Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,408)
- Faculty Publications (222)
- April 2019 (Revised March 2020)
- Case
Handy: The Future of Work? (A)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Kieron Stopforth
Witnessing numerous lawsuits alleging that online platform companies misclassified workers as contractors when they were actually employees, Handy’s founders faced a series of decisions. Handy was an online platform business that enabled customers to book appointments... View Details
- 2019
- Article
Creativity from Paradoxical Experience: A Theory of How Individuals Achieve Creativity while Adopting Paradoxical Frames
By: Goran Calic, Sébastien Hélie, Nick Bontis and Elaine Mosakowski
Purpose:
Extant paradox theory suggests that adopting paradoxical frames, which are mental templates adopted by individuals in order to embrace contradictions, will result in superior firm performance. Superior performance is achieved through learning and creativity,... View Details
- March 2019
- Technical Note
Control or Flexibility? Structured Empowerment Offers Both—Lessons from Retail & Service Chains (Abridged)
By: Tatiana Sandino
This note explains how several retail and service organizations use a practice described here as “structured empowerment” to balance control and flexibility as they grow. I define structured empowerment as a practice that grants employees both (a) the power to make... View Details
- March–April 2019
- Article
The Future of Leadership Development
By: Das Narayandas and Mihnea Moldoveanu
The need for leadership development has never been more urgent. Companies of all sorts realize that to survive in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment, they need different leadership skills and organizational capabilities from those that... View Details
- February 2019
- Technical Note
Can Multiunit Organizations Remain Agile as They Grow?
By: Tatiana Sandino
This note discusses how multiunit organizations incorporate flexibility into their management control systems, some by authorizing all or a select number of their dispersed units to make input and process decisions, some by investing in data-analytic technologies to... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Overcoming the Cold Start Problem of CRM Using a Probabilistic Machine Learning Approach
By: Eva Ascarza
The success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs ultimately depends on the firm's ability to understand consumers' preferences and precisely capture how these preferences may differ across customers. Only by understanding customer heterogeneity, firms can... View Details
- January 15, 2019
- Article
Is Your Company's Strategy Aligned with Your Ownership Model?
By: Josh Baron
The legacy of Vanguard founder John Bogle has brought attention to the transformative influence of ownership structures within the business world. Bogle's revolutionary insight into the limitations of active fund management led to the widespread adoption of index... View Details
- Article
Faithful and Customizable Explanations of Black Box Models
By: Himabindu Lakkaraju, Ece Kamar, Rich Caruana and Jure Leskovec
As predictive models increasingly assist human experts (e.g., doctors) in day-to-day decision making, it is crucial for experts to be able to explore and understand how such models behave in different feature subspaces in order to know if and when to trust them. To... View Details
- November 2018
- Case
frog design
By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler
The case follows the genesis and development of Palo, a radical urban communications hub designed to replace payphone booths on Manhattan’s city streets, through a joint venture between frog design and a venture-backed firm LQD WiFi. The case explores the complexity of... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Large-Scale Demand Estimation with Search Data
By: Tomomichi Amano, Andrew Rhodes and Stephan Seiler
In many online markets, traditional methods of demand estimation are difficult to implement because assortments are very large and individual products are sold infrequently. At the same time, data on consumer search (i.e., browsing) behavior are often available and are... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Social Attachment to Place and Psychic Costs of Geographic Mobility: How Distance from Hometown and Vacation Flexibility Affect Job Performance
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Ohchan Kwon
Using a natural experiment and field interviews, this paper studies how social attachment to place imposes psychic costs on workers who experience geographic mobility. This is especially salient when workers are assigned to locations far from their hometown, which may... View Details
- 2018
- Simulation
Financial Analysis Simulation: Data Detective
By: Suraj Srinivasan and V.G. Narayanan
In this simulation, students learn to identify typical industry characteristics revealed in financial data. Equipped with an interactive and flexible set of tools, students analyze disguised financials and—using their knowledge of operational practices and reasoning... View Details
