Publications

01 Mar 2014
News

Generation Next

Nisa Godrej Illustration by Anita Kunz In the summer of 2007, Mark Kahn (MBA 2006) received an unusual call from Mumbai. A former HBS classmate had a problem. She wanted him to look over strategic and financial documents for a diversified... View Details

Keywords: Mark Bergen; Godrej Group; Management

September 2020
Case

Minerva 2020: Clinical Trials

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In March 2020, Dr. Cynthia Bamdad, founder and CEO of Minerva Biotechnologies Inc. (Minerva), was reviewing the first results of human clinical trials for the company’s novel CAR-T drug therapeutic, one of the first ever to target solid cancer tumors. The results... View Details

Keywords: Biotechnology; Strategic Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Health Testing and Trials; Decision Choices and Conditions; Strategy

2009
Working Paper

Clusters of Entrepreneurship

By: Edward L. Glaeser, William R. Kerr and Giacomo A.M. Ponzetto

Employment growth is strongly predicted by smaller average establishment size, both across cities and across industries within cities, but there is little consensus on why this relationship exists. Traditional economic explanations emphasize factors that reduce entry... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Entrepreneurship; Cost; Employment; Market Entry and Exit

January–February 2023
Article

Triadic Advocacy Work

By: Summer R. Jackson and Katherine C. Kellogg

Scholars of street-level bureaucracy and institutional research focus primarily on the relationships between advocates and their larger bureaucratic and social systems, assuming that advocates have little need to satisfy their beneficiaries. We find otherwise in our... View Details

Keywords: Occupations And Professions; Ethnography; Power And Politics; Work And Organizations; Advocacy; Public Management; Justice

February 2018
Article

Maintaining Beliefs in the Face of Negative News: The Moderating Role of Experience

By: Bradley R. Staats, Diwas S. KC and F. Gino

Many models in operations management involve dynamic decision making that assumes optimal updating in response to information revelation. However, behavioral theory suggests that rather than updating their beliefs, individuals may persevere in their prior beliefs. In... View Details

Keywords: Information; Announcements; Service Operations; Decision Making; Medical Specialties; Experience and Expertise; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Find at Harvard

20 Mar 2007
First Look

First Look: March 20, 2007

Arena, edited by Deborah E. Gibbons Author:Herman B. Leonard Publication:IAP - Information Age Publishing, Inc., forthcoming Abstract What accounts for whether governments will be able to provide effective... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2023
Case

Proday: Calling the Right Play

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn

Sarah Kunst knew the elements of a successful startup from her tenure at venture capital firms. In April 2018, however, her own app – Proday, a home fitness platform featuring exercises filmed by professional sports stars – was floundering. Kunst theorized that... View Details

Keywords: Social Media; Entrepreneurship; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Product Launch; Social Marketing; Failure; Sports; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Technology Industry; United States

5 Nov 2005 - 8 Nov 2005
Conference Presentation

New Perspectives on the Business Value of IT

By: David James Brunner, Bradley R. Staats and Marco Iansiti

We sought to unravel the link between IT investment and firm performance by examining deployed IT functionality (ITF). First, ITF appears to be an important link in the IT spend to business value chain. Second, ITF does not seem to be a commodity and has... View Details

Keywords: Perspective; Value; Performance; Investment; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Information Technology; Information Technology Industry

2017
Working Paper

Task Selection and Workload: A Focus on Completing Easy Tasks Hurts Long-Term Performance

By: Diwas S. KC, Bradley R. Staats, Maryam Kouchaki and Francesca Gino

How individuals manage, organize, and complete their tasks is central to operations management. Recent research in operations focuses on how under conditions of increasing workload, individuals can increase their service time, up to a point, to complete work more... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Decision Making; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Productivity

SSRN

2008
Working Paper

Economic Factors Underlying the Unbundling of Advertising Agency Services

By: Mohammad Arzaghi, Ernst R. Berndt, James C. Davis and Alvin J. Silk

This paper addresses a longstanding puzzle involving the unbundling of services that has occurredover more than two decades in the U.S. advertising agency industry: How can the shift from the bundling to the unbundling of services be explained and what accounts for the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Framework; Service Operations; Decisions; Relationships; Price; Diversification; Geography; Cost; Advertising Industry; United States

13 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 13

W. Dunn, Dana R. Carney, and Dan Ariely Publication:Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (forthcoming) Abstract We predicted that able-bodied individuals and white Americans would have a difficult time saying no to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2008
Class Lecture

Marketing as Competitive Advantage: Fundamentals

By: Das Narayandas, David E. Bell, Anita Elberse, John T. Gourville, David B. Godes, John A. Quelch, Gail J. McGovern, Luc R. Wathieu and Marta Wosinska

Marketing as Competitive Advantage: Fundamentals will help today's business executives and tomorrow's business leaders understand the key elements of a successful marketing strategy. The multimedia resource includes video lectures by Harvard Business School faculty,... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Framework; Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Planning; Competitive Advantage; Segmentation

February 1999 (Revised August 2004)
Case

I Lost My Volvo in New Haven: Tennis Event Sponsorship

By: Stephen A. Greyser, Brian R. Harris and Mitchell Truwit

Focuses on event management and sponsorship from the perspective of the event owner (rather than that of the sponsorship company). Describes in depth the search by one of the tennis tournaments on the professional circuit for a principal sponsor. Detailed economics of... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communications; Decision Choices and Conditions; Management; Product Positioning; Television Entertainment; Sports; Partners and Partnerships; Sports Industry

December 1999
Case

Sendwine.com

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Charmaine C Ess and Ann A. O'Hara

Sendwine.com, an online retailer of premium gifts of wine by the bottle, faced decisions about its growth strategy in mid-1999. Mike Lannon, president and founder, had established his company as a prominent player in an increasingly crowded field. But with success came... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Venture Capital; Financial Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Luxury; Diversification; Internet; Web Services Industry

2013
Article

Immigration and Employer Transitions for STEM Workers

By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr

We analyze the career trajectories of STEM workers and firm-level hiring of immigrants using the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) database of the US Census Bureau. We find STEM career adjustments during periods of abnormally high immigration into the... View Details

Keywords: Nationality; Employment; Immigration

Research Summary

Relative Thinking and Consumer Choice

By: Joshua R. Schwartzstein

Fixed differences appear smaller when compared to large differences. Professor Schwartzstein has proposed a model of relative thinking, in which a person weighs a given change by less when he compares it to a larger range. Relative thinking implies that a person is... View Details

23 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 23, 2018

difficult tasks. Second, overestimation of ability by both men and women varies across categories. To understand these patterns, we develop a model that separates gender stereotypes from misestimation of ability related to the difficulty... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

February 2011
Case

Chegg: Textbook Rental Takes Flight

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, William A. Sahlman and Evan W. Richardson

In late 2010, Silicon Valley-based Chegg, the leading online college textbook rental company, is scaling rapidly. The case recounts Chegg's history from its origins as a distant competitor to Craigslist in college classified listings through a pivot into textbook... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Higher Education; Entrepreneurship; Books; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Service Operations; Renting or Rental; Online Technology; Education Industry; Service Industry; California