Publications

Educators

2019
Book

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

By: Shoshana Zuboff

In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Profiling; Consumer Behavior; Forecasting and Prediction; Information Technology; Power and Influence; Ethics; Society; Transformation

07 Apr 2022
Research & Ideas

Giving Back: Consumers Care More About How Companies Donate Than How Much

Companies donate billions of dollars every year, hoping their generosity will not only help important causes, but also attract socially conscious consumers to their brands. What companies might not realize is that people focus less on the... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

04 Dec 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Dynamics of Platform Competition: Exploring the Role of Installed Base, Platform Quality and Consumer Expectations

Keywords: by Feng Zhu & Marco Iansiti; Entertainment & Recreation

27 Jun 2019
Research & Ideas

Rituals Strengthen Couples. Here’s Why They’re Good for Business, Too

satisfied, invested in, and committed to their relationships than couples who don't bother with them, according to an April article in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, Rituals and Nuptials: The Emotional and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

07 Jan 2002
What Do You Think?

Did Consumer Behavior Tracking Come of Age on September 11?

age and with it comes a price: privacy. If monitoring is a good way to provide security, so be it." Have we become so accustomed, however gradually, to the idea of oversight that surveillance in the name of transparency is a mere... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

July 2009
Article

Bad Riddance or Good Rubbish? Ownership and Not Loss Aversion Causes the Endowment Effect

By: C. K. Morewedge, L. L. Shu, D. T. Gilbert and T. D. Wilson

People typically demand more to relinquish the goods they own than they would be willing to pay to acquire those goods if they didn't already own them (the endowment effect). The standard economic explanation of this phenomenon is that people expect the pain of... View Details

Keywords: Value; Judgments; Consumer Behavior; Attitudes

24 Jun 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Don’t Just Survive—Thrive: Leading Innovation in Good Times and Bad

Keywords: by Lynda M. Applegate & J. Bruce Harreld

23 Apr 2014
HBS Case

Are Electronic Cigarettes a Public Good or Health Hazard?

consequences, Quelch hopes he can motivate MBA students to think more deeply about the public health impacts of business decisions, as well as getting MPH students to think about the business forces that shape public health. Only then will decisions be made that... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage; Advertising

August 2022
Article

What Makes a Good Image? Airbnb Demand Analytics Leveraging Interpretable Image Features

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Dokyun Lee, Param Vir Singh and Kannan Srinivasan

We study how Airbnb property demand changed after the acquisition of verified images (taken by Airbnb’s photographers) and explore what makes a good image for an Airbnb property. Using deep learning and difference-in-difference analyses on an Airbnb panel dataset... View Details

Keywords: Sharing Economy; Airbnb; Property Demand; Computer Vision; Deep Learning; Image Feature Extraction; Content Engineering; Property; Marketing; Demand and Consumers

SSRN

August 2017 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Flex Hungary: Launching Production (A)

By: Willy Shih

This case examines design choices in the construction of flow lines. Flow lines are a popular way of arranging production because they are simple and inherently efficient. Equipment or workstations are arranged according to the sequence of steps in which a product is... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing; Line-balancing; Flow Line; Conveyor-paced Line; Consumer Goods; Consumer Products; Production Management; Production Planning; Production Scheduling; Operations; Production; Management; Supply Chain; Design; Analysis; Goods and Commodities; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; European Union

Educators

March 2016
Article

To Groupon or Not to Groupon: The Profitability of Deep Discounts

By: Benjamin Edelman, Sonia Jaffe and Scott Duke Kominers

We examine the profitability and implications of online discount vouchers, a relatively new marketing tool that offers consumers large discounts when they prepay for participating firms' goods and services. Within a model of repeat experience good purchase, we examine... View Details

Keywords: Voucher Discounts; Groupon; Experience Goods; Repeat Purchase; Internet and the Web; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications

Read Now

2014
Working Paper

~To Groupon or Not to Groupon: The Profitability of Deep Discounts

By: Benjamin G. Edelman

We examine the profitability and implications of online discount vouchers, a relatively new marketing tool that offers consumers large discounts when they prepay for participating firms' goods and services. Within a model of repeat experience good purchase, we examine... View Details

Keywords: Voucher Discounts; Groupon; Experience Goods; Repeat Purchase; Online Advertising; Price; Profit; Marketing Strategy; Retail Industry

SSRN

Read Now

03 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

Forget About Making College Affordable; Make it a Good Investment

The August 2016 cover of Consumer Reports featured a striking quote by a 32-year-old nurse with $152,000 in student loans: “I kind of ruined my life by going to college.” While obviously an extreme case, her plight offered merely the... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph Fuller; Education

January 2019
Supplement

Understanding the Brand Equity of Nestlé Crunch Bar (B): Data Analysis

By: Jill Avery and Gerald Zaltman

In early 2018, Nestlé announced the sale of its U.S. candy-making division and a select collection of 20 of its confectionery brands, including the Nestlé Crunch Bar, to Ferrero SpA for $2.8 billion. Luckily, an old consumer research study on the Nestlé Crunch Bar... View Details