Publications

25 Sep 2000
Research & Ideas

More Than the Sum of Its Parts: The Impact of Modularity on the Computer Industry

specialized groups working independently of one another. The 'modules' could then be connected and (in theory at least) would function seamlessly, as long as they conformed to a predetermined set View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Computer; Consumer Products; Technology

28 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Eyes Shut: The Consequences of Not Noticing

Editor's note: Behavioral economist Max H. Bazerman decided to pursue the subject of noticing after realizing that he wasn't very good at it himself. "The truth is that I was truly terrible at noticing," says Bazerman, the Jesse... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman; Retail

October 2007
Article

The Effectiveness of Pre-Release Advertising for Motion Pictures: An Empirical Investigation Using a Simulated Market

By: Anita Elberse and Bharat N. Anand

One of the most visible and publicized trends in the movie industry is the escalation in movie advertising expenditures over time. Yet, the returns to movie advertising are poorly understood. The main reason is that disentangling the causal effect of advertising on... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Stocks; Investment Return; Price; Revenue; Quality; Mathematical Methods; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

25 Oct 2006
Op-Ed

Fixing Executive Options: The Veil of Ignorance

developed an influential body of work about justice, starting from the premise that ignorance might just be bliss. His theories were designed to consider a monumental, if esoteric, question: If you were in... View Details

Keywords: by Mihir Desai & Joshua Margolis

21 May 2014
Working Paper Summaries

The Role of the Corporation in Society: An Alternative View and Opportunities for Future Research

Keywords: by George Serafeim

April 2013
Article

Who Is Governing Whom? Executives, Governance, and the Structure of Generosity in Large U.S. Firms

By: Christopher Marquis and Matthew Lee

We examine how organizational structure influences strategies over which corporate leaders have significant discretion. Corporate philanthropy is our setting to study how a differentiated structural element—the corporate foundation—constrains the influence of... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Corporate Strategy; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Leadership; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; United States

Article

The Best of Both Worlds: Integrating Conscious and Unconscious Thought Best Solves Complex Decisions

Two studies address the debate over whether conscious or unconscious mental processes best handle complex decisions. According to Unconscious Thought Theory (Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006), both modes of thinking have particular advantages: conscious thought can follow... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Values and Beliefs; Information; Knowledge Management; Management Skills; Management Style; Measurement and Metrics; Success; Research; Cognition and Thinking; Personal Characteristics; Perception

Purchase

01 Oct 1998
News

Dinh Thi Hoa: Up from the Ashes of War

of the theory you can imagine but never anything practical." Upon graduation, Hoa returned to Hanoi to work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Press Center. There, she caught... View Details

Keywords: Dun Gifford, Jr. (MBA 1992)

01 Mar 2018
News

Making Sense of the Modern Startup

was assumed,” Sahlman says of the theory that he was increasingly inclined to challenge, “that the people involved were rational decision-makers, that the markets all worked, that everybody had access to the... View Details

Keywords: Jeffrey L. Cruikshank (PMD 51, 1986)

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

Research Summary

The Institutional Foundations of Lending: Indirect Regulation and State-Building

The Institutional Foundations of Lending: Indirect Regulation and State-Building makes two main theoretical contributions to the scholarship on credit markets and institutional development. First, the book demonstrates that opportunistic lenders can take... View Details

01 Jun 2018
News

The Evolution of Modern Pricing Models

image by John Ritter From Uber’s surge pricing to dynamic ticket pricing, it seems there’s been more awareness of pricing models and pricing strategy in recent years. What’s driving that interest? Thales Teixeira: We need to go back... View Details

01 Dec 1996
News

Intellectual Debate: The Business of Business

Organizations and Markets unit (see Theory and Practice for a profile of the O&M unit) quickly sparked discussion in two different areas. Noting that the unit's Coordination, Control, and the Management... View Details

08 Jun 2011
News

George Yeo: A Matter of Degrees

Singapore, I remember the cases I did on energy deregulation in the U.S., the whole theory of marginal pricing, and so on. It was very helpful.” Summing up his HBS experience, Yeo told the Times, “I learned... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Executive, Legislative, and Other General Government Support; Government

05 May 2003
Research & Ideas

Sharing the Responsibility of Corporate Governance

beholder. You either learn what it is from your parents or you'll never get it." Instead, professors use theory and examples to teach future business leaders why value is important and how to create an organization that fosters value... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

2009
Working Paper

The Devil Wears Prada: Effects of Exposure to Luxury Goods on Cognition and Decision Making

By: Roy Y.J. Chua and Xi Zou

Although the concept of luxury has been widely discussed in social theories and marketing research, relatively little research has directly examined the psychological consequences of exposure to luxury goods. This paper demonstrates that mere exposure to luxury goods... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Ethics; Marketing; Behavior; Power and Influence; Luxury

2013
Working Paper

Who Is Governing Whom? Executives, Governance and the Structure of Generosity in Large U.S. Firms

By: Christopher Marquis and Matthew Lee

We examine how organizational structure influences strategies over which corporate leaders have significant discretion. Corporate philanthropy is our setting to study how a differentiated structural element—the corporate foundation—constrains the influence of... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Structure; Corporate Strategy; United States

SSRN

2006
Working Paper

The Limits of Authority: Motivation versus Coordination

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

This paper studies the effects of open disagreement on motivation and coordination. It shows how, in the presence of differing priors, motivation and coordination impose conflicting demands on the allocation of authority, leading to a trade-off between the... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Governance Controls; Organizational Culture; Agency Theory; Conflict and Resolution; Motivation and Incentives

SSRN

June 2020
Article

Parallel Play: Startups, Nascent Markets, and the Effective Design of a Business Model

By: Rory McDonald and Kathleen Eisenhardt

Prior research advances several explanations for entrepreneurial success in nascent markets but leaves a key imperative unexplored: the business model. By studying five ventures in the same nascent market, we develop a novel theoretical framework for understanding how... View Details

Keywords: Search; Legitimacy; Organizational Innovation; Organizational Learning; Mechanisms And Processes; Institutional Entrepreneurship; Qualitative Methods; Business Model Design; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Emerging Markets; Adaptation; Competition; Strategy