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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(705)
- People (1)
- News (121)
- Research (457)
- Events (12)
- Multimedia (3)
- Faculty Publications (276)
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- June 2004 (Revised January 2005)
- Background Note
Principals, Agents, and Partners
By: Arthur I Segel, Armen Panossian and Jeff Mandelbaum
The establishment of the principal-agent relationship, the duties owed by the agent to the principal, and the principal's liability for illegal actions or representations made by the agent are all examined. Also covers the creation of partnerships and the duties of... View Details
Segel, Arthur I., Armen Panossian, and Jeff Mandelbaum. "Principals, Agents, and Partners." Harvard Business School Background Note 804-186, June 2004. (Revised January 2005.)
- 2018
- Working Paper
Bundling Incentives in (Many-to-Many) Matching with Contracts
By: Jonathan Ma and Scott Duke Kominers
In many-to-many matching with contracts, the way in which contracts are specified can affect the set of stable equilibrium outcomes. Consequently, agents may be incentivized to modify the set of contracts upfront. We consider one simple way in which agents may do so:... View Details
Keywords: Matching With Contracts; Contract Design; Bundling-proofness; Substitutability; Mathematical Methods
Ma, Jonathan, and Scott Duke Kominers. "Bundling Incentives in (Many-to-Many) Matching with Contracts." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-011, August 2018.
- 2013
- Working Paper
Competing by Restricting Choice: The Case of Search Platforms
By: Hanna Halaburda and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski
Seminal papers recommend that platforms in two-sided markets increase the number of complements available. We show that a two-sided platform can successfully compete by limiting the choice of potential matches it offers to its customers while charging higher prices... View Details
Keywords: Matching Platform; Indirect Network Effects; Limits To Network Effects; Decision Choices and Conditions; Network Effects; Two-Sided Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Competitive Strategy
Halaburda, Hanna, and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski. "Competing by Restricting Choice: The Case of Search Platforms." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 10-098, May 2010. (Revised June 2010, March 2011, August 2011, March 2013.)
- December 2010
- Article
Social Preferences and Strategic Uncertainty: An Experiment on Markets and Contracts
This paper reports a three-phase experiment on a stylized labor market. In the first two phases, agents face simple games, which we use to estimate subjects' social and reciprocity concerns. In the last phase, four principals compete by offering agents a contract from... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Markets; Contracts; Decisions; Distribution; Labor; Game Theory
Cabrales, Antonio, Raffaele Miniaci, Marco Piovesan, and Giovanni Ponti. "Social Preferences and Strategic Uncertainty: An Experiment on Markets and Contracts." American Economic Review 100, no. 5 (December 2010): 2261–2278.
- 2009
- Working Paper
Authority versus Persuasion
This paper studies a principal's trade-off between using persuasion versus using interpersonal authority to get the agent to "do the right thing"; from the principal's perspective (when the principal and agent openly disagree on the right course of action). It shows... View Details
Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Managerial Roles; Projects; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence
Van den Steen, Eric J. "Authority versus Persuasion." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 09-085, January 2009.
- April 2011
- Supplement
Emergia: Driving Profitability on Help Desk Contracts (CW)
By: F. Asis Martinez Jerez
Contact Data for September 2010, dictionary of terms, and agent login information. View Details
Keywords: Contracts
- Article
Commitments with Third Parties
By: Jerry R. Green
Observable irrevocable contracts between a principal and an agent have been suggested as a way in which the principal can enhance his payoff when playing a game against, or bargaining with, an opponent. It is shown that such beneficial agency relationships depend on... View Details
Green, Jerry R. "Commitments with Third Parties." Annales d'économie et de statistique, nos. 25-26 (January–June 1992): 81–95.
- February 2024 (Revised December 2024)
- Case
Best Buy Health: Enabling Care at Home
This case explores retailer Best Buy’s decision to enter health care. Best Buy Health aims to enable care at home across three prongs: consumer health, active aging, and virtual care. A key pillar of Best Buy Health's strategy is leveraging the Geek Squad—the company's... View Details
Keywords: Business Ventures; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Business Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Electronics Industry; Health Industry; Retail Industry; United States; Minnesota
Huckman, Robert S., Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Antonio Moreno, Bradley Staats, and Sarah Mehta. "Best Buy Health: Enabling Care at Home." Harvard Business School Case 624-009, February 2024. (Revised December 2024.)
- September 2004
- Article
Rational Overoptimism (and Other Biases)
Rational agents with differing priors tend to be overoptimistic about their chances of success. In particular, an agent who tries to choose the action that is most likely to succeed, is more likely to choose an action of which he overestimated, rather than... View Details
Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Decision Choices and Conditions; Performance Expectations; Outcome or Result; Opportunities; Risk and Uncertainty; Failure; Success; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Personal Characteristics; Values and Beliefs; Ethics
Van den Steen, Eric J. "Rational Overoptimism (and Other Biases)." American Economic Review 94, no. 4 (September 2004): 1141–1151.
- Article
Testing Substitutability
By: John William Hatfield, Nicole Immorlica and Scott Duke Kominers
We provide an algorithm for testing the substitutability of a length-N preference relation over a set of contracts X in time O(|X|3⋅N3). Access to the preference relation is essential for this result: We show that a substitutability-testing algorithm with access only... View Details
Keywords: Substitutability; Matching; Communication Complexity; Preference Elicitation; Marketplace Matching; Communication; Mathematical Methods; Economics
Hatfield, John William, Nicole Immorlica, and Scott Duke Kominers. "Testing Substitutability." Games and Economic Behavior 75, no. 2 (July 2012): 639–645.
