Publications

January 2025
Case

Index and Active Investing: Vanguard and the New Frontier of Active ETFs

By: Marco Sammon, Luis M. Viceira and Jonathan Kanagasabai

This case explores Vanguard’s strategic decision-making process as it considers entering the growing market for actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Set in 2024, the case places students in the position of Rodney Comegys, Vanguard’s global head of the Equity... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Financial Services Industry

Article

Financial Incentives for Exercise Adherence in Adults: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

By: Marc S. Mitchell, Jack M. Goodman, David A. Alter, Leslie K. John, Paul I. Oh, Maureen T. Pakosh and Guy E. Faulkner

Context Less than 5% of U.S. adults accumulate the required dose of exercise to maintain health. Behavioral economics has stimulated renewed interest in economic-based, population-level health interventions to address this issue. Despite widespread implementation of... View Details

Keywords: Exercise; Health; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives

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2017
Article

Frictions or Mental Gaps: What's Behind the Information We (Don't) Use and When Do We Care?

By: Benjamin Handel and Joshua Schwartzstein

Consumers suffer significant losses from not acting on available information. These losses stem from frictions such as search costs, switching costs, and rational inattention, as well as what we call mental gaps resulting from wrong priors/worldviews, or relevant... View Details

Keywords: Information; Consumer Behavior

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Article

The Artful Dodger: Answering the Wrong Question the Right Way

By: Todd Rogers and Michael I. Norton

What happens when speakers try to "dodge" a question they would rather not answer by answering a different question? In 4 studies, we show that listeners can fail to detect dodges when speakers answer similar-but objectively incorrect-questions (the "artful dodge"), a... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Goals and Objectives

Article

The Cost Structure, Customer Profitability, and Retention Implications of Self-Service Distribution Channels: Evidence from Customer Behavior in an Online Banking Channel

By: Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

This paper uses the context of online banking to investigate the consequences of employing self-service distribution channels to alter customer interactions with the firm. Using a sample of retail banking customers observed over a 30-month period at a large U.S. bank,... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Service Operations; Distribution Channels; Consumer Behavior; Internet and the Web; Banks and Banking; Technology Adoption; Service Delivery; Market Transactions; Market Participation; Profit; Retail Industry; Banking Industry; United States

Web

C. Roland Christensen - Christensen Center for Teaching & Learning

into “a learning community with shared values and common goals." In the classroom, Christensen was a true artist, like the conductor of a symphony orchestra, as he posed questions to students, listened carefully to their replies, and then responded — all within the... View Details

04 Apr 2011
HBS Case

Reinventing the National Geographic Society

out, in a different organization, perhaps their natural tendency when faced with problem X again is to do Y, but maybe problem X is a little different in this organization and this context than the other one. So maybe this time you don't... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Publishing

16 Nov 2010
First Look

First Look: November 16, 2010

populations. While we have considerable evidence that donors are more generous if they know their assistance benefits a preferred group, we know little about the demand for such information. To start closing this gap, we study transfers of income to real-world poor... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Aug 2000
Research & Ideas

Inside the OR: Disrupted Routines and New Technologies

organizations successfully integrate new technologies into their operations. "In an industry context in which individual heroism and skill are assumed to be critical determinants of important outcomes," they write, "this... View Details

Keywords: by Hilah Geer

09 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation

different value proposition to a new market context that did not need all of the raw performance offered by the incumbent. They all created massive growth; to flip Joseph Schumpeter's famous phrase, creative destruction, on its head, this... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor & Scott D. Anthony

Web

Teacher Profiles - Case Method Project

James Quillin The Post Oak High School Houston, TX Subjects: Grade 11/12 Global Politics in Historical Context PA Thomas Quinn Central High School Philadelphia, PA Subjects: Civics and Economics, African American History FL Dennis Rach... View Details

30 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Can AI Predict Whether Shoppers Would Pick Crest or Colgate?

items like toothpaste, yogurt, and wine as well as laptops. More research is needed to understand how GPT might provide useful insight for market researchers working with unique or multifaceted products or services, since language models may require more training and... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

January 2023
Teaching Note

The Opioid Settlement and Executive Pay at AmerisourceBergen

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

Teaching Note for HBS Case No 122-014. In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged... View Details

October 2021
Article

Judgment Aggregation in Creative Production: Evidence from the Movie Industry

By: Hong Luo, Jeffrey T. Macher and Michael Wahlen

We study a novel, low-cost approach to aggregating judgment from a large number of industry experts on ideas that they encounter in their normal course of business. Our context is the movie industry, in which customer appeal is difficult to predict and investment costs... View Details

Keywords: Judgment Aggregation; Quality Uncertainty; Creative Industry; Project Evaluation And Selection; Creativity; Film Entertainment; Judgments; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

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October 2009 (Revised December 2010)
Case

GE Money Bank: The M-Budget Card Initiative

By: Michael L. Tushman, Sebastian Raisch and Christian Welling

The M-Budget Card case study is about mastering the challenges of an exploratory strategic initiative in a context marked by time pressure and frequent change. M-Budget was the first of a series of highly successful projects that established GE Money Bank as a leader... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Credit Cards; Leading Change; Product Launch; Product Development; Groups and Teams; Banking Industry; Switzerland

August 2007 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Grand Central Publishing

By: Anita Elberse

In April 2007, Grand Central's publisher Jamie Raab and editor Karen Kosztolnyik were involved in a frantic bidding war for a proposed book on the life of cat Dewey, billed as the feline answer to the best-selling "Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Product Launch; Bids and Bidding; Product Development; Publishing Industry

TeachingInterests

Investing: Risk, Return and Impact (MBA)

By: Shawn A. Cole

This is an investing/finance course, designed to build on skills introduced in the RC finance course, but with an emphasis on how and whether investors should incorporate what have traditionally been considered “non-financial” criteria in their decisions: for... View Details

April 2021
Background Note

HEAD vs. LEAD: Disruptions Originating at the High- vs. Low-End of the Market

By: Elie Ofek, Olivier Toubia and Didier Toubia

Twenty five years after it was initially proposed, Clay Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation continues to be a major reference for entrepreneurs, corporate innovators, and investors. However, the term “disruptive innovation” is often used in ways and contexts... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry; New Product Management; Targeting; Disruptive Innovation; Market Entry and Exit; Entrepreneurship; Product; Management; Innovation Strategy; Technology

2018
Working Paper

Show or Tell? Improving Agent Decision Making in a Tanzanian Mobile Money Field Experiment

By: Jason Acimovic, Chris Parker, David F. Drake and Karthik Balasubramanian

When workers make operational decisions, the firm's global knowledge and the workers’ domain-specific knowledge complement each other. Oftentimes workers have the final decision-making power. Two key decisions a firm makes when designing systems to support these... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Decision Making; Training; Performance Improvement; Money; Mobile Technology; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Services Industry