Publications

March 2012
Article

New Project? Don't Analyze—Act

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer and Paul B. Brown

In a predictable world, getting a new initiative off the ground typically involves analyzing the market, creating a forecast, and writing a business plan. But what about in an unpredictable environment? The authors recommend looking to those who are experts in... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Managing Yourself; Project Management; Project Strategy; Risk Management

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Article

Agency Costs, Mispricing, and Ownership Structure

By: Sergey Chernenko, C. Fritz Foley and Robin Greenwood

Standard theories of corporate ownership assume that because markets are efficient, insiders ultimately bear all agency costs that they create and therefore have a strong incentive to minimize conflicts of interest with outside investors. We argue that if equity is... View Details

Keywords: Business and Shareholder Relations; Ownership; Conflict of Interests; Investment; Valuation

July – August 2011
Article

Evolve (Again)

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Frenzy over social networks and interactive media can produce equally overhyped predictions that everything will change, not to mention money-losing investments in silly ventures. Separating enduring strategic lessons from the hype can help avoid a new crash. Hint: the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Venture Capital; Investment; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Partners and Partnerships

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2010
Working Paper

Employee Selection as a Control System

By: Dennis Campbell

Theories from the economics, management control, and organizational behavior literatures predict that when it is difficult to align incentives by contracting on output, aligning preferences via employee selection may provide a useful alternative. This study... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Decision Making; Governance Controls; Employees; Selection and Staffing; Management Systems; Financial Services Industry

2010
Working Paper

On the Descriptive Value of Loss Aversion in Decisions under Risk

By: Eyal Ert and Ido Erev

Five studies are presented that explore the assertion that losses loom larger than gains. The first two studies reveal equal sensitivity to gains and losses. For example, half of the participants preferred the gamble "1000 with probability 0.5; -1000 otherwise"... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Research; Risk and Uncertainty; Behavior; Loss

25 Sep 2024
HBS Seminar

Nan Clement, MIT Sloan School of Management

Teaching Interest

MBA Required Curriculum-- Strategy Course

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

The objective of this course is to help students develop the skills for formulating strategy. It provides an understanding of:

A firm's operative environment and how to sustain competitive advantage.
How to generate superior value for customers... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage

2025
Working Paper

Trade Within Multinational Boundaries

By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Fariha Kamal and Zachary Kroff

We leverage newly linked data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis to study transactions within U.S. multinational enterprises (MNEs). We show that using administrative data on intrafirm trade allows us to correct for measurement error... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Enterprise; Input-output Linkages; Multinational Firms and Management; Trade; Supply Chain

2023
Other Unpublished Work

If 3 Was 9

By: Randolph B. Cohen

One determinant of where economies and markets are headed is how well we handle the climate crisis. Headlines on the climate tend to emphasize two points. First, average global temps are rising, with it being the hottest summer in 1,000 centuries per some estimates.... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Measurement and Metrics

Article

Pseudo-Set Framing

By: Kate Barasz, Leslie John, Elizabeth A. Keenan and Michael I. Norton

Pseudo-set framing—arbitrarily grouping items or tasks together as part of an apparent “set”—motivates people to reach perceived completion points. Pseudo-set framing changes gambling choices (Study 1), effort (Studies 2 and 3), giving behavior (Field Data and Study... View Details

Keywords: Framing Effects; Gestalt Psychology; Judgment; Judgments; Decision Making; Perception; Behavior

August 2011
Article

The Jekyll and Hyde of Emotional Intelligence: Emotion-Regulation Knowledge Facilitates Prosocial and Interpersonally Deviant Behavior

By: Stéphane Côté, K. A. DeCelles, Julie M. McCarthy, Gerben A. Van Kleef and Ivona Hideg

Does emotional intelligence promote behavior that strictly benefits the greater good, or can it also advance interpersonal deviance? In the investigation reported here, we tested the possibility that a core facet of emotional intelligence—emotion-regulation... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Emotions

January–February 2013
Article

A Field Investigation of Multilevel Cynicism Toward Change

By: K. A. DeCelles, Paul E. Tesluk and Faye S. Taxman

Although most research on cynicism toward change (CTC) has been conceptualized at the individual level, we propose that CTC is better conceptualized as a multilevel phenomenon, acting as both an employee attitude and an organizational climate. We conducted a multilevel... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Change Management; Attitudes

2014
Article

Notes from the Search for Deep Indicators in Services

By: James L. Heskett

Much of the research in the service sector over the last four decades has concerned itself with the search for deep indicators that explain service performance. This paper provides a brief retrospective of some of this research and illustrates the directions that this... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Performance; Service Industry

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2009
Working Paper

Altruistic Dynamic Pricing with Customer Regret

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

A model is considered where firms internalize the regret costs that consumers experience when they see an unexpected price change. Regret costs are assumed to be increasing in the size of price changes and this can explain why the size of price increases is less... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Price; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Mathematical Methods