Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(4,096)
- Faculty Publications (553)
- June 15, 2021
- Article
Cutting the Gordian Knot of Employee Health Care Benefits and Costs: A Corporate Model Built on Employee Choice
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman
President Joe Biden’s promise to give every American access to affordable health insurance is well-intentioned, but his plan’s policy elements—a public option, a permanent expanded tax credit—require congressional approval and would expend significant political and... View Details
- June 2021
- Article
Cognition and Emotion in Extreme Political Action: Individual Differences and Dynamic Interactions
By: Leor Zmigrod and Amit Goldenberg
Who is most likely to join and engage in extreme political action? While traditional theories have focused on situational factors or group identity attributes, an emerging science illustrates that tendencies for extreme political action may also be rooted in... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Equilibrium Effects of Pay Transparency
By: Zoë B. Cullen and Bobak Pakzad-Hurson
The public discourse around pay transparency has focused on the direct effect: how workers seek
to rectify newly-disclosed pay inequities through renegotiations. The question of how wage-setting
and hiring practices of the firm respond in equilibrium has received... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Old Boys' Club: Schmoozing and the Gender Gap
By: Zoë B. Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia
Offices are social places. Employees and managers take breaks together and talk about
family and hobbies. In this study, we show that employees’ social interactions with their managers
can be advantageous for their careers, and that this phenomenon contributes to the... View Details
- 2021
- Article
To Thine Own Self Be True? Incentive Problems in Personalized Law
By: Jordan M. Barry, John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers
Recent years have seen an explosion of scholarship on “personalized law.” Commentators foresee a world in which regulators armed with big data and machine learning techniques determine the optimal legal rule for every regulated party, then instantaneously disseminate... View Details
Keywords: Personalized Law; Regulation; Regulatory Avoidance; Regulatory Arbitrage; Law And Economics; Law And Technology; Law And Artificial Intelligence; Futurism; Moral Hazard; Elicitation; Signaling; Privacy; Law; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Information Technology; AI and Machine Learning
- May 2021 (Revised August 2021)
- Case
Melissa Wood Health: How to Win in the Creator Economy
By: Eva Ascarza
In October 2020, Melissa Wood-Tepperberg, founder of the digital subscription wellness platform Melissa Wood Health (MWH) and creator of ‘The MWH Method,’ was evaluating the strategic directions of her company. What had started as a way to share workouts and wellness... View Details
- May 2021
- Simulation
Customer Compatibility Exercise Application
By: Ryan W. Buell
Customers impose considerable variability on the operating systems of service organizations. They show up when they wish (arrival variability), they ask for different things (request variability), they vary in their willingness and ability to help themselves (effort... View Details
- May–June 2021
- Article
Eliminate Strategic Overload
As companies respond to intensifying competitive pressures and challenges, they ask more and more of their employees. But organizations often have very little to show for the efforts of their talented and engaged workers. By selecting fewer initiatives with greater... View Details
- Article
Emotional Acknowledgment: How Verbalizing Others' Emotions Fosters Interpersonal Trust
By: Alisa Yu, Justin M. Berg and Julian Zlatev
People often respond to others’ emotions using verbal acknowledgment (e.g., “You seem upset”). Yet, little is known about the relational benefits and risks of acknowledging others’ emotions in the workplace. We draw upon Costly Signaling Theory to posit how emotional... View Details
- Article
Large-Scale Field Experiment Shows Null Effects of Team Demographic Diversity on Outsiders' Willingness to Support the Team
By: Edward H. Chang, Erika L. Kirgios and Rosanna K. Smith
Demographic diversity in the United States is rising, and increasingly, work is conducted in teams. These co-occurring phenomena suggest that it might be increasingly common for work to be conducted by demographically diverse teams. But to date, in spite of copious... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Financial Flexibility and Corporate Employment
By: Rebecca Lester, Ethan Rouen and Braden Williams
We study the role of financial flexibility on COVID-19 employment actions. Using daily data from March through May 2020 for 354 of the largest U.S. employers, we find that firms facing a negative demand shock were 28.8 percentage points more likely to reduce their... View Details
Keywords: Financial Flexibility; COVID-19; Pandemic; Employment; Health Pandemics; System Shocks; Finance
- 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
- March 2021 (Revised February 2025)
- Teaching Note
Afterpay U.S.: The Omnichannel Dilemma
By: Antonio Moreno and Anibha Singh
