Consumer Psychology - Publications - Faculty & Research

16 Dec 2008
First Look

First Look: December 16, 2008

Publication:Annual Review of Psychology 60 (2009): 475-499 Abstract As technology has simplified meeting basic needs, humans have cultivated increasingly psychological avenues for occupying their consumption... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Sep 2000
Research & Ideas

More Than the Sum of Its Parts: The Impact of Modularity on the Computer Industry

The computer age began some six decades ago with general-purpose machines with Star Wars-like names such as ENIAC and EDVAC. They were powered by vacuum tubes, big enough to fill an entire room, and developed by mathematicians under the auspices of what was then known... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

Web

Brand Name Management - The Art of American Advertising

effectively,—he must know how to apply psychology to advertising.” 42 Indeed, with increasing sophistication businesses began to employ a number of marketing conventions that not only communicated general information about a product, but... View Details

05 Oct 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Don't More People Get Flu Shots at Work?

professor in Harvard Business School’s Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit. Beshears is an expert in behavioral economics, which uses insights from psychology and economics to explain individual decision making and help people... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Health

28 May 2019
News

Leading Questions

“whether it’s for an individual leader, a team, or a company.” To find these answers, Synthesis asks open-ended essay questions and applies narrative psychology in its assessments. “There are no trick questions, no multiple choice,”... View Details

Keywords: April White

02 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Digital Initiative Summit: Who Has the Power in the Music Industry?

music that consumers encounter? Those questions were debated at the "Digital Music: Recreating the Industry" panel on March 30 the at the Digital Initiative Summit at Harvard Business School. "It's interesting to think about the source of... View Details

Keywords: Re: Felix Oberholzer-Gee; Music

28 Oct 2015
Research & Ideas

A Dedication to Creation: India's Ad Man Ranjan Kapur

class grew with large disposable income, and these foreign brands returned, it pushed the local brands to improve their quality and services. Competition rose and consumers benefitted. Q: So at this very fortunate time, Ranjan Kapur comes... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Advertising

April 2011
Teaching Note

Porcini's Pronto: "Great Italian cuisine without the wait!" (Brief Case)

By: James L. Heskett and Richard Luecke

Teaching Note to 4277. View Details

Keywords: Franchising; Syndication; Quantitative Analysis; Performance Measurement; Human Resource Management; Incentives; Motivation; Management; Motivation and Incentives; Consumer Behavior; Mathematical Methods; Franchise Ownership; Human Resources; Performance Evaluation

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August 2002 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Siebel Systems: Anatomy of a Sale, Part 1

By: John A. Deighton and Das Narayandas

How does a $2 million software sale happen? This case traces efforts by Siebel Systems to sell lead management software to discount broker Quick & Reilly. The buying process is mapped out over four years. Covers in detail the last six months—from Siebel's initial... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Structure; Behavior; Competition; Applications and Software; Technology Industry

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12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Bright Ideas: The Creative Power of Groups

of companies have participants role-play to gain a better sense of others' points of view or to sense how consumers would actually use new products. When Interval Research Corp. wanted its young designers to understand the physical... View Details

Keywords: by Laurie Joan Aron

14 Sep 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Google Engineer Deserved to be Fired by the CEO

supremacists brought these once-hidden issues back to the forefront of social consciousness. Stereotyping contributes directly to unconscious bias, a subject about which Mahzarin Banaji, chair of Harvard’s psychology department, has... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

April 17, 2023
Article

Crypto-Influencers Give Poor Investment Advice—and the SEC Is Taking Notice

By: Joseph Pacelli

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Power and Influence; Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Investment Return; Consumer Behavior

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2010
Chapter

The Impact of Employer Matching on Savings Plan Participation under Automatic Enrollment

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

Existing research has documented the large impact that automatic enrollment has on savings plan participation. All the companies examined in these studies, however, have combined automatic enrollment with an employer match. This raises a question about how effective... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Consumer Behavior; Personal Finance; Investment Funds; Microeconomics; Compensation and Benefits

2009
Chapter

Creating Superior Customer Value in a Connected World

By: Ranjay Gulati

"In the early twenty-first century, customers are more demanding than ever, and difficult economic times make them all the more so. As customers tighten their wallets and increase their demands, firms face greater pressure to provide superior customer value. Reducing... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Customer Value and Value Chain; Consumer Behavior; Product Design; Social and Collaborative Networks; Value Creation

Citation

January 1991 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Black Caucus Groups at Xerox Corp. (A)

In 1970 Xerox had a very progressive affirmative action program yet, once hired, black employees faced serious problems, due both to overt discrimination and to their exclusion from the informal networks of support, information and mentoring that the other salespeople... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Alliances; Race Characteristics; Employees; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

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18 Oct 2011
First Look

First Look: October 18

environmentally beneficial functions: it diverts waste from landfill and it produces renewable energy. At the same time, the waste-to-energy firm serves and collects revenue from two types of customers: waste generators who pay for waste disposal service and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution

By: Benjamin B Lockwood and Matthew Weinzierl

The prominent but unproven intuition that preference heterogeneity reduces redistribution in a standard optimal tax model is shown to hold under the plausible condition that the distribution of preferences for consumption relative to leisure rises, in terms of... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Income; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Taxation; Microeconomics; Macroeconomics

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09 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Five Questions for Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria

seemed obvious. Q: Customers are ruled by these four drives, just like everyone else. So what product, or product strategy, is needed to attract the four-drive customer? A: Those who study brands have found that great brands are based on a strong emotional connection... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

July – August 2008
Article

When Virtue Is a Vice

By: Anat Keinan and Ran Kivetz

Choosing duty over pleasure today can cause regret down the road—whereas regret over the reverse is fleeting. Marketers of luxury products and services should consider prompting customers to predict their future feelings about choices made now. View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Moral Sensibility; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Emotions; Luxury

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