Publications

June 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Buurtzorg

By: Ethan Bernstein, Tatiana Sandino, Joost Minnaar and Annelena Lobb

As co-founders of home nursing company Buurtzorg, Jos de Blok and Gonnie Kronenberg prized both self-management and organizational learning. Buurtzorg’s 10,000 nurses across 950 neighborhood nursing teams in the Netherlands were empowered to manage themselves, both in... View Details

2012
Working Paper

An Outside-Inside Evolution in Gender and Professional Work

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Kathleen McGinn and Deborah Kolb

We study the process by which a professional service firm reshaped its activities and beliefs over nearly two decades as it adapted to shifts in the social discourse regarding gender and work. Analyzing archival data from the firm over eighteen years and... View Details

Keywords: Professional Service Firms; Social Institutions; Organizational Learning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employment; Gender; Society; Service Industry

SSRN

2021
Working Paper

Invisible Primes: Fintech Lending with Alternative Data

By: Marco Di Maggio, Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara and Don Carmichael

We exploit anonymized administrative data provided by a major fintech platform to investigate whether using alternative data to assess borrowers’ creditworthiness results in broader credit access. Comparing actual outcomes of the fintech platform’s model to... View Details

Keywords: Fintech Lending; Alternative Data; Machine Learning; Algorithm Bias; Finance; Information Technology; Financing and Loans; Analytics and Data Science; Credit

July 2023
Article

Managerial Quality and Productivity Dynamics

By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo

Do productivity and managerial quality vary within the firm? If so which managerial traits and practices matter most for team productivity? Combining granular garment production data with survey data on managers across 120 production lines in India, we document... View Details

Keywords: Productivity; Non-cognitive Skills; Learning By Doing; Ready-made Garments; Management; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Performance Productivity; Fashion Industry; Manufacturing Industry; India

June 2016 (Revised August 2019)
Case

Numenta: Inventing and (or) Commercializing AI

By: David B. Yoffie, Liz Kind and David Ben Shimol

In March 2016, Donna Dubinsky (co-founder and CEO) and Jeff Hawkins (co-founder) were struggling with a key question: Could Numenta be successful in both creating fundamental technology and building a commercial business? Located in Redwood City, CA, Numenta was... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Machine Intelligence; Machine Learning; Strategy; Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Information; Technological Innovation; Research; Research and Development; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Commercialization; AI and Machine Learning

10 Dec 2020
Podcast

67. Long Life Learning and Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Even Exist Yet: A Conversation with Michelle R. Weise, PhD

Michelle Weise is an expert in higher education and in the development of more innovative workforce and talent pipelines. A former Senior Research Fellow in Higher Education at The Christensen Institute, she joined us on The Disruptive Voice to reflect on her career... View Details

Article

Algorithms Need Managers, Too

By: Michael Luca, Jon Kleinberg and Sendhil Mullainathan

Algorithms are powerful predictive tools, but they can run amok when not applied properly. Consider what often happens with social media sites. Today many use algorithms to decide which ads and links to show users. But when these algorithms focus too narrowly on... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Algorithms; Predictive Analytics; Management; Big Data; Analytics and Data Science

Register to Read

29 Oct 2018
News

Alex Cora, Terry Francona, and John Farrell all won titles in their first year. What lessons can we learn from that?

August 2025
Case

Meta and the Superintelligence Talent Race

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

In June 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg upped the ante in the ongoing AI talent wars. Some analysts praised Zuckerberg’s aggressive approach to building Meta's AI capabilities, while others pointed to the high costs this strategy entailed and questioned how effectively... View Details

2021
Working Paper

Pandemic Schooling Mode and Student Test Scores: Evidence from U.S. States

By: Clare Halloran, Rebecca Jack, James C. Okun and Emily Oster

We estimate the impact of district-level schooling mode (in-person versus hybrid or distance learning) on test scores. We combine Spring 2021 state standardized test score data with comprehensive data on schooling in the 2020-21 school year across 12 states. We find... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; In-person Schooling; Distance Learning; Outcomes Measurement; Health Pandemics; Education; Performance Evaluation

February 2018
Article

Retention Futility: Targeting High-Risk Customers Might Be Ineffective.

By: Eva Ascarza

Companies in a variety of sectors are increasingly managing customer churn proactively, generally by detecting customers at the highest risk of churning and targeting retention efforts towards them. While there is a vast literature on developing churn prediction models... View Details

Keywords: Retention/churn; Proactive Churn Management; Field Experiments; Heterogeneous Treatment Effect; Machine Learning; Customer Relationship Management; Risk Management

July 2006
Article

Dynamic Mixed Duopoly: A Model Motivated by Linux vs. Windows

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pankaj Ghemawat

This paper analyzes a dynamic mixed duopoly in which a profit-maximizing competitor interacts with a competitor that prices at zero (or marginal cost), with the cumulation of output affecting their relative positions over time. The modeling effort is motivated by... View Details

May 2012
Supplement

Columbia's Final Mission (Abridged) (B)

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Kerry Herman

Keywords: Cognitive Biases; Teams; Organizational Learning; Ambiguous Threat; Risk and Uncertainty; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Corporate Disclosure; Groups and Teams; Decision Making; Organizational Culture; Public Administration Industry; Aerospace Industry

March 2017
Exercise

Designing Transformational Customer Experiences

By: Stefan Thomke

Anyone who has recently travelled, gone shopping, or tried to have a problem solved may have little recollection of the experience. Worse yet, some are frustrated by the lack of responsiveness or empathy that they encountered. The reality is that most customer... View Details

Keywords: Customer Experience; Exercise; Learning By Doing; LEGO; Storytelling; Customer Satisfaction; Design; Innovation and Management; Transformation; Service Delivery

May 2022 (Revised July 2022)
Case

The Voice War Continues: Hey Google vs. Alexa vs. Siri in 2022

By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

In 2022, after five years of pursuing a new "AI-first" strategy, Google had captured a sizeable share of the American and global markets for voice assistants. Google Assistant was used by hundreds of millions of users around the world, but Amazon retained the largest... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Artificial Intelligence; Deep Learning; Voice Assistants; Smart Home; Market Share; Globalized Markets and Industries; Competitive Strategy; Digital Platforms; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Industry; United States

July 2019
Teaching Note

Miroglio Fashion

By: Sunil Gupta

Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 519-053, 519-070, and 519-072. View Details

Keywords: Inventory Management; Demand Forecasting; Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Forecasting and Prediction; Operations; Management; Decision Making; Marketing; AI and Machine Learning; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry

2020
Article

A Practical Approach to Sales Compensation: What Do We Know Now? What Should We Know in the Future?

By: Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim and Niladri B. Syam

Personal selling represents one of the most important elements in the marketing mix, and appropriate management of the sales force is vital to achieving the organization’s objectives. Among the various instruments of sales management, compensation plays a pivotal role... View Details

Keywords: Sales Compensation; Sales Management; Sales Strategy; Principal-agent Theory; Structural Econometrics; Field Experiments; Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; AI and Machine Learning

2023
Working Paper

Advances in Power-to-Gas Technologies: Cost and Conversion Efficiency

By: Gunther Glenk, Philip Holler and Stefan Reichelstein

Widespread adoption of hydrogen as an energy carrier is widely believed to require continued advances in Power-to-Gas (PtG) technologies. Here we provide a comprehensive assessment of the dynamics of system prices and conversion efficiency for three currently prevalent... View Details

Keywords: Clean Tech; Decarbonization; Carbon Emissions; Learning By Doing; Environment; Energy; Environmental Management; Sustainable Cities; Price; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Transportation Industry; Europe; North America; South America; Africa; Asia