Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(9,354)
- Faculty Publications (3,650)
- 2024
- Working Paper
Empirical Guidance: Data Processing and Analysis with Applications in Stata, R, and Python
By: Melissa Ouellet and Michael W. Toffel
This paper describes a range of best practices to compile and analyze datasets, and includes some examples in Stata, R, and Python. It is meant to serve as a reference for those getting started in econometrics, and especially those seeking to conduct data analyses in... View Details
- September 2024
- Case
Navigating Digital Transformation at Carrefour
By: Sunil Gupta and Emilie Billaud
In 2023, Elodie Perthuisot, Carrefour’s Executive Director for e-commerce and digital transformation, met with CEO Alexandre Bompard to discuss strategies for the company’s digital initiatives. Carrefour, a global retail giant with over 14,300 stores across 40... View Details
Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Talent and Talent Management; Decisions; Digital Strategy; Technology Adoption; Leading Change; Goals and Objectives; Resource Allocation; Digital Marketing; E-commerce; Operations; Logistics; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Strategic Planning; Alliances; Partners and Partnerships; Competitive Advantage; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe
- September 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Exercise
Building an AI First Snack Company: A Hands-on Generative AI Exercise
By: Iavor I. Bojinov
Although the term 'Generative AI' (GenAI) is widely recognized, its practical application in daily workflows has yet to be understood. This exercise introduces students to GenAI tools, demonstrating how they can be seamlessly integrated into professional work practices... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Does Private Equity Have Any Business Being in the Health Care Business?
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Zirui Song
Private Equity (“PE”) has come under increased scrutiny by the press, academics, and policymakers, as well as the public, for its investments in health care delivery. This scrutiny has been exacerbated by recent high profile hospital bankruptcies following PE... View Details
- September–October 2024
- Article
How AI Can Power Brand Management
By: Julian De Freitas and Elie Ofek
Marketers have begun experimenting with AI to improve their brand-management efforts. But unlike other marketing tasks, brand management involves more than just repeatedly executing one specialized function. Long considered the exclusive domain of creative talent, it... View Details
- 2024
- Article
Learning Under Random Distributional Shifts
By: Kirk Bansak, Elisabeth Paulson and Dominik Rothenhäusler
Algorithmic assignment of refugees and asylum seekers to locations within host
countries has gained attention in recent years, with implementations in the U.S.
and Switzerland. These approaches use data on past arrivals to generate machine
learning models that can... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
The New Digital Divide
By: Mayana Pereira, Shane Greenstein, Raffaella Sadun, Prasanna Tambe, Lucia Ronchi Darre, Tammy Glazer, Allen Kim, Rahul Dodhia and Juan Lavista Ferres
We build and analyze new metrics of digital usage that leverage telemetry data collected by Microsoft during operating system updates across forty million Windows devices in U.S. households. These measures of US household digital usage are much more comprehensive than... View Details
- September–October 2024
- Article
Where Data-Driven Decision-Making Can Go Wrong
By: Michael Luca and Amy C. Edmondson
When considering internal data or the results of a study, often business leaders either take the evidence presented as gospel or dismiss it altogether. Both approaches are misguided. What leaders need to do instead is conduct rigorous discussions that assess any... View Details
- August 2024
- Case
Sky Therapeutics: Innovating in Digital Therapeutics
By: Satish Tadikonda, Olivia Reszczynski and William Marks
Shad Faraz and Alex Youssef were intrigued by the opportunities in the relatively new area of Digital Therapeutics. Despite initial successes, early entrants had struggled with reimbursement and revenue-predictability challenges. However, venture investors still... View Details
- 2024
- Case
EPCorp: What Story Does the Data Tell?
By: Jacob M. Cook
In EPCorp: What Story Does the Data Tell?, the Quick Case begins with Shivani Bahl researching problems with her company's website so that she can begin to analyze which option would help EPCorp most: selling all its products on Amazon or improving its own data... View Details
- August 2024 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
DBS' AI Journey
By: Feng Zhu, Harold Zhu and Adina Wong
Headquartered in Singapore, DBS Bank, one of Asia's leading financial services groups, embarked on a multi-year digital transformation under CEO Piyush Gupta in 2014. It was then that DBS also began experimenting with AI to drive value for the business and customers.... View Details
- August 2024
- Background Note
Mitigating Climate Change with Machine Learning
By: Michael W. Toffel, Kelsey Carter, Amy Chambers, Avery Park and Susan Pinckney
This note highlights how machine learning is being used to decarbonize (reduce GHG emissions) several key sectors including electricity, transportation, building, industrial processes, and agriculture -- and how machine learning is being used to accelerate efforts to... View Details
- August 13, 2024
- Editorial
Can AI Save Physicians from Burnout?
