Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,403)
- Faculty Publications (234)
- October 2016
- Case
Supercell
By: William R. Kerr, Benjamin F. Jones and Alexis Brownell
Supercell is a young Finnish smartphone game company with an unusual team structure and company philosophy. It is already one of Finland’s most valuable companies, and despite being only six years old, it has put up some impressive numbers: as of 2016, it has released... View Details
- Article
The Impact of Personal Genomics on Risk Perceptions and Medical Decision-Making
By: Joshua Lev Krieger, Fiona Murray, J. Scott Roberts and Robert C. Green
- 2016
- Working Paper
Decision-Making by Precedent and the Founding of American Honda (1948 – 1974)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and John Heilbron
American Honda was founded in 1959 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Honda Motor Company to facilitate sales and distribution in the United States. The details of American Honda’s early history have long served as evidence in debates among scholars and practitioners... View Details
- August 2, 2016
- Article
Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Martin A. Nowak and David G. Rand
Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an... View Details
- Article
High School Curriculum and Financial Outcomes: The Impact of Mandated Personal Finance and Mathematics Courses
By: Shawn Cole, Anna Paulson and Gauri Kartini Shastry
Financial literacy and cognitive capabilities are convincingly linked to the quality of financial decision-making. Yet, there is little evidence that education intended to improve financial decision-making is successful. Using plausibly exogenous variation in exposure... View Details
- 2016
- Article
Organizational Decision-Making and Information: Angel Investments by Venture Capital Partners
By: Andy Wu
We study information aggregation in organizational decision-making for the financing of entrepreneurial ventures. We introduce a formal model of voting where agents face costly tacit information to improve their decision quality. Equilibrium outcomes suggest a... View Details
- June 2016
- Case
Augustine Heard & Co.: Building a Family Business in the China Trade (B)
By: William C. Kirby and Joycelyn W. Eby
In 1861, the Heard brothers faced a decision: should they continue their family firm's business model that had made them a successful commission house in China, or was it time to make fundamental adjustments to their work? This case reveals that the brothers decided to... View Details
- June 2016
- Teaching Note
The Rawlinsons: Facing Life and Career Decisions as a Couple
By: Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams
David and Nadia Rawlinson are a dual-career power couple who both seek executive careers in large organizations. At the beginning of the case, Nadia has taken a new job in San Francisco, while David has been offered an opportunity in London. What are the risks of... View Details
- 2016
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Organizational Behavior Reading: Decision Making
By: Francesca Gino, Max Bazerman and Katherine Shonk
This Reading argues that decision making is systematically flawed and introduces methods to improve decision-making effectiveness. The Essential Reading section covers the rational decision-making model and three important ideas that challenge it: Herbert Simon's... View Details
- March 2016
- Case
Residency Select or J3Personica?
By: William Kerr and Kathryn S. Roloff
Residency Select, LLC provides psychometric assessments for matching medical students to residency programs. After a series of successful pilots, founder Alan Friedman is considering whether to continue developing his offerings in this area, or whether to expand into... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised March 2018)
- Case
Labor, Capital, and Government: The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902
By: David Moss and Marc Campasano
In late October 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt felt relieved after months of anxiety and uncertainty. Workers in Pennsylvania's anthracite coal industry had been on strike for five months, threatening to leave eastern cities in the cold without enough heating fuel... View Details
- January 8, 2016
- Article
When You’ve Made Enough Money to Cause Family Tension
By: Josh Baron, Rob Lachenauer and Diane Coutu
This article discusses the transition successful business founders face when moving from intense business focus to managing significant wealth in their "Second Act." It highlights the shift towards creating a family enterprise, requiring shared financial... View Details
- December 2015 (Revised January 2016)
- Case
Woolf Farming and the California Water Crisis
By: Forest Reinhardt, David Bell, Natalie Kindred, Mary Shelman and Laura Winig
This case highlights the tough choices, competing interests, and decision-making mechanisms involved in California's management of its severe drought, entering its fifth year in 2015. Stuart Woolf, CEO of Woolf Farming, a grower and processor of almonds, tomatoes, and... View Details
- September 8, 2015
- Article
Making Better Decisions in Your Family Business
By: Josh Baron, Rob Lachenauer and Sebastian Ehrensberger
Family businesses face complex decisions, from CEO succession to business strategies. A "four-room" model helps structure decision-making in these businesses: Owner Room (ownership goals and board election), Board Room (performance monitoring and CEO appointment),... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Blinded by Experience: Prior Experience, Negative News and Belief Updating
By: Bradley R. Staats, Diwas S. KC and Francesca Gino
Traditional models of operations management involve dynamic decision-making assuming optimal (Bayesian) updating. However, behavioral theory suggests that individuals exhibit bias in their beliefs and decisions. We conduct both a field study and two laboratory studies... View Details
- June 2015
- Case
The Valuation and Financing of Lady M Confections
By: Mihir A. Desai and Elizabeth A. Meyer
This case explores the decision-making process that small, private businesses must undertake when considering an expansion and when selling equity to outside investors. In the process, students are asked to complete two exercises: a break-even analysis and a valuation... View Details
- February 2015
- Article
Location Choices under Strategic Interactions
By: Juan Alcacer, Cristian Dezso and Minyuan Zhao
The literature on location choices has mostly emphasized the impact of location and firm characteristics. However, most industries with a significant presence of multi-location firms are oligopolistic in nature, which suggests that strategic interaction among firms... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Match Your Own Price? Self-Matching as a Retailer's Multichannel Pricing Strategy
By: Pavel Kireyev, Vineet Kumar and Elie Ofek
Multichannel retailing has created several new strategic choices for firms. With respect to pricing, an important decision is whether to offer a "self-matching policy." Self-matching allows a multichannel retailer to offer the lowest of its online and in-store prices... View Details
- November 2014
- Article
Evidence on Self-Stereotyping and the Contribution of Ideas
We use a lab experiment to explore the factors that predict an individual's decision to contribute her idea to a group. We find that contribution decisions depend upon the interaction of gender and the gender stereotype associated with the decision-making domain:... View Details