Publications

16 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 16, 2008

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-034.pdf Making the Gambler's Fallacy Disappear: The Role of Experience Authors:Gregory M. Barron and Stephen Leider Abstract Recent papers have demonstrated that the way people acquire information about... View Details

03 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

Corporate Social Responsibility in a Downturn

might arise: I believe the tendency is to make across-the-board cuts, without reflecting on the company's business strategy and its relationship to the larger environment. Some companies will end up making... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

08 Jul 2008
First Look

First Look: July 8, 2008

the derivative claims issued against them. In particular, this model is used to make investment and risk management decisions in the market for collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Purchase this note:... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

04 Jun 2021
News

When an Educated Guess Beats Data Analysis

01 Dec 2019
News

Alumni and Faculty Books for December 2019

Disruption doesn’t create growth; instead, growth creates disruption. Growth is always hard, and disruptive growth is exponentially harder. It requires companies to make tough decisions in the face of... View Details

01 Dec 2006
News

Enron’s Legacy

today? The answer is yes and no. The no (or probably not) answer reflects the likelihood that executives of private-equity firms do not, on average, possess any more ethical discipline than leaders of public companies. Maintaining View Details

Keywords: Malcolm S. Salter; Enron; Finance

October 2001 (Revised March 2002)
Background Note

Implicit Predictors of Consumer Behavior

By: Gerald Zaltman, Nancy Puccinelli, Kathryn A. Braun and Fred W Mast PHD

An important distinction is drawn in psychology between explicit and implicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge refers to consciously held beliefs about an individual or object that often draws on the remembering of experiences in the past. In contrast, implicit knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Values and Beliefs; Knowledge Sharing; Consumer Behavior; Opportunities; Cognition and Thinking

October 1993 (Revised July 1994)
Case

A Brush with AIDS (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Jerry Useem

A product manager at a health products company is responsible for marketing sharps containers, which hospitals use to store used needles in order to protect medical workers from being pricked with AIDS-contaminated needles. After hospitals report repeated instances of... View Details

Keywords: Health; Cost vs Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Safety; Values and Beliefs; Profit; Goals and Objectives; Compensation and Benefits; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

11 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

Politicians Benefited From Using Toxic Loans

according to the researchers. About 43% used toxic loans More than 72 percent of the 300 largest local governments in France used structured loans, according to the researchers. And of those loans, 40 percent can be classified as toxic. "To View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

September 2024 (Revised October 2024)
Case

Anker Innovations (A)

By: Feng Zhu, Jiangyong Lu and Nancy Hua Dai

An Amazon-native brand, Anker is the world’s No. 1 mobile charging brand and a leading consumer electronics company. Over the years, Anker developed an effective model of proving new products online first by leveraging customer insights from its proprietary Voice of... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Product; Distribution; Product Launch; Electronics Industry; Consumer Products Industry

January 2010 (Revised February 2012)
Case

Meetup

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and David Chen

Meetup, an on-line company providing means of arranging face-to-face meetings, is deciding between two options of increasing its revenue by investing to: (i) increase new sign ups, (ii) improve the engagement of existing users. View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business Strategy; Web Services Industry

September 2000
Case

Jardines: Tapping the Asian E-Commerce Market

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Melissa Dailey and Fred Young

"We have made significant progress in reshaping the group in the current cycle of change," announced the homepage of Jardine Matheson & Co.'s web site. Percy Weatherall, newly appointed managing director of the company, knew all too well about change. In his previous... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Decisions; Information Technology; Corporate Strategy; Technology Adoption

Find at Harvard

01 Jan 2006
News

Who Has the D

Keywords: Paul Rogers, Marcia Blenko

01 Jun 2015
News

Research Brief: If State Pensions Clean Up Their Books, Who Pays?

that states with the largest pension deficits and those with heavy unionization were most likely to want to keep the status quo—even when the public and financial experts pushed for the opposite. It makes sense: “The most likely scenario... View Details

Keywords: Erin Peterson

2003
Article

The Influence of Culture and Corporate Governance on the Characteristics that Distinguish Superior Analysts

By: Michael B. Clement, Lynn Rees and Edward Swanson

We identify characteristics of financial analysts that have been shown to be associated with relative forecast accuracy in the United States and examine these characteristics within 10 countries. We find that relative forecast accuracy is influenced by years of... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Performance Evaluation

Find at Harvard

2021
Working Paper

Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?

By: Benjamin Enke, Uri Gneezy, Brian Hall, David Martin, Vadim Nelidov, Theo Offerman and Jeroen van de Ven

Despite decades of research on heuristics and biases, empirical evidence on the effect of large incentives—as present in relevant economic decisions—on cognitive biases is scant. This paper tests the effect of incentives on four widely documented biases: base rate... View Details

Keywords: Cognitive Biases; Incentives; Motivation and Incentives; Decision Making; Performance