By: Susanna Gallani, Lidia Moura and Katie Sonnefeldt
- August 2024 (Revised November 2024)
- Case
Mercado Bitcoin: M&A, IPO, or Series B?
By: Raymond Kluender, Emanuele Colonnelli, Sabrina T. Howell and Karina Souza
In April 2021, Brazilian cryptocurrency platform Mercado Bitcoin had to decide how to scale: go public, M&A with a bank, or take a VC big check. In a highly volatile market, Roberto Dagnoni, chairman of the board, viewed the unprecedent crypto momentum as a window of... View Details
Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Decision Making; Going Public; Ownership Stake; Strategic Planning; Venture Capital; Problems and Challenges; Business Cycles; Digital Platforms; Emerging Markets; Market Timing; Expansion; Diversification; Valuation; Value Creation; Investment Funds; Initial Public Offering; Price; Price Bubble; Negotiation Offer; Financial Liquidity; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Latin America; South America; Brazil; Sao Paulo; United States
- 2025
- Working Paper
Narrative AI and the Human-AI Oversight Paradox in Evaluating Early-Stage Innovations
By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Léonard Boussioux, Charles Ayoubi, Ying Hao Chen, Camila Lin, Rebecca Spens, Pooja Wagh and Pei-Hsin Wang
Do AI-generated narrative explanations enhance human oversight or diminish it? We investigate this question through a field experiment with 228 evaluators screening 48 early-stage innovations under three conditions: human-only, black-box AI recommendations without... View Details
- August 2024
- Article
Heuristics on Call: The Impact of Mobile-Phone-Based Business-Management Advice
By: Shawn Cole, Mukta Joshi and Antoinette Schoar
There is growing evidence that business training for micro-entrepreneurs can be effective. However, in-person training can be expensive and imposes costs on the target beneficiaries. This paper presents the results of a two-site randomized evaluation of a light-touch,... View Details
- 2024
- Article
Neyman Meets Causal Machine Learning: Experimental Evaluation of Individualized Treatment Rules
By: Michael Lingzhi Li and Kosuke Imai
A century ago, Neyman showed how to evaluate the efficacy of treatment using a randomized experiment under a minimal set of assumptions. This classical repeated sampling framework serves as a basis of routine experimental analyses conducted by today’s scientists across... View Details
- July 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
Dynamic Pricing at Wendy's: Where's the Beef?
By: Elie Ofek, Alicia Dadlani and Martha Hostetter
In early 2024, Wendy’s new CEO announced on an earnings call that the company would install digital menus in its US locations so it could begin testing dynamic pricing—changing prices up or down in response to shifts in supply and demand – as well as allow engaging in... View Details
- July 2024
- Case
The Voice Wars Continues 2024: Hey Google vs. Alexa vs. Siri vs. ChatGPT
By: David B. Yoffie and Sarah von Bargen
In 2024, the Voice War was transforming from a relatively simple index-based technology system, which relied on a list of commands and answers, to a generative AI system, which offered the promise to enable free flowing conversations between people and machines. The... View Details
- July 2024
- Case
Jacqueline Cook at Vendasta: Debating an IPO
By: Reza Satchu, Tom Quinn and Andrew Kosc
In May 2021, after a surge in demand for digital services that prompted high valuations for startups across the Canadian tech sector, Saskatchewan-based Vendasta entered the final stages of the initial public offering (IPO) process. COO Jacqueline Cook had invested her... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Interpersonal Communication; Cost vs Benefits; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Cycles; Entrepreneurship; Fairness; Capital Markets; Private Equity; Investment Banking; Stock Options; Financial Markets; Initial Public Offering; Institutional Investing; Price Bubble; Digital Platforms; Digital Transformation; Internet and the Web; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Managerial Roles; Agreements and Arrangements; Going Public; Ownership Stake; Performance Expectations; Work-Life Balance; Strategic Planning; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Rank and Position; Risk and Uncertainty; Opportunities; Happiness; Reputation; Status and Position; Well-being; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Canada