Publications

November–December 2020
Article

Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case

By: Robin Ely and David A. Thomas

Leaders may mean well when they tout the economic payoffs of hiring more women and people of color, but there is no research support for the notion that diversifying the workforce automatically improves a company’s performance. This article critiques the popular... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Change; Trust

Register to Read

April 2009 (Revised May 2009)
Case

Oprah Winfrey

By: Nancy F. Koehn, Erica Helms, Katherine Miller and Rachel Wilcox

The case explores the entrepreneurial journey of Oprah Winfrey, examining how she built an audience for one of the most successful television shows in history; how she created the company, Harpo Productions, that produces that show as well as other media offerings; how... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Personal Development and Career; Strategy; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

Educators

Purchase

09 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

The Entrepreneurs Who Invented Economic Forecasting

In the severe economic, social, and scientific turbulence churning at the dawn of the twentieth century, people were eager for any semblance of stability and predictability. From this need for certainty emerged a group of entrepreneurs who promised to apply scientific... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

March 2011
Article

The New M&A Playbook

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Richard Alton, Curtis Rising and Andrew Waldeck

Companies spend more than $2 trillion on acquisitions every year, yet the M&A failure rate is between 70% and 90%. Executives can dramatically increase their odds of success, the authors argue, if they understand how to select targets, how much to pay for them, and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Model; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Integration

Purchase

April 2009
Article

Sovereign Wealth in Abu Dhabi

By: Rawi Abdelal

By the turn of the century, oil had already made the tiny emirate of Abu Dhabi rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams. A sovereign wealth fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), has invested extra oil revenues abroad for more than thirty years and amassed a... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Financial Management; Investment Funds; Sovereign Finance; Wealth; Diversification; Abu Dhabi

2011
Book

The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steve J. Kramer

The most effective managers have the ability to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives-consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine... View Details

Purchase

May 2012
Article

Adding Bricks to Clicks: Predicting the Patterns of Cross-Channel Elasticities over Time

By: Jill Avery, Thomas J. Steenburgh, John Deighton and Mary Caravella

The authors propose a conceptual framework to explain whether and when the introduction of a new retail store channel helps or hurts sales in existing direct channels. A conceptual framework separates short- and long-term effects by analyzing the capabilities of a... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Channels; Channels Of Distribution; Distribution; Retailing; Channel Management; Channel Migration; Multichannel Retailing; Framework; Customers; Marketing Channels; Sales; Internet and the Web; Demand and Consumers; Competency and Skills; Distribution Channels; E-commerce; Retail Industry; United States

SSRN

12 May 2011
Research & Ideas

The Difficult Transition from For-Profit to Nonprofit Boards

this happens is one of the many subjects discussed in the new book Joining a Nonprofit Board: What You Need to Know, by authors Marc J. Epstein of Rice University and F. Warren McFarlan of Harvard Business School. In this excerpt from the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

01 Dec 2011
What Do You Think?

Thinking Slow: An Argument for Bureaucracy?

Summing Up Summarizing responses to questions about a topic as complex as thinking slow requires that one think slow. So I wrote this column, slept on it, rewrote it, and still have problems with it. But deadlines, as they so often do, help us avoid the "analysis... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2011
Article

How Should the Graduate Economics Core be Changed?

By: Vincent Pons, Jose Miguel Abito, Katarina Borovickova, Hays Golden, Jacob Goldin, Matthew A. Masten, Miguel Morin, Alexander Poirier, Israel Romem, Tyler Williams and Chamna Yoon

The authors present suggestions by graduate students from a range of economics departments for improving the first-year core sequence in economics. The students identified a number of elements that should be added to the core: more training in building microeconomic... View Details

Keywords: Design Of Core; Graduate Economics; Higher Education; Economics; Curriculum and Courses

01 May 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Rehabilitating Corporate Purpose

Keywords: by Malcolm S. Salter

May–June 2024
Article

What Makes a Successful Celebrity Brand?

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jill Avery, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Matt Higgins

Celebrities have shifted from endorsing established brands to being influencers for established brands to drawing on their influence to create brands themselves. The authors examine what it takes to make celebrity brands work. View Details

Keywords: Celebrities; Celebrity Endorsement; Celebrity Management; Celebrity; Direct To Consumer Marketing; DTC; Influencer Marketing; Influencers; Influencer Advertising; Influencer; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Power and Influence; Advertising; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; United States

2013
Article

The Medical Response to the Boston Marathon Bombings

By: Dutch Leonard and Arnold M. Howitt

Several factors combined in the aftermath of the bombings to facilitate the delivery of medical care. The authors highlight 10 elements of the emergency medical response that saved dozens of lives in Boston. View Details

Keywords: Boston Marathon Bombing; Emergency Medical Response; Health Care and Treatment; Crisis Management; Boston

21 May 2024
Cold Call Podcast

The Importance of Trust for Managing through a Crisis

Keywords: Re: Sandra J. Sucher; Tourism

01 Oct 2018
Book

Is the US Losing its Ability to Attract Highly Skilled Migrant Workers?

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Food & Beverage; Service

30 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 31, 2006

licensed software, including games. Discusses Warner Bros.' online distribution strategy as well as the negotiations between BitTorrent and the Movie Picture Association of America and Warner Bros. that ultimately led to Warner Bros.' agreement to make BitTorrent its... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2018
Working Paper

Learning to Become a Taste Expert

By: Kathryn A. Latour and John A. Deighton

Evidence suggests that consumers seek to become more expert about hedonic products to enhance their enjoyment of future consumption occasions. Current approaches to becoming an expert center on cultivating an analytic mindset. In the present research the authors... View Details

Keywords: Hedonic; Wine; Expertise; Holistic; Analytic; Sensory; Taste; Learning; Experience and Expertise; Analysis; Perception

SSRN

June 2019
Article

Learning to Become a Taste Expert

By: Kathryn A. Latour and John A. Deighton

Evidence suggests that consumers seek to become more expert about hedonic products to enhance their enjoyment of future consumption occasions. Current approaches to becoming expert center on cultivating an analytic mindset. In the present research the authors explore... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Experience and Expertise; Analysis; Perception