Publications

15 Oct 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Vote Choice Formation and the Minimal Effects of TV Debates: Evidence from 61 Elections in 9 OECD Countries

Keywords: by Caroline Le Pennec-Caldichoury and Vincent Pons

2025
Working Paper

Narrative AI and the Human-AI Oversight Paradox in Evaluating Early-Stage Innovations

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Léonard Boussioux, Charles Ayoubi, Ying Hao Chen, Camila Lin, Rebecca Spens, Pooja Wagh and Pei-Hsin Wang

Do AI-generated narrative explanations enhance human oversight or diminish it? We investigate this question through a field experiment with 228 evaluators screening 48 early-stage innovations under three conditions: human-only, black-box AI recommendations without... View Details

Keywords: Large Language Models; AI and Machine Learning; Innovation and Invention; Decision Making

SSRN

1987
Chapter

The Institutionalization of Wealth: Changing Patterns of Investment Decision-Making

By: André Perold and Jay O. Light

Keywords: Decision Making; Trends; Investment; Wealth

Article

Who Will Vote Quadratically? Voter Turnout and Votes Cast Under Quadratic Voting

By: Louis Kaplow and Scott Duke Kominers

Who will vote quadratically in large-N elections under quadratic voting (QV)? First, who will vote? Although the core QV literature assumes that everyone votes, turnout is endogenous. Drawing on other work, we consider the representativeness of endogenously... View Details

Keywords: Voting Turnout; Paradox Of Voting; Quadratic Voting; Pivotality; Elections; Voting; Political Elections; Mathematical Methods

2014
Book

The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See

By: Max Bazerman

This book will examine the common failure to notice critical information due to bounded awareness. The book will document a decade of research showing that even successful people fail to notice the absence of critical and readily available information in their... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Judgments; Negotiation; Negotiation Process; Relationships

April 2010
Teaching Note

Metabical: Pricing, Packaging, and Demand Forecasting Recommendations for a New Weight Loss Drug (Brief Case)

By: John A. Quelch and Heather Beckham

Teaching Note to 4183 View Details

Keywords: Return On Investment; Forecasting; Pricing Policies; Demand Planning; Price; Investment Return; Forecasting and Prediction

January 2011
Article

Good Intentions, Optimistic Self-Predictions, and Missed Opportunities

By: Derek Koehler, Rebecca White and Leslie K. John

Self-predictions are highly sensitive to current intentions but often largely insensitive to factors influencing the readiness with which those intentions are translated into future behavior. When such factors are under a person's control, they could be used to... View Details

Keywords: Planning; Saving; Behavior; Forecasting and Prediction

February 2004 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc., The

By: David F. Hawkins and Jacob Cohen

Analysts believe bankruptcy is a distinct possibility for A&P in the future. The company believes otherwise. View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

November 1999 (Revised November 2000)
Case

Cortlandt Town Center

By: William J. Poorvu and Arthur I Segel

CBL & Associates is trying to decide whether to go ahead with the development of a 790,000 square-foot power center with retailers such as Home Depot and Barnes & Noble. The costs are such that the developer needs to renegotiate its land acquisition price. Then the... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Cost; Negotiation; Projects; Strategy; Construction Industry; Retail Industry

March 1998
Teaching Note

The Job Search Workshop TN

By: David A. Thomas and Emily Heaphy

An effective catalyst for the job search, this note is an opportunity for students to focus on the "next steps" of their job search. Students are introduced to a model of career decision-making, which frames their discussion and sophisticates their understanding of the... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Job Search; Personal Development and Career

24 Jan 2025
News

The Network Effect

Karan Mathur (left) and Dina Model (Illustration by Gisela Goppel) When Dina Model and Karan Mathur (both MBA 2015) met through mutual friends during their first year at HBS, neither was envisioning a future business deal. “We didn’t realize that we had shared... View Details

2000
Other Unpublished Work

Career Concerns and Staged Investment: Evidence from the Venture Capital Industry

By: Malcolm Baker

I develop a model in which career concerns lead to inefficient reinvestment decisions. Managers have incentives to inflate interim returns by continuing bad projects and delaying write-offs. In the venture capital industry, the syndication of follow-on investments can... View Details

Keywords: Performance Efficiency; Valuation; Venture Capital; Investment; Decisions; Motivation and Incentives; Quality

September 2009 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Eden McCallum: A Network-Based Consulting Firm (A)

By: Heidi K. Gardner and Robert G. Eccles

Eden McCallum pioneered the network-based ("virtual") consulting firm model in the U.K. Contracting freelance consultants on a per-project basis keeps overheads lean so that Eden McCallum's fees are a fraction of the big firms' rates. Their flexible, low-cost model has... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Consulting Industry; United Kingdom

2010
Working Paper

Preference Intensities and Risk Aversion in School Choice: A Laboratory Experiment

By: Flip Klijn, Joana Pais and Marc Vorsatz

We experimentally investigate in the laboratory two prominent mechanisms that are employed in school choice programs to assign students to public schools. We study how individual behavior is influenced by preference intensities and risk aversion. Our main results show... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Education; Marketplace Matching; Risk and Uncertainty; Behavior; Personal Characteristics

July 2007 (Revised August 2010)
Case

JP Morgan Partners - Cabela's Inc.

JP Morgan Partners (JPMP), the private equity arm of JP Morgan Chase, owned 15% of Cabela's, Inc., a hunting and fishing equipment retailer in the U.S. In June of 2003, founders Dick and Jim Cabela wanted to liquidate some of their holdings. However, Cabela's was not... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Financial Liquidity; Investment; Ownership Stake; Retail Industry; United States

December 2004 (Revised July 2006)
Case

Celtel International B.V.

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

Mo Ibrahim, chairman of Celtel International, the largest provider of cellular services in sub-Saharan Africa, must decide on his company's future. After an amazing six years that took it from minority positions in three countries to nearly $1 billion in revenues and... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Initial Public Offering; Business Growth and Maturation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Wireless Technology; Telecommunications Industry; Africa

November 2003 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Beverly Stern: Retail Executive

By: H. Kent Bowen and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Beverly Stern has been a successful operating manager in three prominent retail chains: GAP, Pottery Barn, and Williams-Sonoma. Stern's last job at a start-up did not meet her expectations, and she must now decide what to do next. She has an offer to start a new retail... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Experience and Expertise; Personal Characteristics; Jobs and Positions; Decisions; Retail Industry

August 2019
Teaching Note

Back to the Roots

By: Elizabeth A. Keenan and Leslie K. John

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

This Teaching Note explains the theory of the case and teaching plan for the case: Back to the Roots HBS case No. 518-073. Back to the Roots (BTTR) is a start-up with a... View Details

Keywords: Organic Food; Startup; Crowdfunding; Sustainability; Transparency; Entrepreneurship; Product Development; Product Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Making; Food; Food and Beverage Industry

April 2019 (Revised June 2019)
Case

From Globalization to Dual Digital Transformation: CEO Thierry Breton Leading Atos Into 'Digital Shockwaves' (A)

By: Tsedal Neeley, JT Keller and James Barnett

Thierry Breton, chairman and CEO of IT company Atos, faced a pivotal juncture. After spending eight intense years scaling the company globally to over 100,000 employees in 70 countries, he was ready to take the next crucial step. Breton was convinced that rapid digital... View Details

Keywords: Dual Digital Transformation; Transformation; Disruption; Employees; Competency and Skills; Training; Decision Making; Digital Transformation