Publications

August 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

The Oakland Athletics: Strategy & Metrics for a Budget

By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler

This case considers Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane’s data driven and, in baseball circles unconventional, approach to winning games over the duration of the long Major League Baseball season. Beane’s critical approach to crafting strategy within his... View Details

Keywords: Data Analysis; Metrics; Data Science; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Measurement and Metrics; Competitive Strategy; Organizational Culture; Sports Industry

Educators

October 2015
Article

The Multinational Firm and Geopolitics: Europe, Russian Energy, and Power

By: Rawi Abdelal

Multinational firms unavoidably exert influence over politics through power that is generated by both structure and process. While both political economy and management scholars address international firms, neither field has an adequate understanding of the reciprocal... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Government and Politics; Economics; Europe; Russia

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2012
Working Paper

When Do User Innovators Start Firms? A Theory of User Entrepreneurship

A rich and distinguished body of research has documented the importance of user innovations. For the most part, this literature has found that users innovate but do not commercialize their innovations. Instead, users benefit from using their innovations and allow... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Commercialization; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

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May 2012 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Credit Unions: The Future of the Cooperative Financial Institution

By: Robert C. Pozen and Grace Hou

Credit unions are a specialized type of depository institution with a cooperative, non-profit structure and a federal tax exemption. They originated as small, cooperative institutions with an emphasis on uncollateralized consumer lending to the unbanked... View Details

Keywords: Banking; Credit Unions; Banks and Banking

Educators

Web

FAQs - Doctoral

to management and business research on cutting-edge topics. In addition to free housing and meals for the summer, PRIMO will be beneficial in a number of ways: Significant interactions with HBS faculty will allow students to gain an appreciation for research in View Details

Profile

Merve Ciplak

“I worked with a small group of former consultants,” she says, “who become the Innovation and Change Management Team for the Programme. We worked with operations teams all over the world, doing ad hoc consulting projects for field offices... View Details

20 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Blind Spots: We’re Not as Ethical as We Think

and actual behavior, according to the authors. The rapidly developing field of behavioral ethics has described a decision-making process whereby we recognize what we should do—give equal weight to job candidates of all races, for... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

21 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 21

Publications October 2014 Harvard Business Review Press Aligning Strategy and Sales: The Choices, Systems, and Behaviors That Drive Effective Selling By: Cespedes, Frank V. Abstract—There are many books that provide strategy advice and selling methodologies. But... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Forthcoming
Article

Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact

By: Michelle A. Kinch and Ryan W. Buell

Prior research in social psychology has shown that when people feel anxious, they seek advice from others. However, companies that operate in high-anxiety settings (like financial services, health care, and education) are increasingly deploying self-service... View Details

Keywords: Anxiety; Self-service; Empirical Operations; Behavioral Operations; Communication Technology; Behavior; Customer Focus and Relationships; Trust; Satisfaction; Financial Services Industry

2023
Chapter

Marketing Through the Machine’s Eyes: Image Analytics and Interpretability

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Flora Feng and Kannan Srinivasan

he growth of social media and the sharing economy is generating abundant unstructured image and video data. Computer vision techniques can derive rich insights from unstructured data and can inform recommendations for increasing profits and consumer utility—if only the... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Marketing Research; Algorithmic Bias; AI and Machine Learning; Marketing

January–February 2021
Article

Between Home and Work: Commuting as an Opportunity for Role Transitions

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Julia Lee Cunningham, Bradley Staats, Francesca Gino and Jochen I. Menges

Across the globe, every workday people commute an average of 38 minutes each way, yet surprisingly little research has examined the implications of this daily routine for work-related outcomes. Integrating theories of boundary work, self-control, and work-family... View Details

Keywords: Commuting; Boundary Work; Self-control; Work-family Conflict; Prospection; Transition

Article

Enacting Rituals to Improve Self-control

By: D. A. Tian, J. Schroeder, G. Haubl, J. Risen, M. I. Norton and F. Gino

Rituals are predefined sequences of actions characterized by rigidity and repetition. We propose that enacting ritualized actions can enhance subjective feelings of self-discipline, such that rituals can be harnessed to improve behavioral self-control. We test this... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Perception; Personal Characteristics; Health

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March 2012
Article

Performance Pressure as a Double-edged Sword: Enhancing Team Motivation but Undermining the Use of Team Knowledge

By: Heidi K. Gardner

In this paper, I develop and empirically test the proposition that performance pressure acts as a double-edged sword for teams, providing positive effects by enhancing the team's motivation to achieve good results while simultaneously triggering process losses. I... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Behavior; Groups and Teams; Performance

2010
Article

An Organizational Approach to Undoing Gender: The Unlikely Case of Offshore Oil Platforms

By: Robin J. Ely and Debra E. Meyerson

This case study of two offshore oil platforms illustrates how an organizational initiative designed to enhance safety and effectiveness created a culture that unintentionally released men from societal imperatives for "manly" behavior, prompting them to let go of... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Goals and Objectives; Behavior; Organizational Culture; Performance Effectiveness; Gender; Emotions