Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(4,315)
- Faculty Publications (1,028)
- August 2024 (Revised December 2024)
- Case
Influencer-Led Brand Building: Hairitage and the McKnights
By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and James Palano
Longtime hairstyle influencer Mindy McKnight had been building her “Cute Girls Hairstyles” audience across numerous online platforms for nearly two decades. Brand incubator Maesa took an innovative approach to producing successful brands: identifying white space in the... View Details
- 2024
- Article
Crucibles, Multiple Sensitive Periods, and Career Progression
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Sunasir Dutta, Hise O. Gibson and Eric Lin
We study the effects of crucible experiences along multiple sensitive periods on career progression. While prior literature has hinted that individuals can be imprinted during multiple sensitive periods, not just during the early career, there has been scant attention... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
People, Practices, and Productivity: A Review of New Advances in Personnel Economics
By: Mitchell Hoffman and Christopher T. Stanton
This chapter surveys recent advances in personnel economics. We begin by presenting evidence showing substantial and persistent productivity variation among workers in the same roles. We discuss new research on incentives and compensation; hiring practices; the... View Details
- 2024
- Chapter
Corporations as the Central Institutions of Society
Mark Twain observed that, “Prediction is very difficult—particularly when it involves the future,” and he was right. One way to reduce the risk of becoming an infamous forecaster—like the experts who told us the Internet would quickly collapse, that Apple would never... View Details
- July 2024
- Article
Demographic 'Stickiness': The Demographic Identity of Departing Group Members Influences Who Is Chosen to Replace Them
By: Edward H. Chang and Erika Kirgios
People tasked with replacing a departing group member are disproportionately likely to choose a replacement with the same demographic identity, leading to demographic “stickiness” in group composition. We examine this effect in 2,163 U.S. federal judge appointments... View Details
- June 2024
- Case
Metub: Scaling Influence beyond Vietnam
By: Paul A. Gompers and Shu Lin
Founded in 2014, Metub was a leading video and talent network in Vietnam. It managed over 3,000 channels on YouTube and more than 3,000 content creators. To expand creators’ income opportunities across multiple platforms, Metub had diversified beyond its original... View Details
- June 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Background Note
Politics Comes to ESG Investing
By: Shawn Cole and Jonah Zahnd
While the past decade has seen a dramatic increase in the incorporation of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards into investor practices, this momentum has shifted recently in the United States, as some politicians argued that ESG investing practices... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Investor Influence on Media Coverage: Evidence from Venture Capital-Backed Startups
By: Brian K. Baik and Albert Shin
We examine whether and how investors influence media coverage of their private portfolio companies. Using a stacked difference-in-differences design, we find that media coverage of startups increases significantly following venture capital (VC) investment. The effect... View Details
- June 2024 (Revised June 2025)
- Case
Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light
By: Jill Avery and Celine Chammas
On April 1, 2023, social media content creator and influencer Dylan Mulvaney recorded a promotional post. It featured a video of herself drinking from a can of Bud Light beer, offering a virtual toast to her followers. Alongside the video, she posted a photograph of a... View Details
- June 2024
- Article
Stereotypes and Belief Updating
By: Katherine B. Coffman, Manuela Collis and Leena Kulkarni
We explore how feedback shapes, and perpetuates, gender gaps in self-assessments. Participants in our experiment take tests of their ability across different domains. We elicit their beliefs of their performance before and after feedback. We find that, even after the... View Details
- June 2024
- Article
The Diversity Heuristic: How Team Demographic Composition Influences Judgments of Team Creativity
By: Devon Proudfoot, Zachariah Berry, Edward H. Chang and Min B. Kay
Despite mixed evidence for the relationship between demographic diversity and creativity, we propose that observers hold a lay belief that demographic diversity increases creativity and apply this lay belief in judgments about teams and their creative work. Across... View Details
- May 2024
- Teaching Note
The Meteoric Rise of Skims
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 524-023, "The Meteoric Rise of Skims." View Details
Keywords: Brand; Branding; Direct-to-consumer; DTC; Influencers; Influencer Marketing; Fashion; Growth; Direct Marketing; Influence; Reputation; Social Influence; Consumer Goods; Consumer Products; Female Entrepreneur; Female Protagonist; Entrepreneurship And Strategy; Brand ＆ Product Management; Competitive Advantage; Online Followers; Retail; Retail Formats; Retailing; Online Retail; Celebrities; Celebrity; Celebrity Endorsement; Go To Market Strategy; Apparel; Startup Marketing; Startups; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Distribution Channels; Digital Marketing; Advertising; Power and Influence; Social Media; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- May 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Market by Met Council: Revolutionizing Food Pantries in the Digital Age
By: Elisabeth Paulson and Michael W. Toffel
In fall 2023, the Food Program of Met Council—America’s largest Jewish charity dedicated to fighting poverty—completed the rollout of the newest version of its digital pantry platform to twelve food pantries in the Met Council food pantry network. The digital... View Details
- May–June 2024
- Article
Setting Gendered Expectations? Recruiter Outreach Bias in Online Tech Training Programs
By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Karim R. Lakhani and Roberto Fernandez
Competence development in digital technologies, analytics, and artificial intelligence is increasingly important to all types of organizations and their workforce. Universities and corporations are investing heavily in developing training programs, at all tenure... View Details
- May–June 2024
- Article
Should Your Brand Hire a Virtual Influencer?
By: Serim Hwang, Shunyuan Zhang, Xiao Liu and Kannan Srinivasan
Followers respond more favorably to sponsored posts by virtual influencers versus those by humans, costs are lower, and creating an influencer from scratch allows marketers to introduce more diversity. View Details
- May–June 2024
- Article
What Makes a Successful Celebrity Brand?
Celebrities have shifted from endorsing established brands to being influencers for established brands to drawing on their influence to create brands themselves. The authors examine what it takes to make celebrity brands work. View Details
Keywords: Celebrities; Celebrity Endorsement; Celebrity Management; Celebrity; Direct To Consumer Marketing; DTC; Influencer Marketing; Influencers; Influencer Advertising; Influencer; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Power and Influence; Advertising; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- March 2024
- Case
Katharine Graham: Changing the World
By: Robert Simons and Shirley Sun
This case traces the life of Katharine Graham from housewife to publisher of the Washington Post. Born into a family of wealth, Graham described herself as a “doormat wife” after she married Phil Graham and stayed at home to raise their children. His unexpected death... View Details
- March 2024
- Article
Being Together in Place as a Catalyst for Scientific Advance
By: Eamon Duede, Misha Teplitskiy, Karim R. Lakhani and James Evans
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated social distancing at every level of society, including universities and research institutes, raising essential questions concerning the continuing importance of physical proximity for scientific and scholarly advance. Using customized... View Details
- March 2024
- Module Note
Navigating the Future: Managing Financial Forecasts
By: Mark Egan
This module note guides instructors on delivering a course module that focuses on understanding, developing, and using financial forecasts from a chief financial officer’s (CFO) perspective. The cases in the module equip students with an understanding of the techniques... View Details
- March 2024
- Article
When Are Social Protests Effective?
By: Eric Shuman, Amit Goldenberg, Tamar Saguy, Eran Halperin and Martijn van Zomeren
Around the world, people engage in social protests aimed at addressing major societal problems. Certain protests have led to significant progress, yet other protests have resulted in little demonstrable change. We introduce a framework for evaluating the effectiveness... View Details