Publications

January 2002 (Revised April 2002)
Case

Space Data Corporation

By: Alan D. MacCormack and Jay Wynn

Space Data Corp. plans to partner with the U.S. National Weather Service to place transceivers on weather balloons and thereby create a national mobile communications network. The company is in the late development stages and is planning to launch a regional test that... View Details

Keywords: Wireless Technology; Business Startups; Business Processes; Adaptation; Partners and Partnerships; Opportunities; Telecommunications Industry; Public Administration Industry; United States

Article

Doing Business with Strangers: Reputation in Online Service Marketplaces

By: Antonio Moreno and Christian Terwiesch

Online service marketplaces allow service buyers to post their project requests and service providers to bid for them. To reduce the transactional risks, marketplaces typically track and publish previous seller performance. By analyzing a detailed transactional data... View Details

Keywords: Online Service Marketplace; Procurement; Auctions; Reputation; Bids and Bidding

17 Jun 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Management as a Technology?

Keywords: by Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen

October 2015
Case

Bigbelly

By: Mitch Weiss and Christine Snively

To accelerate Bigbelly's sales growth and its "smart cities" positioning, its CEO planned to shift his company from equipment sales to a subscription service. Jack Kutner hoped to re-position Bigbelly's solar-powered trash compacting stations beyond trash and recycling... View Details

September 2018
Case

Verisk: Trailblazing in the Big Data Jungle

By: Andrew Wasynczuk, Francesca Gino and Karim Sameh

This case revolves around Verisk Analytics' initiatives to drive innovation throughout the firm's many business verticals. Verisk, originally named ISO, started life as an insurance rating agency in the early 1970s, acting as an intermediary between insurance companies... View Details

2010
Working Paper

Employee Selection as a Control System

By: Dennis Campbell

Theories from the economics, management control, and organizational behavior literatures predict that when it is difficult to align incentives by contracting on output, aligning preferences via employee selection may provide a useful alternative. This study... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Decision Making; Governance Controls; Employees; Selection and Staffing; Management Systems; Financial Services Industry

May 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Verne Global: Building a Green Data Center in Iceland

Verne Global, a pioneering startup created to build the first large-scale data center in Iceland, faces critical challenges regarding its green strategy. Verne Co-Founder Isaac Kato is tasked with evaluating how the company can most successfully market and sell the... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Startups; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Sales; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Service Industry; Service Industry; Iceland

2013
Article

How Concentrated Is the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services Industry? Myth vs. Reality

By: Alvin J. Silk and Charles King III

We analyze changes in concentration levels in the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services industry using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's quinquennial Economic Census and the Service Annual Survey. These data, heretofore largely ignored, allow us to redress some of... View Details

Keywords: Concentration Levels; Data; U.S. Census Bureau’s Quinquennial Economic Census And The Service Annual Survey; Measurement Problems; Herfindahl-Hirschman Index; Concentration Ratios; Advertising; Advertising Industry; North and Central America

Article

Modes of Technology Transfer as a Function of Position in the Research-Development-Technical Service Spectrum

By: Michael Tushman and T. J. Allen

Keywords: Information Technology; Communication; Research and Development

03 Feb 2003
Research & Ideas

Web Services

Before this can occur, however, issues such as complexity of installation and management, software quality, and cost must be addressed. Some other unsolved problems, Scott added, are quality of service and... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Service

October 2008 (Revised February 2012)
Case

Amazon Web Services

By: Robert S. Huckman, Gary P. Pisano and Liz Kind

Considers the development of Amazon Web Services (AWS), a division of Amazon.com, Inc., specializing in the provision of web-based storage and computing services to web developers. The case focuses on the issues facing Andy Jassy, the head of AWS, in 2008 as AWS faces... View Details

Keywords: Price; Market Entry and Exit; Service Operations; Competition; Diversification; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry

Article

Employee Selection as a Control System

By: Dennis Campbell

Theories from the economics, management control, and organizational behavior literatures predict that when it is difficult to align incentives by contracting on output, aligning preferences via employee selection may provide a useful alternative. This study... View Details

Keywords: Management Systems; Governance Controls; Employees; Selection and Staffing; Motivation and Incentives; Decision Making; Business Model

June 2006 (Revised September 2006)
Case

Tech Data Corporation

Tech Data is a global supplier of logistics management services and one of the world's largest distributors of information technology equipment. Operational execution is key for the company, which has gross margins in the 5% range. At the end of 2005, the company had... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Information Infrastructure; Operations; Growth and Development Strategy

March 2020
Article

Diagnosing Missing Always at Random in Multivariate Data

By: Iavor I. Bojinov, Natesh S. Pillai and Donald B. Rubin

Models for analyzing multivariate data sets with missing values require strong, often assessable, assumptions. The most common of these is that the mechanism that created the missing data is ignorable—a twofold assumption dependent on the mode of inference. The first... View Details

Keywords: Missing Data; Diagnostic Tools; Sensitivity Analysis; Hypothesis Testing; Missing At Random; Row Exchangeability; Analytics and Data Science; Mathematical Methods

Read Now

13 Oct 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Employee Selection as a Control System

Keywords: by Dennis Campbell; Banking

May 1983 (Revised December 1987)
Case

Technical Data Corp.

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes a decision confronting the president of a small company about selling some or all of the shares in his company to another firm. Technical Data Corp. provides analytical services to professional bond market traders over a system of computer terminals operated... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Valuation; Negotiation Tactics; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Strategy; Horizontal Integration; Service Industry; Service Industry

July 2005
Article

The Consequences of Labor Market Flexibility: Panel Evidence Based on Survey Data

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch

We introduce a new data set on hiring and firing restrictions for 21 OECD countries for the period 1984 –1990. The data are based on surveys of business people in the countries covered, so the indices we use are subjective in nature. Controlling for country and time... View Details

Keywords: Job Security Provisions; Subjective Data; Unemployment; Employment; Labor; Markets; Data and Data Sets

Read Now

September 2019
Article

The Persistence of Broadband User Behavior: Implications for Universal Service and Competition Policy

By: Andre Boik, Shane Greenstein and Jeffrey Prince

In several markets, firms compete not for consumer expenditure but consumer attention. We examine user priorities over the allocation of their time, and interpret that behavior in light of salient tensions in policy discussions over universal service, data caps, and... View Details

Keywords: Broadband Service; Attention Allocation; Consumer Behavior; Household; Internet and the Web; Competition; Policy