Decision Choice And Uncertainty - Publications - Faculty & Research

January 2009 (Revised December 2017)
Case

Who Broke the Bank of England?

By: Niall Ferguson and Jonathan Schlefer

In the summer of 1992, hedge fund manager George Soros was contemplating the possibility that the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) would break down. Designed to pave the way for a full-scale European Monetary Union, the ERM was a system of fixed exchange rates... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Currency Exchange Rate; Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Services Industry; European Union

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11 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The High Risks of Short-Term Management

you explain this reasoning, and what your research might hold for policymakers or others who want to guard against this from happening again? Brochet: Short-termism arises because of market participants' preference for investment View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

April 2009
Case

Young Presidents' Organization

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, John D. Macomber and David Chen

The board of Young Presidents' Organization needs to decide on the future of its Networks Initiative, designed to connect its geographically dispersed membership base through 60 different interest-based networks. So far, one half of these networks have been considered... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizations; Social and Collaborative Networks

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May 2004 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Ultra: The Quest for Leadership (A)

By: Dwight B. Crane and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

Ultra is one of a small group of competing Brazilian petrochemical companies, each of which buys raw material and is a minority owner of Copene, a "cracking" company that provides ethylene and other materials. Because of an industry restructuring, an auction of shares... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Capital Budgeting; Investment; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Industry Structures; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Bids and Bidding; Economy; Ownership Stake; Chemical Industry; Brazil

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December 2023
Article

Save More Today or Tomorrow: The Role of Urgency in Precommitment Design

By: Joseph Reiff, Hengchen Dai, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman and Shlomo Benartzi

To encourage farsighted behaviors, past research suggests that marketers may be wise to invite consumers to pre-commit to adopt them “later.” However, the authors propose that people will draw different inferences from different types of pre-commitment offers, and that... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions

25 Jun 2018
Research & Ideas

In America, Immigrants Really Do Get the Job Done

away from starting a company if I fear being forced to leave. For very mobile skilled workers and rising students, this uncertainty can weigh heavily into decisions about... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Agriculture & Agribusiness; Technology; Service

May 2018
Case

Sagacity Tea: What Direction for Growth?

By: John A. Quelch and Amy Handlin

Kate Moran, CEO and cofounder of Sagacity Tea, a small, Vermont-based ready-to-drink tea brand, is considering a consumer-product group (CPG) broker's proposal for the product's launch in several cities along the East Coast of the United States. The commitments in the... View Details

Keywords: Product Launch; Marketing; Distribution; Growth Management; Marketing Channels; Decision Choices and Conditions

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10 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 10

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-109.pdf When Smaller Menus Are Better: Variability in Menu-Setting Ability Authors:David Goldreich and Hanna Hałaburda Abstract The economics literature on choice focuses... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 23

variety of applications and services that drive the popularity of software. The first principle focuses on enabling choice: firms should allow consumers and partners to have a real View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

Business History - Faculty & Research

Management ; Business Earnings ; Financial Statements ; Change Management ; Disruption ; Volatility ; Transition ; Crime and Corruption ; Cost vs Benefits ; Decision Making ; View Details

23 Feb 2016
First Look

February 23, 2016

measure. The possibility of value incommensurability is thought to raise deep questions about practical reason and rational choice as well as related questions concerning topics as diverse as akrasia, moral... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Oct 2020
Book

Want to Be Happier? Make More Free Time

justifying my choices by telling myself what a lot of us tell ourselves: that we’re working hard now so we will have more time to be happy later,” she says. “We all need to make better decisions on the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

12 Dec 2005
Research & Ideas

Using the Law to Strategic Advantage

Moreover, moral and ethical considerations may decisively influence how the law is applied. As a result, purely technical legal advice is often inadequate. CEOs should be looking for lawyers with wisdom... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Legal Services

12 Nov 2013
First Look

First Look: November 12

GlaxoSmithKline: Sourcing Complex Professional Services Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) uses an innovative new approach to procuring outside legal counsel: it replaces relationship-based selection and law firms' traditional... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

20 May 2014
First Look

First Look: May 20

http://hbr.org/product/go-mobile-aligning-district-managers-and-store-teams/an/114034-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 214-076 Leader Bank, N.A. No abstract available. Purchase this case: http://hbr.org/product/leader-bank-n-a/an/214076-PDF-ENG Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Jun 2015
Research & Ideas

The Surprising Benefits of Oversharing

doubt to them than they should. The discrepancy may come from just how apparent it is that information is being hidden. "People don't notice the dog that doesn't bark," says John. By including the "choose not to answer" View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

10 Nov 2015
Blog Post

Using an MBA for a Career Change

supposed to keep “trying on” different jobs and companies for the rest of our careers. 2. Making a career change isn’t just a one-step choice that you make. Rather, a career change is a series of trying... View Details

July 2024
Article

How Artificial Intelligence Constrains Human Experience

By: A. Valenzuela, S. Puntoni, D. Hoffman, N. Castelo, J. De Freitas, B. Dietvorst, C. Hildebrand, Y.E. Huh, R. Meyer, M. Sweeney, S. Talaifar, G. Tomaino and K. Wertenbroch

Many consumption decisions and experiences are digitally mediated. As a consequence, consumer behavior is increasingly the joint product of human psychology and ubiquitous algorithms (Braun et al. 2024; cf. Melumad et al. 2020). The coming of age of Large Language... View Details

Keywords: Large Language Model; User Experience; AI and Machine Learning; Consumer Behavior; Technology Adoption; Risk and Uncertainty; Cost vs Benefits

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Six Steps for Making Your Threat Credible

intimidate the local population, some captains took to sinking their ships as soon as they landed. Now there was no choice but to stay and fight. Scuttling the ships made the threat—"We will fight to... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra

May 2010 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Bank of America Acquires Merrill Lynch (A)

By: Robert C. Pozen and Charles E. Beresford

On December 22, 2008, Bank of America (BofA) chairman and CEO Ken Lewis convened a special board of directors meeting to review his company's pending acquisition of investment bank Merrill Lynch. Negotiations for the acquisition had begun a few months earlier, during... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Corporate Governance; Government Legislation; Crisis Management; Business and Government Relations; Banking Industry

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