Publications

July – August 2008
Article

Leaders in Denial

By: Richard S. Tedlow

Henry Ford's stubborn refusal to admit the changeability of consumer demand allowed Chrysler and GM to horn in on his market. Half a century later the whole U.S. auto industry made the same mistake: Enter the Japanese. But denial comes in many forms, as Sears, Digital... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Leadership; Demand and Consumers; Auto Industry; United States

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April 2014
Supplement

Interview: Man Jit Singh at Sony Entertainment Television

By: Linda A. Hill and Allison J. Wigen

Contains excerpts from an interview with Man Jit Singh. Singh discusses the results of events covered in the case "Man Jit Singh at Sony Entertainment Television," including his decision to begin evaluating employees on values as well as performance.
This short... View Details

Keywords: Performance Appraisals; Leading Change; Leadership; Emerging Markets; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Groups and Teams; Change Management; Media and Broadcasting Industry; India

17 Mar 2011
News

The gods that have failed—so far

20 Aug 2021
Video

Career Vision Workshop: Community

February 2021
Tutorial

Assessing Prediction Accuracy of Machine Learning Models

By: Michael Toffel and Natalie Epstein

This video describes how to assess the accuracy of machine learning prediction models, primarily in the context of machine learning models that predict binary outcomes, such as logistic regression, random forest, or nearest neighbor models. After introducing and... View Details

Keywords: Statistics; Experiments; Forecasting and Prediction; Performance Evaluation; AI and Machine Learning

Sandra Sucher, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, is an internationally recognized trust researcher. The Power of Trust, her third book, is based on two decades of global research on how companies build stakeholder trust and how,... View Details

Keywords: apparel; banking; brokerage; clothing; fashion; financial services; furniture; hotels ＆ motels; retail financial services; retailing; service industry

August 2016 (Revised May 2017)
Case

eBay vs. Carl Icahn, 2014

By: David B. Yoffie and Eric Baldwin

This case explores Carl Icahn's attack on eBay, starting in January 2014. The case examines how John Donahoe, CEO of eBay, should respond to Icahn's demand that eBay spin off PayPal and accept Icahn's two nominees to the board of directors. View Details

Keywords: Activist Shareholder; Activist Investors; Technology; Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Investment Activism; Financial Services Industry; Retail Industry

October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Engine No.1: An Impact Investing Firm Engages with ExxonMobil

By: Mark Kramer, Shawn Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi and T. Robert Zochowski

ExxonMobil, the world's fifth largest source of carbon emissions, remained committed to aggressively expanding its oil & gas business despite global warming. During the COVID pandemic this strategy resulted in massive losses as the price and demand for oil declined. ... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Global Warming; Impact Investment Funds; Hedge Fund Activism; Leadership Development; Business Model; Renewable Energy; Resource Allocation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards

13 May 2021
News

Airbnb Pricing Algorithm LED to Increased Racial Disparities, Study Finds

24 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Behavioral Economists Can Make You a Healthier Consumer and Smarter Marketer

Click Here If people made purely rational decisions, life might be much easier for marketers in selling products and services. But few of us are that rational. Instead, our decisions are based on illogical biases such as loss aversion and... View Details

Keywords: by Amelia Kunhardt

17 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

The Business of Babies

fertilization (IVF), surrogacy, and adoption demand payments of $10,000 and up. The largest demand in this market consists of infertile couples. Last year, some two million U.S. couples underwent fertility... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Health

June 2011
Supplement

Q and A Sessions with Akhil Gupta, Deputy Group CEO and Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises

This tape includes the highlights of question and answer sessions with Akhil Gupta, Deputy Group CEO and Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises, one of the largest mobile phone companies in India. The video focuses on the challenges and lessons learned from Bharti's... View Details

Keywords: Management; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Agreements and Arrangements; Innovation and Invention; Telecommunications Industry; India

March 2000 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Ethan Berman at RiskMetrics Group (A)

Ethan Berman, CEO of J.P. Morgan's risk management spinoff, has grown RiskMetrics Group (RMG) from a small team of 30 to a 70-person firm contemplating an IPO. Along the way, the consensus-based decision-making process that he espoused started to prove unwieldy; his... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Style; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Making; Service Industry; Consulting Industry

January 2010
Case

The Future of Financial Reporting

By: Karthik Ramanna

Multimedia/video case on the SEC's work on improvements to financial reporting. Students review topical audio and video from various sources including SEC footage, and interviews with others involved, such as Bob Pozen, (past head of Fidelity and chairman of the SEC's... View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Management; Performance Improvement

22 Feb 2017
News

What’s the Value of a Like?

July 2019
Case

Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2019)

By: John Gourville

One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance,... View Details

Keywords: Diffusion Processes; Product Adoption; Marketing; Forecasting and Prediction; Demand and Consumers; Product; Adoption; Product Launch

October 2011
Article

Fair Pricing

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper explores the consequences of supposing that consumers see a firm as fair if they cannot reject the hypothesis that the firm is somewhat benevolent towards them. When consumers can reject this hypothesis, some become angry, which is costly to the firm. The... View Details

Keywords: Price; Income; Consumer Behavior; Fair Value Accounting; Outcome or Result

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05 Mar 2022
News

Life and Love after COVID-19 with Arthur Brooks

2023
Working Paper

Dynamic Pricing, Intertemporal Spillovers, and Efficiency

By: Alexander J. MacKay, Dennis Svartbäck and Anders G. Ekholm

Pricing technology that allows firms to rapidly adjust prices has two potential benefits. Time-varying prices can respond to high-frequency demand shocks to generate greater revenues, and they can also be used to smooth out demand to reduce costs. Using data... View Details

Keywords: Price; Consumer Behavior; Applications and Software; Volatility