Observational Studies - Publications - Faculty & Research

19 Dec 2006
First Look

First Look: December 19, 2006

article provides a descriptive analysis of how methodological factors contribute to the accuracy of customer churn predictive models. The study is based on a tournament in which both academics and practitioners downloaded data from a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

27 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 27

Emissions Regulation Authors:David Drake, Paul R. Kleindorfer, and Luk N. Van Wassenhove Abstract We study the impact of emissions tax and emissions cap-and-trade regulation on a firm's long-run technology choice and capacity decisions.... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

20 Nov 2012
First Look

First Look: November 20

be complemented with quantitative analyses. The development of quantitative methods for the study of business models, however, has trailed that of their qualitative peers. In this paper, we develop an analytical framework based on the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

20 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

When Predicting Other People's Preferences, You're Probably Wrong

about presuming preferences. When predicting other people’s tastes, we tend to erroneously assume that liking one thing precludes enjoying another, dissimilar option, according to a recent set of studies by researchers at Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

29 Feb 2000
Research & Ideas

Whence IT Value?

visible, important ways. This hypothesis is reinforced by a growing number of academic studies indicating that a dollar spent on IT returns at least as much as a dollar spent on other forms of capital in many industries. These findings... View Details

Keywords: by Andrew McAfee

25 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

Hiding From Managers Can Increase Your Productivity

Companies all over the world have striven for transparency in the workplace, literally tearing down walls in an effort to let managers and employees observe each other. Take, for example, one of the 14 key principles of The Toyota Way,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Manufacturing

06 Aug 2007
Research & Ideas

High Hills, Deep Poverty: Explaining Civil War in Nepal

[PDF]. "There are many detailed case studies of conflict, and many broad-brush, cross-country studies. Within-country studies, such as we conducted on Nepal, fill in the gap between the two different approaches. Our econometric... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

19 Feb 2008
Research & Ideas

Radical Design, Radical Results

sort of research process and then launches products based on its findings. Wait and see. The company allows others to experiment with various products, observes what is most successful, and reacts accordingly. In Verganti's View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Consumer Products

01 May 2006
Research & Ideas

What Companies Lose from Forced Disclosure

concerns occur whenever employees take into account the impact of their current actions on their future career. In essence, whenever the internal and/or external labor market observes a performance measure that helps revise its beliefs... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

27 Sep 2010
Research & Ideas

Customer Experts Lose Influence When Teams are Pressured

observing teams for the case studies I used a fly-on-the-wall method: I tried to blend into the background so the teams would behave as naturally as possible. Based on their discussions and actions, they... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

09 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

The Manager in Red Sneakers

enter a boutique dressed poorly. The study reinforced the idea that observers who are familiar with the environment and the way people usually dress, the shop assistants in this case, are more likely to give... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion

12 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

Buy-In from Black Patients Suffers When Drug Trials Don’t Include Them

Black patients and their doctors may be more open to new medications if drug trials included more Black people, new research shows. Currently, Black Americans represent just 5 percent of drug trial participants. Nearly three-quarters of doctors surveyed in a new View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis; Pharmaceutical; Health

26 Jan 2010
First Look

First Look: Jan. 26

Public School Districts Author:Stacey Childress Abstract This working paper offers concrete examples of improved productivity and efficiencies at the district level, drawing from the author's experience working with districts and developing such case View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

19 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Rupert Murdoch and the Seeds of Moral Hazard

The News Corporation/News of the World scandal has been described as a case study in bad management. What was there about the company's organizational culture that led to "Murdoch's Mess"? Professor Michel Anteby, who View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Journalism & News; Publishing

13 Aug 2018
Research & Ideas

Women Heart Patients Have Better Survival Odds with Women Doctors

matter who that person is? And yes, it sort of does. Here we find that who you are and who is advocating for you, who is treating you, is making a difference.” Results don’t show exactly why male physicians don’t do as well with women, in part because the View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Health

20 Feb 2007
First Look

First Look: February 20, 2007

Street earnings occurred around 1991, and (iii) a large number of firm-quarter observations exhibit zero differences between GAAP and Street earnings. We first view the paper as a methodological paper, and discuss how the analysis... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

17 Nov 2008
Research & Ideas

Decoding the Artful Sidestep

Question the Right Way," is available for download [PDF]. Todd Rogers, now Executive Director of the Analyst Institute, explained more. Martha Lagace: What observations or experiences got you interested in View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

29 Apr 2019
Research & Ideas

Is the Digital Age Making Us Petty?

in nature,” observe the authors of Pettiness in Social Exchange, a paper published last year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. “That kind of precision can be very off-putting, and we wanted to find out why.” The coauthors, Tami... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

23 Mar 2016
Research & Ideas

Researchers Prove C-Suite Gender Gap—but Can’t Explain It

citizens and firms is unusually available, compared with other nations. (When I ask Keloharju about the “Swedish data sample,” he gently corrects me. “This data is extraordinary,” Keloharju says. “It’s not a Swedish sample. It’s all of Sweden.”) The researchers began... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

07 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Banning Big-box Stores Can Hurt Local Retailers

protect local businesses from the crushing competition of "big-box" stores. But it turns out such rules often backfire, according to research by Raffaella Sadun, an assistant professor in the Strategy unit at Harvard Business School. “Suddenly these... View Details