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-086. In 2018, Nick Molnar, the founder of the Australia-based online payment service Afterpay began its expansion to the U.S. market. The service had gained a loyal following in Australia by enabling customers to pay for online... View Details
Keywords: Omnichannel Retail; Digital Marketing; Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Change Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Financing and Loans; Microfinance; Global Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Product Development; Supply Chain Management; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Networks; Network Effects; Internet and the Web; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Australia
- March 2021 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
M-KOPA: Empowering Lives
By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Wale Lawal and Pippa Tubman Armerding
The Pay As You Go solar power company in East Africa had sales of $71 million in 2019. It wished to grow to $300 million by 2025. M-KOPA, founded by three entrepreneurs in 2011, had grown nicely in Kenya and Uganda to reach nearly 750,000 households with an innovative... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Currency Hedging in Emerging Markets: Managing Cash Flow Exposure
By: Laura Alfaro, Mauricio Calani and Liliana Varela
Foreign currency derivative markets are among the largest in the world, yet their role in emerging markets in particular, is relatively understudied. We study firms' currency risk exposure and their hedging choices by employing a unique dataset covering the universe of... View Details
- February 2021
- Case
The Tulsa Massacre and the Call for Reparations
By: Mihir Desai, Ruth Page, Suzanne Antoniou and Leanne Fan
How should historic social injustices be addressed? Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants, including Representative Regina Goodwin of Tulsa, believe they should be addressed through reparations and have consequently continued to push the government... View Details
Keywords: Costs And Consequences; Decisions; Judgment And Decision-making; Lawsuit; Leading Change; Conflict Resolution; Perspective Taking; Prejudice; Bias; Reparations; Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cost vs Benefits; Judgments; Race; Ethics; Fairness; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Conflict Management; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Government and Politics; Government Legislation; History; Lawsuits and Litigation; Legal Liability; Mission and Purpose; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Motivation and Incentives; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Oklahoma; Tulsa; United States
- 2021
- Working Paper
Exclusive Dealing and Entry by Competing Two-Sided Platforms
By: Cristian Chica, Kenneth Chuk and Jorge Tamayo
We study competition between horizontally differentiated platforms offering exclusive and non-exclusive contracts to one side of the market (content providers). The introduction of non-exclusive contracts in addition to exclusive contracts softens the competition for... View Details
- February 2021
- Article
How Transparency into Internal and External Responsibility Initiatives Influences Consumer Choice
By: Ryan W. Buell and Basak Kalkanci
Amid growing calls for transparency and social and environmental responsibility, companies are employing different strategies to improve consumer perceptions of their brands. Some pursue internal initiatives that reduce their negative social or environmental impacts... View Details
- January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Supplement
Juno (C): Leveraging Student Power
By: Joshua Schwartzstein, Kathleen L. McGinn and Amy Klopfenstein
In May 2020, Juno co-founders Chris Abkarians and Nikhil Agarwal decided to hold the annual auction for their student loan assistance startup. Five lenders submitted bids, and the co-founders ultimately opted to select Eager Bank as their partner for the 2020-2021... View Details
Keywords: Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Cost vs Benefits; Judgments; Education; Higher Education; Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Strategy; Adaptation; Alignment; Negotiation; Agreements and Arrangements; Negotiation Deal; Negotiation Offer; Negotiation Participants; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Tactics; Negotiation Types; Financial Services Industry; Education Industry; North and Central America; United States; Massachusetts; Boston
- January 2021 (Revised May 2021)
- Case
Amazon Shopper Panel: Paying Customers for Their Data
By: Eva Ascarza and Ayelet Israeli
This case introduces a new Amazon program that has consumers upload their receipts from transactions outside of Amazon, in exchange for money. Through the discussion, the case aims to explore issues in customers’ privacy in the digital age, the value of customers’ own... View Details
Keywords: Data Analytics; Data Privacy; Data Management; ＂Marketing Analytics＂; Marketing Communication; Marketing Research; Data-driven Management; E-Commerce Strategy; Ethical Decision Making; CRM; Consumer Protection; Targeted Advertising; Targeted Policies; Data Ownership; Marketing; Research; Marketing Communications; Analytics and Data Science; Management; Customer Relationship Management; Ethics; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; United States