Publications

Summer 2014
Article

When Does a Platform Create Value by Limiting Choice?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Hanna Halaburda

We present a theory for why it might be rational for a platform to limit the number of applications available on it. Our model is based on the observation that even if users prefer application variety, applications often also exhibit direct network effects. When there... View Details

Keywords: Platform Governance; Direct Network Effects; Indirect Network Effects; Complements; Tragedy Of The Commons; Equilibrium Selection; Coordination; Foresight; Strategy; Value Creation; Digital Platforms; Balance and Stability; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Applications and Software; Network Effects

SSRN

February 1997 (Revised April 1998)
Case

first direct (A)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Describes the operations and strategy of the world's largest, fastest growing branchless bank. Using a person-to-person interface over conventional phone lines, First Direct provides standard banking and related financial products to nearly 700,000 customers throughout... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Customer Satisfaction; Banks and Banking; Innovation and Invention; Banking Industry; United Kingdom

Educators

January–February 2025
Article

What People Still Get Wrong About Negotiations: They Assume the Size of the Pie Is Fixed—and So Miss Opportunities to Create Value

By: Max H. Bazerman

Most executives leave value on the negotiating table, for two main reasons: First, many executives mistakenly believe that they’re negotiating over a fixed pie and that gains for one side necessarily mean losses for the other. Second, they focus exclusively on how to... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Offer; Negotiation Tactics; Value; Communication; Trust

Register to Read

October 2020 (Revised May 2023)
Exercise

SenseAim Technologies: Pricing to Win

By: Elie Ofek, Eyal Biyalogorsky, Marco Bertini and Oded Koenigsberg

This exercise serves to help students understand the proper role and use of costs in a firm’s pricing decisions. The exercise is designed such that the learning of students evolves across a classroom session, starting from understanding which costs are relevant when... View Details

Keywords: Pricing Decisions; Cost; Information; Price; Decision Making

26 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

A Better Way to Negotiate: Backward

preferred outcome and think in reverse about how to get there. Here are the basic steps: 1. Draw a "map" of the parties who are currently involved and those who might potentially get onboard, along with their interests and their... View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius

January 2021
Article

Veil-of-Ignorance Reasoning Mitigates Self-Serving Bias in Resource Allocation During the COVID-19 Crisis

By: Karen Huang, Regan Bernhard, Netta Barak-Corren, Max Bazerman and Joshua D. Greene

The COVID-19 crisis has forced healthcare professionals to make tragic decisions concerning which patients to save. Furthermore, the COVID-19 crisis has foregrounded the influence of self-serving bias in debates on how to allocate scarce resources. A utilitarian... View Details

Keywords: Self-serving Bias; Procedural Justice; Bioethics; COVID-19; Fairness; Health Pandemics; Resource Allocation; Decision Making

10 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Why a Federal Rule on CEO Pay Disclosure May Get You In Trouble With Customers

Here's a tip for companies looking to woo customers away from the competition: Besides advertising fair prices for your products, try advertising fair wages for your employees. Recent research from Harvard Business School indicates that shoppers View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

Research Summary

Intra-Household Decision Making

Professor Ashraf's research in intra-household decision making examines how households make financial and health decisions, particularly in the presence of asymmetric information or benefits.

"View Details

2019
Working Paper

Labor Market Shocks and the Demand for Trade Protection: Evidence from Online Surveys

By: Rafael Di Tella and Dani Rodrik

We study preferences for government action in response to layoffs resulting from different types of labor-market shocks. We consider the following shocks: technological change, a demand shift, bad management, and three kinds of international outsourcing. Respondents... View Details

Keywords: Labor; Markets; System Shocks; Trade; Attitudes; Surveys

May 2021 (Revised February 2024)
Teaching Note

THE YES: Reimagining the Future of E-Commerce with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

By: Ayelet Israeli and Jill Avery

THE YES, a multi-brand shopping app launched in May 2020 offered a new type of buying experience for women’s fashion, driven by a sophisticated algorithm that used data science and machine learning to create and deliver a personalized store for every shopper, based on... View Details

Keywords: Data; Data Analytics; Artificial Intelligence; AI; AI Algorithms; AI Creativity; Fashion; Retail; Retail Analytics; E-Commerce Strategy; Platform; Platforms; Big Data; Preference Elicitation; Predictive Analytics; App Development; ＂Marketing Analytics＂; Advertising; Mobile App; Mobile Marketing; Apparel; Online Advertising; Referral Rewards; Referrals; Female Ceo; Female Entrepreneur; Female Protagonist; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Creativity; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing Channels; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; AI and Machine Learning; E-commerce; Digital Platforms; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

September 2011
Article

The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value

By: Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton

A ubiquitous feature of even the fastest self-service technology transactions is the wait. Conventional wisdom and operations theory suggests that the longer people wait, the less satisfied they become; we demonstrate that due to what we term the labor illusion, when... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Perception; Valuation; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Performance Effectiveness; Customer Satisfaction; Service Industry

2016
Working Paper

Refugee Resettlement

By: David Delacretaz, Scott Duke Kominers and Alexander Teytelboym

Over 100,000 refugees are permanently resettled from refugee camps to hosting countries every year. Nevertheless, refugee resettlement processes in most countries are ad hoc, accounting for neither the priorities of hosting communities nor the preferences of refugees... View Details

Keywords: Refugees; Marketplace Matching; Mathematical Methods

Article

Effects of Description of Options on Parental Perinatal Decision-Making

By: Marlyse F. Haward, Leslie K. John, John M. Lorenz and Baruch Fischhoff

Objective: To examine whether parents' delivery room management decisions for extremely preterm infants are influenced by (a) the degree of detail with which options-comfort care (CC) or intensive care (IC)-are presented or (b) their order of presentation. Methods: 309... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Values and Beliefs; Personal Characteristics; Attitudes; Motivation and Incentives; Family and Family Relationships; Health Care and Treatment

26 Mar 2012
Research & Ideas

What Neuroscience Tells Us About Consumer Desire

brain-tracking tools to determine why we prefer some products over others. "People are fairly good at expressing what they want, what they like, or even how much they will pay for an item," says Uma R. Karmarkar, an assistant... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Consumer Products

February 2007 (Revised September 2008)
Case

CMM versus Agile: Methodology Wars in Software Development

A CIO decides whether to adopt the "Capability Maturity Model" (CMM) within her IT department. The decision is proving surprisingly controversial; some of her best developers prefer adopting an "agile" methodological approach instead. Compares and contrasts the CMM and... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Product Development; Business Processes; Information Technology; Applications and Software

Educators

09 Jun 2015
First Look

First Look: June 9, 2015

the closer one gets to the customer in responses from sales and service personnel. This article outlines the issues and explains why withholding information about strategy for competitive reasons often results in greater risk for the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2014
Article

Botsourcing and Outsourcing: Robot, British, Chinese, and German Workers Are for Thinking—Not Feeling—Jobs

By: Adam Waytz and Michael I. Norton

Technological innovations have produced robots capable of jobs that, until recently, only humans could perform. The present research explores the psychology of "botsourcing"—the replacement of human jobs by robots—while examining how understanding botsourcing can... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Emotions; Cognition and Thinking