Publications

07 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 7

defined as the extent to which an actor's network contacts are connected to one another, affects the initiation and adoption of change in organizations. Using longitudinal survey data supplemented with eight in-depth case studies, we analyze 68 organizational change... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

13 Mar 2018
First Look

March 13, 2018

West: Origins, Evolution and Resilience The United States in Contemporary Perspectives: Evolving Forms, Strategy, and Performance By: Collis, David J., Bharat Anand, and J. Yo-Jud Cheng Abstract—In spite of surging interest in the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 Oct 2015
Research & Ideas

Business Research that Makes for Smarter Public Policy

academics are uniquely suited to play, says Karen Mills, former administrator of the US Small Business Administration (SBA) and now a senior fellow at HBS. “When I went to Washington, I saw a tremendous need for fact-based analysis to inform policymaking,” she says.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

03 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 3

self-report of the licensee. The self-reporting aspect of the environment gives rise to demand for auditing by the licensor or third-party attestation by the licensee. We characterize the optimal royalty contract, accounting system choice... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

09 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

These Employers Pay Higher Salaries than Necessary

system negotiate. “Workers on the market have lots of feedback on their past jobs, and can also see how much experience the employer has on the market,” says Christopher T. Stanton, an assistant professor in the Entrepreneurial Management View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Employment; Technology; Computer

May 2024
Case

LinkedIn Corporation, 2024

By: David B. Yoffie, George Gonzalez and Emily Grandjean

By 2024, the LinkedIn profile was well established as the professional identity of record on the Internet. Following a multi-year effort to expand the platform’s user base, as well as a period of rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, LinkedIn’s membership had... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Social Media; Network Effects; Growth and Development Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Technology Industry; Employment Industry; Sunnyvale

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

A Perfect Fit: Aligning Organization & Strategy

all have to be in alignment." Along with Russell A. Eisenstat, an independent consultant and former HBS faculty member, Beer has developed a process called Organizational Fitness Profiling, which helps a CEO or business unit general... View Details

Keywords: by Judith A. Ross

March 2011
Background Note

Customer Loyalty Schemes in the Retail Sector

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Aldo Sesia

Customer loyalty schemes (or programs) are explicit efforts by retailers to gain long-term patronage from customers. Loyalty schemes are developed for a variety of reasons: to reward loyal customers, to generate more robust information about customer behavior, to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Business Strategy; Retail Industry; United Kingdom; United States

10 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 10

trading volume, and more dispersion in analyst forecasts following the calls. Further, the capital market's response to linguistic complexity is limited to firms for which there is greater demand for English-language conference calls. Our... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2021
Case

Value-Based Insurance Design at Onex

By: Joshua Schwartzstein, Amitabh Chandra and Amram Migdal

The operating executives of Health and Benefits for Onex Partners, Megan Jackson Frye and Sam Camens, faced a challenge: Healthcare costs for employees of Onex’s portfolio companies were continuing to rise above the consumer price index, reflecting broader trends... View Details

06 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

Sorting Out the Patent Craze

explain a little bit about your research in this area? Josh Lerner: By the end of World War II, the corporate research laboratory model was widely adopted in the United States. A corporation would have a centralized facility where it... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Technology

July 1991 (Revised June 1992)
Case

Retail Promotional Pricing: When Is a Sale Really a Sale? (A)

Addresses the controversy that surrounds highly promotional retail pricing referred to as "high-low pricing" by the trade. High-low pricing involves setting prices at an initially high level for a brief period of time, then discounting off the so-called "regular" or... View Details

Keywords: Courts and Trials; Price; Ethics; Consumer Behavior; Product Marketing; Retail Industry; Colorado

04 Dec 2012
First Look

First Look: December 4

negotiations over German reunification in which former United States Secretary of State James Baker played a key role. Is a Nuclear Deal with Iran Possible? An Analytical Framework for the Iran Nuclear Negotiations Authors:James K.... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

15 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

The Unspoken Messages of COVID-19 Restrictions

Risky Behavior During COVID-19, a National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper released in August. Lessons from the pandemic’s first wave News of a deadly virus hitting the United States was enough to keep diners home in early... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Food & Beverage

19 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Wrapping Your Alliances In a World Wide Web

as it is being employed to unite dispersed functional or geographic groups within a firm. While automatic process execution continues to be valuable for these networks, the greater goal of integration often appears to be better and faster... View Details

Keywords: by Andrew McAfee

30 Jan 2006
HBS Case

The Case of the Mystery Writer’s Brand

success if it sold 200,000 copies. Today, the bar has been raised to 1.5 million copies, thanks in part to the dominance of "big-box" retailers (such as Wal-Mart and Costco) that only stock twenty or so bestsellers yet are responsible for 34 percent of book... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Entertainment & Recreation; Information; Publishing

23 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

New Challenges for Long-Term Investors

average return on long-term bonds in excess of the return on cash has been also small when compared to the average excess return on stocks: It has been about 1.4 percent per year, while for stocks it has been 4.5 times larger, or about 6.3 percent per year. That is,... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

February 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

TikTok in 2020: Super App or Supernova?

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Dan Maher and Dan O'Brien

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was launched in 2012 around a simple idea – helping users entertain themselves on their smartphones while on the Beijing Subway. In less than a decade, it had become one of the world’s most valuable private companies, with investors... View Details