apparel & Accessories; Consumer Products; Fashion

Web

Japan - Global

committee, as directed by the merger guidelines, must also assess the feasibility of the offers (i.e., probability of closure). On the one hand, ACT’s bid will face an antitrust scrutiny in the US; and on the other hand, the MBO bid will... View Details

07 Apr 2022
HBS Seminar

Hummy Song, Wharton

2023
Article

Probabilistically Robust Recourse: Navigating the Trade-offs between Costs and Robustness in Algorithmic Recourse

By: Martin Pawelczyk, Teresa Datta, Johannes van-den-Heuvel, Gjergji Kasneci and Himabindu Lakkaraju

As machine learning models are increasingly being employed to make consequential decisions in real-world settings, it becomes critical to ensure that individuals who are adversely impacted (e.g., loan denied) by the predictions of these models are provided with a means... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Decision Choices and Conditions; Mathematical Methods

Citation

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29 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Is There a Method to Musk’s Madness on Twitter?

said, the fallen advertising revenue has probably been more dramatic than anyone expected. The advertisers are right to at least take a pause here and think about whether they want to remain involved with Twitter. In the longer term, Musk... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Technology

01 Mar 2024
News

In Harmony

Salomon Smith Barney’s business in Asia, with a focus on Korea. “People who went through the Asian financial crisis would probably remember that Korea was one of the worst hit, in terms of its currency and banking system,” says Tan. The... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; photographs by Jun Michael Park; private equity; fiction; financial crisis; leadership; Korea

December 2009
Article

Negotiation? Auction? A Deal Maker's Guide

By: Guhan Subramanian

What's the best way to buy or sell an asset? Should you hold an auction and accept the most attractive offer? Or should you identify the most likely prospects and negotiate with them privately? Auctions became increasingly popular after the internet opened wide the... View Details

Keywords: Assets; Auctions; Market Transactions; Negotiation; Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions

Citation

Find at Harvard

Purchase

10 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Are Prices So High Right Now—and Will They Ever Return to Normal?

tend to drive up prices, typically for three to four months. But as the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, some shortages, especially food and electronics, are likely to linger much longer. That means higher prices are probably here to stay for... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

Web

2023 Reunion Presentations - Alumni

defense. We will use case studies from Miami, FL (flooding) and Sonoma, CA (wildfire) to illustrate techniques and best practices. Participants left with a toolkit to help assess the severity of exposures and to use probabilities and risk... View Details

04 Sep 2013
What Do You Think?

How Relevant is Long-Range Strategic Planning?

"What organizations need to do is break old habits of practicing planning as ceremonial processes that are conducted periodically. That'll probably happen Those that don't just won't survive." This led to the question of why... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Web

Entrepreneurship - Faculty & Research

the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed, and unknowable until an investment is made. At a macro level, experimentation by new firms underlies the Schumpeterian notion of creative destruction. However, at a micro level,... View Details

04 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Governing the Family-Run Business

right people in a timely way to discuss and decide the big issues facing your organization—then your governance system is flawed, should be improved, and probably needs to be made more formal. Given how difficult it is for most people to... View Details

August 2011 (Revised October 2011)
Case

PureTech Ventures in 2011

By: Andrei Hagiu, Cesar Castro and Sarah Murphy

In early May 2011, Daphne Zohar, founder and managing partner of PureTech Ventures, a life science venture creation company in Boston, MA, was reviewing a term sheet she had just received from a venture capital (VC) firm for one of PureTech's portfolio companies. The... View Details