Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(3,312)
- Faculty Publications (983)
- June 2023 (Revised August 2023)
- Background Note
Subscription Models: Recurring Revenues for Lasting Growth
By: Elie Ofek and Amy Konary
This note offers a comprehensive exposition to subscription revenue models and aims to explain their recent rise. It covers the advantages to firms of employing a subscription-based approach to monetization (as opposed to “one-off” upfront payment), as well as the... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Insufficiently Justified Disparate Impact: A New Criterion for Subgroup Fairness
By: Neil Menghani, Edward McFowland III and Daniel B. Neill
In this paper, we develop a new criterion, "insufficiently justified disparate impact" (IJDI), for assessing whether recommendations (binarized predictions) made by an algorithmic decision support tool are fair. Our novel, utility-based IJDI criterion evaluates false... View Details
- June 2023
- Article
The Effect of Firms' Information Exposure on Safeguarding Employee Health: Evidence from COVID-19
By: Lisa Yao Liu and Shirley Lu
We show that information exposure through international business networks enables firms to take proactive measures that benefit employees and potentially the local community. Specifically, in the early days of COVID-19, firms that have business networks with China and... View Details
- May 2023
- Technical Note
Dynamic Pricing: Timing is Everything
By: Elie Ofek
This note provides a comprehensive exposition to the topic of dynamic pricing (whereby the fee customers are charged is time-dependent). It covers the motivation for firms to engage in dynamic pricing, provides a typology of the main formats dynamic pricing can take,... View Details
- Article
Do Citizens’ Preferences Matter? Shaping Legislator Attitudes Towards Peace Agreements
By: Miguel García-Sánchez, Aila M. Matanock and Natalia Garbiras-Díaz
To what extent are legislators, responsible for the implementation of many peace agreements, responsive to citizens’ preferences? Examining the 2016 Colombian peace agreement, we embed an experiment in the 2019 wave of a survey of all the members of Congress. We inform... View Details
- 2023
- Article
Probabilistically Robust Recourse: Navigating the Trade-offs between Costs and Robustness in Algorithmic Recourse
By: Martin Pawelczyk, Teresa Datta, Johannes van-den-Heuvel, Gjergji Kasneci and Himabindu Lakkaraju
As machine learning models are increasingly being employed to make consequential decisions in real-world settings, it becomes critical to ensure that individuals who are adversely impacted (e.g., loan denied) by the predictions of these models are provided with a means... View Details
- March 2023
- Background Note
A Primer on OKRs
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan (Jason) Ni
The OKR framework is a popular goal-setting and strategy execution tool that uses goal setting through “Objectives” and measuring performance using “Key Results” on a periodic basis to measure and drive performance. The OKR framework has been adopted and practiced at... View Details
Keywords: Business Organization; Talent and Talent Management; Framework; Corporate Governance; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Systems; Measurement and Metrics; Outcome or Result; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Evaluation; Performance Expectations; Performance Productivity; Performance Efficiency
- March 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Deepa Bachu (A): Design Thinking at Pensaar Design
By: Thomas Graeber, Joshua Schwartzstein and Amram Migdal
In this case, set in June 2019 in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Deepa Bachu of Pensaar Design and her team work with client ITC Ltd. to use design thinking and behavioral experiments to improve workplace safety and strive toward the company’s zero-accident goal. The... View Details
Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Design; Education; Training; Working Conditions; Business or Company Management; Production; Business Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Outcome or Result; Performance Improvement; Programs; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Groups and Teams; Labor and Management Relations; Rank and Position; Safety; Attitudes; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Trust; Well-being; Consulting Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; Manufacturing Industry; India
- March 2023
- Supplement
Deepa Bachu (B): Insights and Experiments at Pensaar Design
By: Thomas Graeber, Joshua Schwartzstein and Amram Migdal
In this case, set in June 2019 in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Deepa Bachu of Pensaar Design and her team work with client ITC Ltd. to use design thinking and behavioral experiments to improve workplace safety and strive toward the company’s zero-accident goal. The... View Details
Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Design; Training; Working Conditions; Business or Company Management; Production; Business Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Outcome or Result; Performance Improvement; Programs; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Groups and Teams; Labor and Management Relations; Rank and Position; Safety; Attitudes; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Trust; Well-being; Consulting Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; Manufacturing Industry; India
- March 2023