- 2016
- Working Paper
Operations in the On-Demand Economy: Staffing Services with Self-Scheduling Capacity
By: Itai Gurvich, Martin Lariviere and Antonio Moreno
Motivated by recent innovations in service delivery such as ride-sharing services and work-from-home call centers, we study capacity management when workers self-schedule. Our service provider chooses capacity to maximize its profit (revenue from served customers minus... View Details
Keywords: Strategic Servers; On-demand Economy; Independent Capacity; Distributed Systems; Uber; Service Operations; Performance Capacity
Gurvich, Itai, Martin Lariviere, and Antonio Moreno. "Operations in the On-Demand Economy: Staffing Services with Self-Scheduling Capacity." Working Paper, June 2016.
- February 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
AGENTS.inc: Pathways to Growth at an AI Startup
By: Frank Nagle, Manuel Hoffmann, Karoline Ströhlein and Susan Pinckney
The case describes the history of AGENTS.inc. Despite being a small startup, with only four employees, that had never had a funding round, the company boasted an impressive client portfolio including multiple Fortune 500 companies. While AGENTS.inc had been an early... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Startups; Small Business; Transformation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Financial Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Digital Platforms; Technological Innovation; Copyright; Management; Growth and Development; Market Timing; Ownership; Risk and Uncertainty; Competition; Open Source Distribution; Entrepreneurial Finance; Computer Industry; Europe; Germany
Nagle, Frank, Manuel Hoffmann, Karoline Ströhlein, and Susan Pinckney. "AGENTS.inc: Pathways to Growth at an AI Startup." Harvard Business School Case 724-444, February 2024. (Revised January 2025.)
- October 2012
- Case
Riding the Wave of Technological Change at RE/MAX, LLC.
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Ramiro Montealegre and Jeffrey Sweeney
David Liniger, cofounder of RE/MAX, LLC., wondered if his business was prepared to exploit the next wave of business opportunities in the real estate market. This industry had moved from one in which broker/owners controlled all of the consumers' access to information,... View Details
Keywords: General Management; Business Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Information Technology; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation
Applegate, Lynda M., Ramiro Montealegre, and Jeffrey Sweeney. "Riding the Wave of Technological Change at RE/MAX, LLC." Harvard Business School Case 813-054, October 2012.
- 12 Feb 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus-Based Compensation Plans
- Article
Relational Reconciliation: Socializing Others Across Demographic Differences
By: Lakshmi Ramarajan and Erin M. Reid
In demographically diverse organizations, employees charged with socializing others—
socialization agents—must navigate a deep tension between the organization’s needs to
integrate individuals into a collective and individuals’ needs for recognition of their
unique... View Details
Ramarajan, Lakshmi, and Erin M. Reid. "Relational Reconciliation: Socializing Others Across Demographic Differences." Academy of Management Journal 63, no. 2 (April 2020): 356–385.
- 2006
- Working Paper
Too Motivated?
I show that an agent's motivation to do well (objectively) may be unambiguously bad in a world with differing priors, i.e., when people openly disagree on the optimal course of action. The reason is that an agent who is strongly motivated is more likely to follow... View Details
Keywords: Governance Controls; Employees; Wages; Measurement and Metrics; Outcome or Result; Performance; Agency Theory; Motivation and Incentives
Van den Steen, Eric J. "Too Motivated?" Sloan School of Management Working Paper, No. 4547-05, April 2006. (Available at SSRN.)
- Forthcoming
- Article
Engaging Customers with AI in Online Chats: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
By: Shunyuan Zhang and Das Narayandas
We examine how artificial intelligence (AI) affected the productivity of customer service agents and customer sentiment in online interactions. Collaborating with a meal delivery company, we conducted a randomized field experiment that exploited exogenous variation in... View Details
- October 2004
- Article
FDI and Economic Growth: The Role of Local Financial Markets
By: Laura Alfaro, Areendam Chanda, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Selin Sayek
The purpose of this paper is to examine the various links among foreign direct investment, financial markets and growth. We model an economy with a continuum of agents indexed by their level of ability. Agents have two choices: they can work for the foreign company in... View Details
Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Financial Markets; Economic Growth; Cost; Wealth; Investment Return; Knowledge
Alfaro, Laura, Areendam Chanda, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, and Selin Sayek. "FDI and Economic Growth: The Role of Local Financial Markets." Journal of International Economics 64, no. 1 (October 2004): 89–112.
- September 2004
- Article
Trust in Agency
Existing models of the principal-agent relationship assume the agent works only under extrinsic incentives. However, many observed agency contracts take the form of a fixed payment. For such contracts to succeed, the principal must trust the agent to work in the... View Details
Keywords: Trust; Agency Theory; Relationships; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Contracts; Business Model; Emotions; Forecasting and Prediction; Ethics; Standards; Risk and Uncertainty
Casadesus-Masanell, Ramon. "Trust in Agency." Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 13, no. 3 (September 2004): 375–404.
- December 1999 (Revised November 2000)
- Background Note
Pricing and Market Making on the Internet
By: Robert J. Dolan and Youngme E. Moon
Considers the impact of the Internet on how market exchanges will take place. Discusses the role of shopping agents and alternatives to fixed prices such as negotiations, auctions, and exchanges. View Details
Dolan, Robert J., and Youngme E. Moon. "Pricing and Market Making on the Internet." Harvard Business School Background Note 500-065, December 1999. (Revised November 2000.)