Sophistication - Publications - Faculty & Research

01 Jul 2013
Research & Ideas

Crowdfunding a Poor Investment?

that crowdfunding will enjoy long-term success given the lack of sophistication of the average investor in picking winners. "The information problem is so great," says Lerner. "I am not wildly optimistic in the wisdom of... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

17 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

America Needs a Manufacturing Renaissance

foundation upon which future innovative sectors can be built is crumbling. When the semiconductor production business moved to Asia in the 1980s, it brought with it a whole host of capabilities—electronic-materials processing, deposition and coating, and View Details

Keywords: by Gary P. Pisano & Willy C. Shih; Manufacturing

28 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

Brick-and-Mortar Stores Are Making a Comeback

and convenience. Q: What are the big questions for legacy retailers trying to find a way forward in this new space? Moreno: How to remain relevant. Most retailers are now sophisticated enough that they’re thinking about brick-and-mortar... View Details

Keywords: by Jen McFarland Flint; Retail

03 Dec 2001
Research & Ideas

Healthcare Conference Looks At Ailing Industry

and more sophisticated procedures. A greater number of patients could then benefit from better, lower cost, more convenient healthcare, he said, "than if we expect the leading institutions to somehow transform themselves and come... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

10 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

The Negotiator’s Secret: More Than Merely Effective

constructive agreement. As disagreement and conflict intensify, sophisticated negotiators should expect biased perceptions, both on their own side and the other side. Less seasoned players tend to be shocked and outraged by perceived... View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius

23 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: ‘Talk, Inc.’

become more economically significant than manufacturing industries, and as knowledge work supplants other kinds of labor, the need for sophisticated ways to process and share information grows more acute. Second, there is organizational... View Details

Keywords: Re: Boris Groysberg

26 Mar 2012
Research & Ideas

What Neuroscience Tells Us About Consumer Desire

is a sophisticated piece of medical equipment that exerts a very strong magnetic field at all times, and it's important to be very careful around it," Karmarkar says. "For example, you cannot take metal into a magnet room!"... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Consumer Products

12 Dec 2006
First Look

First Look: December 12, 2006

initiatives goes to organizations that are structured to support specific groups of recipients, often with sophisticated solutions. Such organizations rarely reach the broader populations that could be served by simpler alternatives.... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

29 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

Building a Powerful Prestige Brand

operation with a compelling reputation. Several issues were critical in the Lauders' thinking. First, they wanted to reach large numbers of middle-class and wealthy consumers, women with sufficient means to buy premium-priced products associated with View Details

Keywords: by Nancy F. Koehn; Beauty & Cosmetics; Consumer Products; Retail

Web

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2025 | Working Knowledge

new settings and problems. That insight directly shaped our latest research, " Reverse-Engineering the Centered Self ." In this paper, we build a computational framework that formalizes how humans locate themselves before acting. Unlike even the most View Details

10 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 10, 2017

powerful.” While savvy negotiators and analysts generally avoid these pitfalls, the less sophisticated can go astray. Robust correctives to these misimpressions are offered and related to three different kinds of “no” in negotiation: a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

30 Aug 2016
First Look

August 30, 2016

for Commitment Devices By: Exley, Christine L., and Jeffrey K. Naecker Abstract—Previous research often interprets the choice to restrict one’s future opportunity set as evidence for sophisticated time inconsistency. We propose an... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

30 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

Tuning Jobs to Fit Your Company

vital to strategy implementation (for example, at exclusive hotel chains) or when the organizational design is highly complex because of sophisticated technologies and a complex value chain (in aerospace or computers, for instance). In... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

17 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Why E-commerce Didn’t Die With the Fall of Webvan

direct-to-consumer would have to involve direct relationships with multiple manufacturers—or seem to; I don't know if it has to require that. And no one has found the model to do that. Q: Do you think part of Webvan's demise was a problem of technology, that the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Consumer Products; Retail

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Germany’s Pioneering Corporate Managers

the Deutsche Bank): "My son, the clerk." In the nineteenth century, the elder DuPonts also had trouble initiating a more sophisticated managerial organization—so it is not just an autocratic "German" quality, but one... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

05 Sep 2006
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: Porsche’s Risky Roll on an SUV

requires four seats at least." His current projects include histories of German management thought and German capitalism, but working on the Porsche cases has given him a new appreciation for automobiles. "These are some of the most technologically View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Auto; Manufacturing

16 Dec 2002
Lessons from the Classroom

Marrying Distance and Classroom Education

gotten to the point where we want hybrid programs. But the question is, how do we design them, and I think we're not very sophisticated yet on this. SS: One model is to get the group together in a classroom initially, and then, after the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

24 Oct 2024
Research & Ideas

With Millions of Workers Juggling Caregiving, Employers Need to Rethink Support

Just invest in having a more sophisticated understanding of your own economics. Because if you do, you’ll make better decisions. This article originally appeared in the Harvard Gazette. You Might Also Like: How to Keep Employees... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

01 Jun 2014
News

Alumni and Faculty Books for June 2014

(Jones & Bartlett) With the passage of the Affordable Care Act, sophisticated compliance programs are now mandatory for healthcare organizations, and the penalties for noncompliance are more severe. This book prepares managers to build... View Details

08 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

The Civic Benefits of Google Street View and Yelp

expanding their own data-gathering and crunching capabilities through advancements like sensor networks and sophisticated modeling software. What if cities could make use of all that data to better give residents what they need—for... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Consumer Products

Publications