Publications

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November 2006 (Revised November 2009)
Course Overview Note

Introduction to Competitive Dynamics: Strategy and Tactics

By: Dennis A. Yao

Provides an overview of the course Competitive Dynamics: Strategy and Tactics and discusses challenges facing those who wish to use game theory to assist in strategic and tactical decision making. View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Game Theory; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage

1998
Book

The Multinational Traders

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book examines the history and theory of multinational trading companies. The essays in this volume demonstrate the importance of trading companies in trade and investment flows in the world economy from the nineteenth century to the present day. The empirical... View Details

Keywords: Company History; Trade; Globalization; Books; Organizational Structure; Perspective; Diversification; Theory; Asia; Europe; United States

Research Summary

Understanding Human Nature

By: Nitin Nohria

Recent advances in biological sciences provide great insights into the workings of the human brain and thereby into human nature. Drawing upon this research, my colleague Paul Lawrence and I propose a neo-Darwinian theory of human motivation based on four basic human... View Details

Research Summary

FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS STRATEGY

Pankaj Ghemawat is involved in an ongoing stream of research and course development on the foundations of business strategy. Recent work has included the application of game theory to business strategy, as reported in the book Games Businesses Play, and the... View Details

Article

Howard Raiffa: The Art, Science, and Humanity of a Legendary Negotiation Analyst

By: James K. Sebenius

Rightly known as the “father of negotiation analysis,” Howard Raiffa was my thesis advisor, colleague, and friend for over 30 years. The bulk of this article develops an account of his intellectual trajectory from game theory to statistical decision theory to decision... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Analysis; Bargaining; Howard Raiffa; Negotiation; Personal Development and Career

March 2023
Article

Not from Concentrate: Collusion in Collaborative Industries

By: Jordan M. Barry, John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery

The chief principle of antitrust law and theory is that reducing market concentration—having more, smaller firms instead of fewer, bigger ones—reduces anticompetitive behavior. We demonstrate that this principle is fundamentally incomplete.

In many... View Details

SSRN

2016
Book

Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan

The foremost authority on innovation and growth presents a path-breaking book every company needs to transform innovation from a game of chance to one in which they develop products and services that customers want to buy and are willing to purchase at a premium price.... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Consumer Behavior

26 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

How Humans Outshine AI in Adapting to Change

that required increasingly more flexible self-orienting. Like a simplified version of a four-player scenario of the classic video game Mario Kart, each game included four “possible selves,” which were... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology; Information Technology

August 2010 (Revised October 2012)
Exercise

To Catch a Vandal: A Power & Influence Exercise

By: Amy J.C. Cuddy, Ruwan Tharindu Gunatilake and Meredith Hodges

This exercise is based on the "Mafia" game created by psychologist Dimma Davidoff, and is designed to give students a broad introduction to multiple theories of influence and to challenge their instincts about which techniques are the most powerful and how they may be... View Details

Keywords: Nonverbal Communication; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Skills; Groups and Teams; Power and Influence; Trust

2009
Article

Silenced by Fear: The Nature, Sources, and Consequences of Fear at Work

By: Jennifer Kish Gephart, James R. Detert, Linda K. Trevino and Amy C. Edmondson

In every organization, individual members have the potential to speak up about important issues, but a growing body of research suggests that they often remain silent instead, out of fear of negative personal and professional consequences. In this chapter, we draw on... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Working Conditions; Research; Emotions; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Theory; Behavior

05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Bringing History into International Business

Keywords: by Geoffrey G. Jones & Tarun Khanna; Financial Services

12 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

New Research Explores Multi-Sided Markets

Xbox, make their profits from game developers through royalties and incur losses on the sale of consoles to users by pricing them below cost. The key reason is that two-sided platforms must solve a chicken-and-egg problem. For example,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

Research Summary

The Power of Paradox: Some Recent Developments in Interactive Epistemology

This survey describes a central paradox of game theory, viz. the Paradox of Backward Induction (BI). The paradox is that the BI outcome is often said to follow from basic game-theoretic principles--specifically, from the assumption that the players are rational. Yet,... View Details

April 2020
Article

Long-term Firm Growth: An Empirical Analysis of U.S. Manufacturers 1959–2015

By: Giovanni Dosi, Marco Grazzi, Daniele Moschella, Gary P. Pisano and Federico Tamagni

Firm growth is an essential feature of market economies, shaping together macroeconomic performance and the evolution of industry structures. As a potential indicator of organizational “fitness” within a competitive environment, firm growth is also a central concern to... View Details

Keywords: Firm Growth; Organizations; Growth and Development; Theory; Analysis; Production; Data and Data Sets

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09 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Clayton Christensen’s “How Will You Measure Your Life?”

Editor's note: Every year, HBS Professor Clayton Christensen teaches students that well-tested academic theories can help them succeed not just in business, but in life. He expounds upon those lessons in his forthcoming book, How Will You... View Details

Research Summary

The Chopstick Auction - An Experimental Study of the Exposure Problem in Auctions (with P. Guillen, L. Llorente, S. Onderstal, R. Sausgruber), 2002

Multi-unit auctions are sometimes plagued by the so-called exposure problem. In this paper, we analyze a simple game called the "chopstick auction" in which bidders are confronted with the exposure problem. We analyze the chopstick auction with incomplete information... View Details

May 2017
Article

Agent-based Modeling: A Guide for Social Psychologists

By: Joshua Conrad Jackson, David Rand, Kevin Lewis, Michael I. Norton and Kurt Gray

Agent-based modeling is a longstanding but underused method that allows researchers to simulate artificial worlds for hypothesis testing and theory building. Agent-based models (ABMs) offer unprecedented control and statistical power by allowing researchers to... View Details

Keywords: Social Psychology; Marketing; Mathematical Methods

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25 May 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Accounting for Crises

Keywords: by Venky Nagar & Gwen Yu

Article

Maimonides' Ladder: States of Mutual Knowledge and the Perception of Charitability

By: Julian De Freitas, Peter DiScioli, Kyle A. Thomas and Steven Pinker

Why do people esteem anonymous charitable giving? We connect normative theories of charitability (captured in Maimonides’ Ladder of Charity) with evolutionary theories of partner choice to test predictions on how attributions of charitability are affected by states of... View Details

Keywords: Charity; Reciprocity; Partner Choice; Common Knowledge; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Knowledge; Perception