Publications

Find at Harvard

March 2006
Background Note

Influencing Customer Behavior in Service Operations

By: Frances X. Frei and Amy C. Edmondson

Explores ways in which service firms can influence the behavior of their customers. Drawing from research on employee motivation and applying it to customer motivation, the note describes two levels of managerial control: instrumental control, which shapes behavior... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Governance Controls; Consumer Behavior; Service Operations; Emotions; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence; Service Industry

June 2002 (Revised July 2002)
Background Note

Government Games: Understanding the Role of Government In Business Strategy

Lays out a framework for understanding the impact of government on business strategy. Distinguishes between two major types of "games" that businesses play that involve government: value net games and public interest games. Highlights the multiple roles that government... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Business and Government Relations

18 Mar 2014
News

Massachusetts' Hard Look at Hospital Mergers

03 Oct 2012
News

Top-Level Leaders Have Less Stress Than Others

Mar 2012
Report

A Jobs Compact for America's Future

What's good for individual U.S. companies is no longer automatically good for business nationwide, for U.S. workers, or for the economy. That, coupled with the failure of business, government, and other institutions to engage in productive dialogue and ultimately... View Details

04 Oct 2013
News

At Detroit Institute of Arts, fears of a fire sale

10 May 2021
News

Page: A GED for College? Not as Far-Fetched As It Sounds

11 Sep 2016
News

How to Get More Pleasure Out of Retirement Spending

29 Aug 2016
News

What happened to the opera music at Starbucks?

01 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

How IT Shapes Top-Down and Bottom-Up Decision Making

Technology on Firm Organization," a paper she cowrote with Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Luis Garicano and John Van Reenen of the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics. "Technologies that make the acquisition of information... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

May 2020
Case

Big Boom Beverages: Fight or Flight?

By: Stephen A. Greyser and William Ellet

Four college friends market a beverage that combines ingredients like those in a drink they consumed in college bars. It includes a caffeinated energy drink, malt liquor, and a soft drink flavoring. They launch the business, Big Boom Beverages (BBB), with their own... View Details

Keywords: Alcoholic Beverages; Energy Drinks; Regulation; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Marketing Communications; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Reputation; Communication Strategy; Decision Making

Program

Senior Executive Leadership Program—India

approaches to business challenges Seize growth opportunities and compete successfully in a complex global economy Improve your organization's ability to deliver value to customers Lead authentically and ethically at all levels and foster... View Details

February 2003 (Revised March 2007)
Case

Safe to Say at Prudential Financial

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Corey B. Hajim

The CEO initiated a cultural change process at Prudential Financial to support a major business reorientation. Prudential, historically a privately held ("mutual") insurance company, went public in 2001. The cultural change was intended to prepare the organization to... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Private Ownership; Going Public; Transformation; Organizational Culture

August 2000
Case

Project ACHIEVE - January 2000

By: H. Kent Bowen and Elizabeth Kind

Education services target public schools to assist the school with technology and services that will improve their communication with students, parents, and the community. There is also the goal of increasing scores of measured learning. How does a small company do... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Service Delivery; Learning; Interactive Communication; Measurement and Metrics; Performance Consistency; Business and Community Relations; Expansion; Technology Adoption; Education Industry

15 Jul 2020
Video

The HBS Health Minute: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Deep-Learning Insights to Improve Health Outcomes and Reduce Costs

Research Summary

Optimal Signaling Policy with Rational and Irrational Agents (with James Burns)

We examine situations in which a single informed agent signals a group of uniformed agents. The uniformed agents must then take an action based on this signal. The motivation for our work comes from real world examples such as terrorist alerts or job safety... View Details

2014
Article

Expectations of Returns and Expected Returns

By: Robin Greenwood and Andrei Shleifer

We analyze time-series of investor expectations of future stock market returns from six data sources between 1963 and 2011. The six measures of expectations are highly positively correlated with each other, as well as with past stock returns and with the level of the... View Details

Keywords: Performance Expectations; Investment Return