Publications

September 2010 (Revised January 2012)
Case

OPOWER: Increasing Energy Efficiency through Normative Influence (A)

By: Amy J.C. Cuddy, Kyle Todd Doherty and Maarten W. Bos

The case profiles OPOWER, an energy efficiency software company that applies Cialdini's principles of social influence to successfully encourage consumers to reduce their energy usage. OPOWER was co-founded in 2008 by two young Harvard graduates, Dan Yates and Alex... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Applications and Software; Attitudes; Entrepreneurship; Energy Conservation; Power and Influence; Growth and Development Strategy; Energy Industry; United States

06 Jan 2011
What Do You Think?

How Should Management Deal With “Anonymous”?

Summing Up The title of this wrap-up and the one that accompanied this month's original column basically just deletes "Wikileaks." The original title was my mistake. The intent was not to direct attention to Wikileaks in a manner that View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett

March 2017 (Revised June 2019)
Case

CEO Activism (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Aaron K. Chatterji and Julia Kelley

This case introduces CEO activism, a phenomenon in which business leaders engage in political or social issues that do not relate directly to their companies. The case uses several examples to describe why business leaders are engaging in CEO activism and the potential... View Details

01 Jun 2016
What Do You Think?

When Business Performance Falters, is Culture Change the Fix?

Original Article A recent article in Harvard Business Review, “Culture Is Not the Culprit,” by Jay Lorsch and Emily McTague noted that “When organizations get into big trouble, fixing the culture is usually the prescription.” The article... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett

06 Jul 2009
What Do You Think?

Are You Ready to Manage in an Irrational World?

The other is an article in this month's Harvard Business Review, "The End of Rational Economics," by Dan Ariely. It argues that theories, strategies, and actions based on assumptions of irrational... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

July 2019 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Peabody Essex Museum: What Next?

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Jeffrey F. Rayport

The case describes the 25-year transformation of Peabody Essex Museum, which was created in 1993 by the merger of two sub-scale predecessor cultural institutions, operating since 1799, in Salem, Massachusetts. Dan Monroe, its founding CEO, began a process of building... View Details

Keywords: Museums; Strategy; Leadership; Transformation; Innovation Leadership; Strategic Planning

August 2019
Case

ClearScore, 2018

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In October 2017, Experian, one of the “Big Three” consumer credit reporting agencies in the United Kingdom made an offer to acquire ClearScore for a total consideration of £293 million. Founded by Justin Basini, Dan Cobley, and Nigel Morris in 2014, ClearScore was the... View Details

11 Aug 2014
HBS Case

The Business of Behavioral Economics

economics and pop culture, particularly since the recent publication of popular books such as Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's Nudge, Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, and Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. Even so,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage; Health

12 Jan 2004
What Do You Think?

How Should We Think About the Exportation of Jobs?

this impact: the broad, shallow, positive impact on product prices versus the narrow, deep, negative impact on individuals." These quotes help sum up the nature of the thought-provoking debate stirred by this month's column. On the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

02 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles of 2006

managers do can have great impact on their workers, says Professor Teresa Amabile. In this conversation with Professor Mike Roberts, she updates her ongoing research on creativity in the workplace by investigating how people's intense... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

May 2011 (Revised January 2012)
Supplement

OPOWER: Increasing Energy Efficiency through Normative Influence (B)

By: Maarten W. Bos, Amy J.C. Cuddy and Kyle Todd Doherty

The case profiles OPOWER, an energy efficiency software company that applies Cialdini's principles of social influence to successfully encourage consumers to reduce their energy usage. OPOWER was co-founded in 2008 by two young Harvard graduates, Dan Yates and Alex... View Details

Keywords: Energy Conservation

31 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

A Scholarly Crowd Explores Crowdsourcing

Cox Pahnke, Dan Wang, and Benjamin Hallen. Ripe for study. In a plenary talk on crowdsourced contests and competitions, Lakhani outlined numerous areas in need of further study, which is made much easier by... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

October 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Eastern Bank: Innovating Through Eastern Labs

By: Karen Mills, Dennis Campbell and Aaron Mukerjee

Eastern Bank is a 200-year-old New England mutual bank with a community focus. Eastern specializes in small business lending, having made strategic investments to become the top SBA lender in New England in the midst of the Great Recession, when other banks were... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Management

03 Dec 2008
What Do You Think?

Can Housing and Credit be “Nudged” Back to Health?

harmed by our own worst instincts." Dan Wallace proposed: "I like 'nudge' solutions, and one approach here might be to provide a 100 percent mortgage interest deduction for people who put 20... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

January 2019 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Analytical Space: The Next Frontier?

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and David Lane

With one satellite aloft and in the midst of beta testing in late 2018, Analytical Space founders Justin Oliveira and Dan Nevius turned to critical questions about the pioneering startup’s go-to-market, pricing, and business development strategy. Analytical Space aimed... View Details

Keywords: Pricing Decisions; Demand Validation; Revenue Model; Business Development; Space Tech; Satellites; Earth Observation; Remote Sensing; Business Startups; Emerging Markets; Growth and Development Strategy; Finance; Selection and Staffing; Business Strategy; Aerospace Industry

02 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

Modern Indian Art: The Birth of a Market

aid the process by framing their activities in ways that established their worth. In a separate project, Dan Wadhwani and I are working on developing a generalizable framework for understanding how value is... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

April 2021 (Revised July 2021)
Case

StockX: The Stock Market of Things (Abridged)

By: Chiara Farronato, John J. Horton, Annelena Lobb and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2015 by Dan Gilbert, Josh Luber, and Greg Schwartz, StockX was an online platform where users could buy and sell unworn luxury and limited-edition sneakers. Sneaker resale prices often fluctuated over time based on supply and demand, creating a robust... View Details