Publications

Find at Harvard

We define a prescriptive analytics framework that addresses the needs of a constrained decision-maker facing, ex ante, unknown costs and benefits of multiple policy levers. The framework is general in nature and can be deployed in any utility maximizing... View Details

27 Mar 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research, March 27, 2018

having the most material ESG issues, as well as investors anticipating proprietary and political costs as a result of the mandated disclosures. Overall, the results are consistent with the equity market perceiving that this disclosure... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2024
Article

Do Safety Management System Standards Indicate Safer Operations? Evidence from the OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Standard

By: Kala Viswanathan, Matthew S. Johnson and Michael W. Toffel

Problem definition: Given the enormous disruptions and costs of occupational injuries, companies and buyers are increasingly looking to voluntary occupational health and safety standards to improve worker safety. Yet because these standards only require... View Details

Keywords: Occupational Health; Occupational Safety; Program Evaluation; Safety Performance; Injuries; OHSAS 18001; ISO 45001; Working Conditions; Safety; Standards

April 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Wayfair

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Susie L. Ma and Matthew G. Preble

In 2016 Niraj Shah and Steve Conine, founders of online home goods retailer Wayfair, are faced with a decision about how to improve user experience on their e-commerce sites. A key driver of consumer interest and conversion to purchase in the home category is visual... View Details

Keywords: Visual Assets; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Business or Company Management; Growth Management; Innovation and Invention; Operations; Strategy; Technology; Retail Industry; Service Industry; United States; Massachusetts

July 2016
Case

Cataumet Boats, Inc.

By: W. Earl Sasser and Mark Davis

Jaime Giancola, an MBA student, has recently completed an operations management course in which aggregate production planning (APP) was one of the topics. She believes that her family's business, Cataumet Boats, which her grandparents started and which her mother and... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Family Business; Production; Cost Management; Transportation; Customer Satisfaction

2025
Working Paper

Bank Financing of Global Supply Chains

By: Laura Alfaro, Mariya Brussevich, Camelia Minoiu and Andrea Presbitero

Finding new international suppliers is costly, so most importers source inputs from a single country. We examine the role of banks in mitigating trade search costs during the 2018–2019 U.S.-China trade tensions. We match data on shipments to U.S. ports with the U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; International Finance; Trade; Credit; United States; Asia

Find at Harvard

2018
Working Paper

Opportunistic Returns and Dynamic Pricing: Empirical Evidence from Online Retailing in Emerging Markets

By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu

We investigate how dynamic pricing can lead to more product returns in the online retail industry. Using detailed sales data of more than two million transactions from the Indian online retail market, where price promotions are very common, we document two types of... View Details

Keywords: Cash On Delivery; Dynamic Pricing; Online Retail; Payment Methods; Strategic Customer Behavior; Opportunistic Returns; Price; Policy; Consumer Behavior; Emerging Markets; Retail Industry

SSRN

2019
Working Paper

Managing Churn to Maximize Profits

By: Aurelie Lemmens and Sunil Gupta

Customer defection threatens many industries, prompting companies to deploy targeted, proactive customer retention programs and offers. A conventional approach has been to target customers either based on their predicted churn probability, or their responsiveness to a... View Details

Keywords: Churn Management; Defection Prediction; Loss Function; Stochastic Gradient Boosting; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Profit

SSRN

October 1993 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Michigan Manufacturing Corp.: The Pontiac Plant--1988

By: Clayton M. Christensen

Michigan Manufacturing is a broad-line maker of components for the automotive industry. It has developed a network of nine plants as its product line has grown. Newer, higher-volume products tend to be made in newer, focused, high-volume plants, while older product... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Profit; Brands and Branding; Mission and Purpose; Networks; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry

Forthcoming
Article

Reputation Burning: Analyzing the Impact of Brand Sponsorship on Social Influencers

By: Mengjie Cheng and Shunyuan Zhang

The growth of the influencer marketing industry warrants an empirical examination of the effect of posting sponsored videos on influencers' reputations. We collected a novel dataset of user-generated YouTube videos created by prominent English-speaking influencers in... View Details

Keywords: Reputation; Mathematical Methods; Marketing Reference Programs; Social Media; Brands and Branding

Find at Harvard

01 Apr 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Opting Out of Good Governance

Keywords: by C. Fritz Foley, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Jonathan Greenstein & Eric Zwick

25 Jan 2023

Peek

students, and allow you to try out the HBS case method of study. There is no cost to participate in this virtual program. Any current undergraduate student can participate. View Details

May 2017
Teaching Note

Promontory, Inc. (Brief Case)

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Amy Handlin

Teaching Note for HBS No. 917-535. The Promontory teaching note covers a) how and why buying processes in Promontory’s market generate the array of selling approaches illustrated in the case; b) the impact of incremental sales increases on the firm’s cost structure and... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Salesforce Management; Marketing Strategy

06 Jan 2014
News

Innovation in turbulent times

December 2021 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Katerra (A)

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn

In April 2020, Katerra executives struggled with a series of decisions that would determine the fate of one of the best-funded construction startups in history. Katerra was founded in 2015 by technology-industry executive Michael Marks and commercial real estate... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Entrepreneurship; Failure; Construction; Real Estate Industry; Technology Industry; United States

2015
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Mike Critelli and Dossia Service Corporation

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Patricia Bissett Higgins

In 2010, Mark Critelli was a well-seasoned corporate executive who had recently transitioned from being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to that of a startup called Dossia. As an AL Fellow, he knew that despite believing in Dossia’s mission to empower individuals with... 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

Keywords: Private Equity; Government Administration; Acquisition; Health Industry

SSRN