Installment - Publications - Faculty & Research

21 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Buy Now, Pay Later: How Retail's Hot Feature Hurts Low-Income Shoppers

Online shopping features that let consumers pay for goods in interest-free installments exploded during the pandemic, but new research questions the riskiness of such services: Are people getting in over their heads? Buy now, pay later... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Retail; Financial Services; Technology

Research Summary

Dissertation: "Essays in International Non-market Strategy and the Political Economy of Environmental Regulation"

My dissertation is part of a research agenda intended to advance our understanding of the interaction between companies and non-market actors (e.g. regulators) in an international context. The empirical setting of my analysis is the European Union Emissions Trading... View Details

07 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

behaviors from leaders that are different from those required in the past. The final installment of this series will look at how leaders need to change if their companies are to reach digital maturity and be a positive force for... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

18 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Are Banks the ‘Bad Guys’? Overdraft Fees Are Crushing Low-Income Customers

services, and data from Equifax, a major consumer credit bureau that offers insights into installment loans for low-income borrowers. They complemented that data with hand-collected information about lawsuits against high-to-low... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

01 Nov 2017
What Do You Think?

What Are the Real Lessons of the Wells Fargo Case?

David DeSteno, Who Can You Trust?, reminded us that “90% of people—most of whom identify themselves as morally upstanding—will act dishonestly to benefit themselves if they believe they won’t get caught.” Possible remedies were suggested by Dino Ferrari (“They should... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Banking

11 Jan 2021
Research & Ideas

Is A/B Testing Effective? Evidence from 35,000 Startups

Koning. Isolating the effects of A/B testing Using data available publicly through the website BuiltWith, the researchers identified companies that were up to eight years old that had installed A/B testing software. These tools enable... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

21 Mar 2019
HBS Case

The Ferrari Way

have to keep prices up.” The company has also bucked industry trends by moving deliberately on adding technologies to its cars. While it has installed hybrid drivetrains to some of its newer models, it has eschewed connectivity and... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Auto

08 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated

[This is the sixth installment in a monthly series on management issues in the time of COVID-19.] We recently asked 600 CEOs: What is keeping you awake at night during this global pandemic? A major and multifaceted concern that emerged is... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

24 Feb 2021
Lessons from the Classroom

What History's Biggest Wars Teach Us About Leading in Peace

US perspective, by evidence that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear missile sites in Cuba, 90 miles from the United States, the showdown is considered the closest to a nuclear war the world has ever come. Malhotra has used the... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

Research Summary

Output and asset price fluctuations

What are the sources of business cycles? How are these shocks propagated in the economy? Why are their effects so persistent? How can we explain asset price fluctuations? How are shocks transmitted internationally?To study these questions, I have developed a series... View Details

18 Apr 2023
Research & Ideas

What Happens When Banks Ditch Coal: The Impact Is 'More Than Anyone Thought'

Consumers who are eager to mitigate climate change can take many actions, such as reducing the number of airline flights they take or installing solar panels on their homes. But the planet is in a race against time, and individual action alone won’t help most countries... View Details

Keywords: by Barbara DeLollis; Financial Services; Mining

23 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

The Strategy-Focused Organization

the organization to creating long-term, sustainable value. Sustaining The Scorecard Once the Balanced Scorecard had been installed at Mobil, it became the agenda for an annual meeting of the top 125 managers in January to discuss... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

31 Mar 2022
Op-Ed

Navigating the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ in Professional Services

large scale helps distribute the fixed costs, reducing per-transaction cost. Narayana Hrudalaya, for instance, has installed cutting-edge expensive equipment for heart procedures, but the high volume of its operations drives down... View Details

Keywords: by Ashish Nanda

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

reorganized itself around a market by function matrix structure intended to focus on customers. Compensation systems were aligned with culture change objectives. A skill-based pay system was installed in all production facilities to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

09 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

It’s Time to Reset Decision-Making in Your Organization

[Editor’s note: This is the third installment of a continuing series on issues that 600 CEOs told us keeps them awake at night. Today's topic: The challenges of making organizational decisions in this uncertain environment.] While we may... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

16 Mar 2009
Research & Ideas

When the Internet Runs Out of IP Addresses

engineering time to handle all the details. But when a Web site supports both IPv6 and IPv4, some users will mistakenly try to reach the site by IPv6 because their computers and network cards are misconfigured. (For example, certain security enables IPv6 in order to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Telecommunications

04 Apr 2018
Research & Ideas

Smart Cities are Complicated and Costly: Here's How to Build Them

Chombosan Much promotion of smart cities assumes that municipalities will take a proactive, top-down, technology-first approach to urban progress. Thus far, these initiatives look for some forward-thinking city official (or immensely deep-pocketed private investor) to... View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber; Construction; Green Technology

16 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

The Outside-In Approach to Customer Service

various pieces of electronics, they would instead be bombarded with technical specifications. Furthermore, most women sought installation help from store staff but were turned away. Best Buy responded by reengineering the design of its... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products

21 Sep 2021
Office Hours

Readers Ask: How Can I Gain Power and Influence?

a variety of circumstances. Battilana answered questions from participants in a recent installment of “Office Hours,” an Instagram series (@HarvardHBS) in which Working Knowledge makes experts available to Instagram users to ask questions... View Details