- Case
Ownership Works: Scaling a Profitable Social Mission
By: Ethan Rouen, Dennis Campbell and Andrew Robinson
Pete Stavros was on a high after his latest experiment with employee ownership. As the head of industrial investments for KKR, Stavros orchestrated the sale of CHI Overhead Doors, which turned into KKR’s best investment in more than two decades and created $360 million... View Details
- March 2023 (Revised May 2023)
- Supplement
OneTen At Delta Air Lines: Catalyzing Family-Sustaining Careers for Black Talent (B)
By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag
In January 2023, Delta Air Lines (Delta) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ed Bastian and his team had just launched the third iteration of an internal skills-first apprenticeship program, designed to move frontline employees into "merit" positions in four job categories.... View Details
- March 2023 (Revised June 2023)
- Case
Layoffs in the Tech Industry: 2022–2023
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Marilyn Morgan Westner
This case examines the mass layoffs that swept through the tech industry (2022-2023) through the lens of four companies: Twitter, Stripe, Meta, and Google. How these companies implemented workforce change through mass layoffs raises critical questions applicable beyond... View Details
- March 2023 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
On (A)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karolin Frankenberger and Sascha Mader
Founded in 2010, in just one decade, the Swiss company On had established itself as a main player in global sports footwear and apparel. Based on an unconventional strategy which one of the founders labeled as “obsessively distinct,” On grew its sales with a compound... View Details
Keywords: Brands and Branding; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Startups; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Digital Marketing; Disruptive Innovation; Distribution Channels; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Global Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Marketing Strategy; Product Design; Product Development; Product Marketing; Social Media; Strategy; Supply Chain Management; Technological Innovation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; Sports Industry; Europe; Switzerland; Germany; United States
- March–April 2023
- Article
Case Study: Should a Dollar Store Raise Prices to Keep Up with Inflation?
By: Jill Avery and Marco Bertini
How should a dollar store maintain its brand and price position in the marketplace in the face of rising inflation? Is holding a $1.00 price point still viable in today's marketplace? In this fictional case, managers face inflationary pressures and must decide whether... View Details
- February 2023 (Revised June 2023)
- Case
Doing Business in Santiago, Chile
By: Willis Emmons, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Ruth Costas
The case uses the example of the opening of the first IKEA furniture store in Chile – which is operated by Chilean group Falabella – to discuss the opportunities and challenges of doing business in the country. It gives readers an overview of Chile’s economic... View Details
- January–February 2023
- Article
Forecasting COVID-19 and Analyzing the Effect of Government Interventions
By: Michael Lingzhi Li, Hamza Tazi Bouardi, Omar Skali Lami, Thomas Trikalinos, Nikolaos Trichakis and Dimitris Bertsimas
We developed DELPHI, a novel epidemiological model for predicting detected cases and deaths in the prevaccination era of the COVID-19 pandemic. The model allows for underdetection of infections and effects of government interventions. We have applied DELPHI across more... View Details
- Working Paper
Group Fairness in Dynamic Refugee Assignment
By: Daniel Freund, Thodoris Lykouris, Elisabeth Paulson, Bradley Sturt and Wentao Weng
Ensuring that refugees and asylum seekers thrive (e.g., find employment) in their host countries is a profound humanitarian goal, and a primary driver of employment is the geographic
location within a host country to which the refugee or asylum seeker is... View Details
- January 2023 (Revised January 2023)
- Case
Belden and Digital Transformation: From Product Sales to Solutions Sales
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Amy Klopfenstein
This case concerns the industrial automation division at Belden, a hardware manufacturer. While Belden historically sold products such as cables, wires, and other networking devices, EVP of Industrial Automation Ashish Chand recognized that IT vendors were entering the... View Details
- January–February 2023
- Article
Data-Driven COVID-19 Vaccine Development for Janssen
By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Michael Lingzhi Li, Xinggang Liu, Jennings Xu and Najat Khan
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred extensive vaccine research worldwide. One crucial part of vaccine development is the phase III clinical trial that assesses the vaccine for safety and efficacy in the prevention of COVID-19. In this work, we enumerate the first... View Details
- 2023
- Article
Experimental Evaluation of Individualized Treatment Rules
By: Kosuke Imai and Michael Lingzhi Li
The increasing availability of individual-level data has led to numerous applications of individualized (or personalized) treatment rules (ITRs). Policy makers often wish to empirically evaluate ITRs and compare their relative performance before implementing them in a... View Details