Publications

2021
Working Paper

Does Who Helps You Impact Your Behavior? Examining the Effects of Social Interactions on Knowledge Sharing in Online Communities

By: Eunkwang Seo, Frank Nagle and Sonali K. Shah

Online communities provide vibrant forums for knowledge sharing and are increasingly being used by individual users and firms to source knowledge and create and capture value. Yet, there is much to learn about how the actions of community members affect other members,... View Details

Keywords: Online Communities; Knowledge Development; Innovation; Reciprocity; Knowledge Sharing; Networks; Innovation and Invention; Interpersonal Communication

SSRN

June 2013
Background Note

Mobilizing an Online Business

By: Peter Coles and Benjamin Edelman

Entrepreneurs starting online businesses often need to mobilize multiple sets of users or customers, each of whom hesitates to participate unless others join also. This case presents several challenges with similar structure. View Details

Keywords: Mobilization Strategy; Network Effects; Platforms; Internet; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Two-Sided Platforms; Technology Adoption; Innovation Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Computer Industry

Educators

2007
Working Paper

Proprietary vs. Open Two-Sided Platforms and Social Efficiency

By: Andrei Hagiu

This paper identifies a fundamental economic welfare tradeoff between two-sided open platforms and two-sided proprietary (closed) platforms connecting consumers and producers. Proprietary platforms create two-sided deadweight losses through monopoly pricing but at the... View Details

Keywords: Two-Sided Markets; Platforms; Indirect Network Effects; Product Variety; Social Efficiency; Two-Sided Platforms; Network Effects; Welfare or Wellbeing

2012
Chapter

Problem Solving and Search in Networks

By: David Lazer and Ethan Bernstein

This chapter examines the role that networks play in facilitating or inhibiting search for solutions to problems at both the individual and collective levels. At the individual level, search in networks enables individuals to transport themselves to a very different... View Details

Keywords: Network Organizations; Search; Problem Solving; Individual; Individuals And Teams; Collective; Cognitive Search; Network Search; Search Typology; Networks; Social and Collaborative Networks; Theory; Knowledge Sharing

July 2022
Teaching Note

Arçelik (A), (B): From a Dealer Network to an Omnichannel Experience

By: Ayelet Israeli, Fares Khrais and Menna Hassan

Arçelik Turkey, the country’s market leader in household appliances, was at an omnichannel crossroads in January 2020. Arçelik was a B2B player utilizing a dealership network with an umbrella of brands and had one of the largest brick-and-mortar store networks in... View Details

October 2014
Module Note

Market Design in Online Businesses (Abridged)

By: Peter Coles and Benjamin Edelman

The purpose of this note is to characterize the challenges entrepreneurs may face in creating a well-functioning ecosystem of users, and to equip entrepreneurs with tools to overcome these obstacles. The note is meant to accompany the final module of the "The Online... View Details

Keywords: Platform Design; Network Effects; Market Design; Information Technology Industry; Information Industry; Advertising Industry

February 2019 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Where to Grow Next at Online Marketplace OLX

By: Thales Teixeira, Leandro A. Guissoni and Samy Dana

The CEO of OLX Brazil, an online classifieds platform business, is debating among multiple paths to grow sustainably (i.e., profitably) without the need for investor money. The options under consideration are (1) penetration growth by focusing on the core, (2) new... View Details

Keywords: Online Marketplace; Growth; Customer Acquisition; Facebook; Two-sided Network; E-commerce; Classifieds; Naspers; Schibsted; Innovation; Startup; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Brazil

Educators

April–May 2012
Article

Resources or Power? Implications of Social Networks on Compensation and Firm Performance

By: Joanne Horton, Yuval Millo and George Serafeim

Using a sample of 4,278 listed UK firms, we construct a social network of directorship-interlocks that comprises 31,495 directors. We use social capital theory and techniques developed in social network analysis to measure a director's connectedness and investigate... View Details

Keywords: Power and Influence; Social and Collaborative Networks; Compensation and Benefits; Performance; Relationships; Resource Allocation; United Kingdom

SSRN

December 2020
Article

Why Connect? Moral Consequences of Networking with a Promotion or Prevention Focus

By: F. Gino, T. Casciaro and M. Kouchaki

Networks are a key source of social capital for achieving goals in professional and personal settings. Yet, despite the clear benefits of having an extensive network, individuals often shy away from the opportunity to create new connections because engaging in... View Details

Keywords: Networking; Impurity; Morality; Motivation; Regulatory Focus; Networks; Attitudes; Moral Sensibility

November 2011
Article

Social Strategies That Work

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Although most companies have collected lots of friends and followers on social platforms such as Facebook, few have succeeded in generating profits there. That's because they merely port their digital strategies into social environments by broadcasting their commercial... View Details

Keywords: Social Platforms; Social Strategies; Social and Collaborative Networks; Customers; Relationships; Business Strategy; Profit

Feb 2020
Conference Presentation

Network Selection Strategies

By: Amit Goldenberg and J. J. Gross

Keywords: Social Psychology; Personality; Emotions

December 2014
Article

The Contaminating Effects of Building Instrumental Ties: How Networking Can Make Us Feel Dirty

By: Tiziana Casciaro, Francesca Gino and Maryam Kouchaki

To create social ties to support their professional or personal goals, people actively engage in instrumental networking. Drawing from moral psychology research, we posit that this intentional behavior has unintended consequences for an individual's morality. Unlike... View Details

Keywords: Networking; Morality; Dirtiness; Power; Networks; Moral Sensibility; Identity; Power and Influence

2014
Working Paper

The Contaminating Effects of Building Instrumental Ties: How Networking Can Make Us Feel Dirty

By: Tiziana Casciaro, Francesca Gino and Maryam Kouchaki

To create social ties to support their professional or personal goals, people actively engage in instrumental networking. Drawing from moral psychology research, we posit that this intentional behavior has unintended consequences for an individual's morality. Unlike... View Details

Keywords: Networking; Morality; Dirtiness; Power; Networks; Moral Sensibility; Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence

SSRN

November–December 2014
Article

Accountable? The Problems and Solutions of Online Ad Optimization

By: Benjamin Edelman

Online advertising might seem to be the most measurable form of marketing ever invented. Comprehensive records can track who clicked what ad—and often who saw what ad—to compare those clicks with users' subsequent purchases. Ever-cheaper IT makes this tracking... View Details

Keywords: Online Advertising; Fraud; Optimization; Incentives; Digital Marketing; Contracts; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Design

March 2021
Teaching Note

eToro: Building the World’s Largest Social Trading Network

By: Elie Ofek

October 17, 2022
Article

Relational Diversity in Social Portfolios Predicts Well-Being

By: Hanne K. Collins, Serena F. Hagerty, Jordi Quoidbach, Michael I. Norton and Alison Wood Brooks

We document a link between the relational diversity of one’s social portfolio—the richness and evenness of relationship types across one’s social interactions—and well-being. Across four distinct samples, respondents from the United States who completed a preregistered... View Details

Keywords: Social Interaction; Social Engagement; Well-being; Happiness; Social and Collaborative Networks; Family and Family Relationships