Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(908)
- Faculty Publications (90)
- 2018
- Working Paper
Expressive Voting and Its Cost: Evidence from Runoffs with Two or Three Candidates
By: Vincent Pons and Clémence Tricaud
In French parliamentary and local elections, candidates ranked first and second in the first round automatically qualify for the second round, while a third candidate qualifies only when selected by more than 12.5 percent of registered citizens. Using a fuzzy RDD... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Opportunistic Returns and Dynamic Pricing: Empirical Evidence from Online Retailing in Emerging Markets
By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu
We investigate how dynamic pricing can lead to higher operational costs through more product returns in the online retail industry. Dynamic pricing has been widely applied by many online retailers. Research has shown that, in response to dynamic pricing, some customers... View Details
- November 2016 (Revised December 2016)
- Module Note
Strategy Execution Module 14: Managing Strategic Risk
By: Robert Simons
This module reading provides an overview of the business conduct boundaries, strategic boundaries, and internal control systems used to manage risk. Boundary systems—linked to clear, enforceable sanctions—are essential whenever demanding performance goals are set and... View Details
Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Strategy Execution; Boundary Systems; Innovation; Internal Controls; Fraud; Human Behavior; Staff Experts; Strategy; Risk Management; Behavior; Governance Controls; Management Practices and Processes; Boundaries; Employees; Business Strategy; Innovation and Invention
- November–December 2016
- Article
The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Industry
By: Yongwook Paik and Feng Zhu
Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... View Details
- September 2016
- Article
Monitoring Global Supply Chains
By: Jodi L. Short, Michael W. Toffel and Andrea R. Hugill
Firms seeking to avoid reputational spillovers that can arise from dangerous, illegal, and unethical behavior at supply chain factories are increasingly relying on private social auditors to provide strategic information about suppliers' conduct. But little is known... View Details
- 2016
- Article
Recursive Mentalizing and Common Knowledge in the Bystander Effect
By: Kyle A. Thomas, Julian De Freitas, Peter DiScioli and Steven Pinker
The more potential helpers there are, the less likely any individual is to help. A traditional explanation
for this bystander effect is that responsibility diffuses across the multiple bystanders, diluting the responsibility of each. We investigate an... View Details
- Article
Beyond Statistics: The Economic Content of Risk Scores
By: Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, Raymond Kluender and Paul Schrimpf
"Big data" and statistical techniques to score potential transactions have transformed insurance and credit markets. In this paper, we observe that these widely-used statistical scores summarize a much richer heterogeneity, and may be endogenous to the context in which... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market
By: Feng Zhu
Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... View Details
- December 15, 2015
- Article
Don't Turn Your Sales Team Loose Without a Strategy
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Steve Thompson
When formulating a strategy, markets and segments are typically important categories. But only customers buy. Hence, for most firms, de facto strategy and much resource allocation are the aggregate result of the deals their salespeople close. However, few firms clarify... View Details
- Article
Well Said: Why Articulating Your Strategy Can Set You Apart
Senior finance managers now operate in an altered c-suite landscape. The executives reporting to the CEO have doubled in the past 30 years, mostly an increase in functional specialists, not general managers responsible for cross-functional integration. Three decades... View Details
- December 2014 (Revised July 2021)
- Case
Discovery Limited
By: Michael E. Porter, Mark R. Kramer and Aldo Sesia
Discovery Ltd. is a South Africa-based insurance company. Started in the early 1990s, Discovery used behavioral economics and data collection to innovate in the health care insurance industry. Its founder Adrian Gore believed that the company's products needed to not... View Details
- 2014
- Book
Aligning Strategy and Sales: The Choices, Systems, and Behaviors That Drive Effective Selling
There are many books that provide strategy advice and selling methodologies. But there is a gap in the management literature when it comes to linking sales efforts with strategy. Part 1 of this book provides data indicating how and why sales remain (by far) the biggest... View Details
- September 2014
- Article
Structural Models of Complementary Choices
By: Steven T. Berry, Ahmed Khwaja, Vineet Kumar, Andres Musalem, Kenneth C. Wilbur, Greg Allenby, Bharat Anand, Pradeep K. Chintagunta, W. Michael Hanemann, Przemyslaw Jeziorski and Angelo Mele
Complementary choices are important and pervasive yet occasionally elusive. Single consumers make complementary choices in purchase decisions (e.g., chips and salsa), product inter-operabilities (smartphones and networks), and dynamic decisions (current exercise and... View Details
- May 2014
- Article
Cynicism in Negotiation: When Communication Increases Buyers' Skepticism
By: Eyal Ert, Stephanie J. Creary and Max H. Bazerman
The economic literature on negotiation shows that strategic concerns can be a barrier to agreement, even when the buyer values the good more than the seller. Yet behavioral research demonstrates that human interaction can overcome these strategic concerns through... View Details
- June 2013 (Revised March 2014)
- Case
Kvadrat: Leading for Innovation
By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott
In 2013, Anders Byriel, CEO of the family-owned Danish textiles company, Kvadrat, considered the firm's strategic plan. In 2000, Byriel and Mette Bendix, Kvadrat's Product Director, had taken over management of the company from their fathers, who had founded Kvadrat... View Details
- Article
Contagion of Cooperation in Static and Fluid Social Networks
By: Jillian J. Jordan, David G. Rand, Samuel Arbesman, James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis
Cooperation is essential for successful human societies. Thus, understanding how cooperative and selfish behaviors spread from person to person is a topic of theoretical and practical importance. Previous laboratory experiments provide clear evidence of social... View Details
- 2013
- Article
The Strategic Fitness Process: A Collaborative Action Research Method for Developing Organizational Prototypes and Dynamic Capabilities
By: Michael Beer
Organizations underperform and sometimes fail because their leaders are unable to learn the unvarnished truth from relevant stakeholders about how the design and behavior of the organization is misaligned with its goals and strategy. The Strategic Fitness Process (SFP)... View Details
- June 2012
- Case
Microsoft IT India
By: Willy C. Shih, Margaret Pierson, Alexander Down, William Gustave Jair-Shemuel Jurist, Diego Medicina and Helen Wang
Raj Biyani faced tough challenges managing Microsoft IT India: leading a remote development organization in which key decisions were made in Redmond, and managing an organization that was perceived as less strategic than its sister Microsoft India Development Center... View Details
Keywords: Organizational Development; Cross-functional Management; Foreign Subsidiaries; Strategy Alignment; Organizational Behavior; Indian Software Development; Global Distributed R＆D; Software Industry; Organizational Structure; Research and Development; Operations; Leadership; Globalized Firms and Management; Business Subsidiaries; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Industry; India
- Article
The Pursuit of Power Corrupts: How Investing in Outside Options Motivates Opportunism in Relationships
By: D. Malhotra and F. Gino
Across three laboratory studies, this paper illustrates how a common strategic decision aimed at increasing one's own power—investing in outside options—can lead to opportunistic behavior in exchange relationships. We show that the extent to which individuals have... View Details
- April 2011 (Revised September 2011)
- Case
BlackRock Solutions
By: Kenneth A. Froot and Scott Waggoner
The BlackRock Solutions case examines the different functions and economics of a global asset manager's value chain, with particular emphasis on the "money management" and the "investment systems platform" businesses. Students analyze why BlackRock decided to unbundle... View Details
Keywords: Investment Management; Strategic Vision; Organizational Behavior; Economies Of Scale And Scope; Unbundling Of Services; Strategic Planning; Risk Management; Financial Management; Asset Management; Competitive Advantage; Value; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Culture; Investment; Financial Strategy