Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,637)
- Faculty Publications (225)
- November–December 2018
- Article
Online Network Revenue Management Using Thompson Sampling
By: Kris J. Ferreira, David Simchi-Levi and He Wang
We consider a network revenue management problem where an online retailer aims to maximize revenue from multiple products with limited inventory constraints. As common in practice, the retailer does not know the consumer's purchase probability at each price and must... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 5 Complementarity
The purpose of this chapter is to relate the theory of task networks and technology set forth in previous chapters to theories of firm boundaries from economics and management. Complementary goods have more value when used together than separately. Complementarity may... View Details
Keywords: Complementarity
- September 2018
- Case
OYO: Creating Effective Spaces
By: Das Narayandas, Sunil Gupta, Rachna Tahilyani and Mahima Rao-Kachroo
Twenty-four-year old Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of India-based online hotel branding network OYO Rooms, has tackled the issue of unreliability in India's highly fragmented budget hotel industry. In 2018, OYO branded 8,500 properties across 200 cities and managed... View Details
- August 28, 2018
- Article
How Intermittent Breaks in Interaction Improve Collective Intelligence
By: Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore and David Lazer
People influence each other when they interact to solve problems. Such social influence introduces both benefits (higher average solution quality due to exploitation of existing answers through social learning) and costs (lower maximum solution quality due to a... View Details
Keywords: Transparency; Social Influence; Collective Intelligence; Interaction; Problem Solving; Collaboration; Intermittant; Breaks; Always On; Communication Technologies; Communication; Design; Information; Management; Leadership; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology
- Article
The Impact of the 'Open' Workspace on Human Collaboration
By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephen Turban
Organizations’ pursuit of increased workplace collaboration has led managers to transform traditional office spaces into “open,” transparency-enhancing architectures with fewer walls, doors, and other spatial boundaries, yet there is scant direct empirical research on... View Details
Keywords: Open Office; Transparency; Collaboration; Collective Intelligence; Workspace; Workspace Design; Architecture; Cubicles; Boundaries; Spatial Boundaries; Human Behavior; Propinquity; Co-location; Interaction; Sociometers; People Analytics; Buildings and Facilities; Communication; Design; Human Resources; Leadership; Management; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Networks; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology; United States
- April 2018
- Supplement
$19B 4 txt app WhatsApp...omg! (B)
By: David B. Yoffie and Aakash Mehta
This case provides a brief update on Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp. View Details
- February 2018 (Revised December 2019)
- Case
Rise of the Drones: Identified Technologies
By: Andy Wu and George Gonzalez
The founder and CEO of Identified Technologies, a Pittsburgh-based drone software and services company, faces a dilemma when San Francisco–based DroneDeploy begins to disrupt the industry with its drone software platform. Identified Technologies needs to consider... View Details
- September 2017
- Case
NBCUniversal Telemundo: Transforming Latino Television
By: Henry W. McGee, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Christine Snively
In August 2017, Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCUniversal International Group and NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, considered how the Miami-based Spanish-language TV network Telemundo could succeed in a rapidly shifting media landscape. Over the past few years,... View Details
- August 2017 (Revised September 2018)
- Case
Audubon in 2017: The Turnaround
The case briefly describes the 112-year history of the organization and focuses particularly on the changes wrought by its new leader David Yarnold who was brought in by the board in 2010. Under Yarnold's leadership the organization went through two strategic plans... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Business History, the Great Divergence and the Great Convergence
By: Geoffrey Jones
This working paper provides a business history perspective on debates about the Great Divergence, the rise of the income gap between the West and the Rest, and the more recent Great Convergence, which has seen a narrowing of that gap. The literature on the timing and... View Details
- Article
Beyond the Target Customer: Social Effects in CRM Campaigns
By: Eva Ascarza, Peter Ebbes, Oded Netzer and Matthew Danielson
Customer relationship management (CRM) campaigns have traditionally focused on maximizing the profitability of the targeted customers. The authors demonstrate that in business settings characterized by network externalities, a CRM campaign that is aimed at changing the... View Details
- 2019
- Chapter
Markets as Networks: The Dynamics and Implications of Interorganizational Network Structures
By: Ranjay Gulati and Maxim Sytch
We discuss existing research that applies a relational, socio-structural lens to studying organizations and markets. Research in this field has described markets first and foremost as networks of enduring relationships and repeated interactions among organizations. We... View Details
- 2019
- Chapter
Network Effects
By: Andrei Hagiu and David B. Yoffie
Network effects are a key economic and strategic phenomenon in 'new economy' industries. They can, but do not necessarily, lead to market tipping, unless they outweigh customers' benefits from differentiation and are accompanied by high switching and multi-homing... View Details
Keywords: Network Effects
- 2017
- Case
Uncommon Schools (A): A Network of Networks
By: John J-H Kim and Sarah McAra
In 2013, Brett Peiser, CEO of the charter school management organization (CMO) Uncommon Schools, is reassessing the nonprofit’s strategy. For nearly 10 years, Uncommon had fulfilled its mission to bring high-quality education to students in low-income, urban areas... View Details
- February 2017
- Case
BlaBlaCar: The Road Ahead...
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Arun Sundararajan, Emilie Billaud and Caroline Caltagirone
In 2017, the co-founders of BlaBlaCar—the world’s largest long-distance carpooling company—reflected on the evolution of their venture and the way forward. BlaBlaCar had reached critical mass and size; yet staying still was not going to be enough to be relevant and... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Transformation; Decision Making; Values and Beliefs; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Network Effects; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Transportation Networks; Transportation Industry; Web Services Industry; France; Europe
- Article
Does 'Liking' Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand's Social Network on Marketing Outcomes
Does “liking” a brand on Facebook cause a person to view it more favorably? Or is “liking” simply a symptom of being fond of a brand? We disentangle these possibilities and find evidence for the latter: brand attitudes and purchasing are predicted by consumers’... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised July 2018)
- Case
United Airlines: More Out-and-Back Flying?
This case looks at United Airlines when it is facing a decision on whether to shift its aircraft routing to more "out-and-back" routing in order to try to improve its on-time performance. As one of the world's largest airlines, United had a very large fleet and... View Details
Keywords: Service Excellence; Service Management; Service Quality; Service Quality Competition; Services; Airline Industry; Airlines; Operational Complexity; Operational Disruptions; Operational Effectiveness; Operations Improvement; Operations Management; Operations Strategy; Air Transportation; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Improvement; Complexity; Air Transportation Industry; United States
- 2016
- Article
Peer-to-Peer Markets
By: Liran Einav, Chiara Farronato and Jonathan Levin
Peer-to-peer markets such as eBay, Uber, and Airbnb allow small suppliers to compete with traditional providers of goods or services. We view the primary function of these markets as making it easy for buyers to find sellers and engage in convenient, trustworthy... View Details
- 2016
- Chapter
Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration
By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit and William R. Kerr
The propagation of macroeconomic shocks through input-output and geographic networks can be a powerful driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences, there is a specific pattern... View Details
- October 2015
- Case
Facebook: The First Ten Years
By: Shane Greenstein, Marco Iansiti and Christine Snively
Facebook celebrated its ten year anniversary in February 2014. Over the past decade it has grown into the largest social network in the world with one billion users. After filing an IPO in 2012 at a $104 billion valuation (the third largest IPO in U.S. history), the... View Details