- May 2018
- Supplement
Abe on Womenomics, part 1: Introductions & Japan's Corporate Culture: Excerpt from Opening Address to the World Assembly of Women, Tokyo, August 28, 2015
By: Boris Groysberg
This video supplement part one of a lightly edited 2015 speech by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in which he describes Womenomics--policies and aspirations to promote greater economic participation by Japan's women, thereby promoting economic growth, greater... View Details
Keywords: Gender Equality; Japan; Leadership; Government-business Relations; Shinzo Abe; Economic Growth; Aging Society; Womenomics; Abenomics; Labor Market Discrimination; Workplace Culture; Women And Leadership; Change Management; Leading Change; Gender; Business and Government Relations; Growth and Development; Employment; Working Conditions; Japan
- May 2018
- Supplement
Abe on Womenomics, part 2: Women as Leaders – Policies & Exemplars: Excerpt from Opening Address to the World Assembly of Women, Tokyo, August 28, 2015
By: Boris Groysberg
This video supplement is a lightly edited excerpt from a 2015 speech by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in which he describes Womenomics--policies and aspirations to promote greater economic participation by Japan's women, thereby promoting economic growth, greater... View Details
- May 2018
- Supplement
Abe on Womenomics, part 3: International Efforts & Conclusions: Excerpt from Opening Address to the World Assembly of Women, Tokyo, August 28, 2015
By: Boris Groysberg
This video supplement is a lightly edited excerpt of a 2015 speech by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in which he describes Womenomics--policies and aspirations to promote greater economic participation by Japan's women, thereby promoting economic growth, greater... View Details
- May 2018
- Supplement
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – Speech on Womenomics in Japan: Opening Address to the World Assembly of Women, Tokyo, August 28, 2015
By: Boris Groysberg
This video supplement is a lightly edited 2015 speech by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in which he describes Womenomics--policies and aspirations to promote greater economic participation by Japan's women, thereby promoting economic growth, greater work/life... View Details
Keywords: Gender Equality; Japan; Leadership; Government-business Relations; Shinzo Abe; Economic Growth; Aging Society; Womenomics; Abenomics; Labor Market Discrimination; Workplace Culture; Women And Leadership; Change Management; Leading Change; Gender; Business and Government Relations; Growth and Development; Employment; Working Conditions
- March 2018 (Revised March 2019)
- Technical Note
Control or Flexibility? Structured Empowerment Offers Both — Lessons from Retail & Service Chains
By: Tatiana Sandino
This note explains how several retail and service organizations use a practice described here as “structured empowerment” to balance control and flexibility as they grow. I define structured empowerment as a practice that grants employees both (a) the power to make... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
The Welfare Effects of Peer Entry in the Accommodation Market: The Case of Airbnb
By: Chiara Farronato and Andrey Fradkin
We study the effects of enabling peer supply through Airbnb in the accommodation industry. We present a model of competition between flexible and dedicated sellers - peer hosts and hotels - who provide differentiated products. We estimate this model using data from... View Details
- January 2018
- Case
Kids & Company: Entering the U.S.
By: Boris Groysberg, Matthew G. Preble and Katherine Connolly Baden
In April 2017, Victoria Sopik and Jennifer Nashmi, CEO and CFO (respectively) of Kids & Company, a Canadian childcare provider that they had co-founded in the early 2000s and developed into a nearly 100-unit enterprise, are discussing how the company should proceed... View Details
Keywords: Child Care; Childcare; Day Care; Daycare; Early Childhood Education; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Leadership; Marketing; Product Marketing; Brands and Branding; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Product Design; Product Development; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Selection and Staffing; Customer Focus and Relationships; Entrepreneurship; Service Industry; Education Industry; United States; Canada
- January–February 2018
- Article
The Leader's Guide to Corporate Culture: How to Manage the Eight Critical Elements of Organizational Life
By: Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price and J. Yo-Jud Cheng
Executives are often confounded by culture, because much of it is anchored in unspoken behaviors, mindsets, and social patterns. But when properly managed, culture can help them achieve change and build organizations that will thrive in even the most trying times. In... View Details