Publications

October 1993 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Measure of Delight: The Pursuit of Quality at AT&T Universal Card Services (A)

By: Roy D. Shapiro and Michael D. Watkins

AT&T's Universal Card Services (UCS) has been extremely successful during its short lifetime. Dedicated to improving service quality and customer satisfaction, chief quality officer Rob Davis and his quality team have designed and put into place an unusual measurement... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Policy; Compensation and Benefits; Performance Evaluation; Quality; System; Telecommunications Industry

Educators

March 2003
Article

Predictable Surprises: The Disasters You Should Have Seen Coming

By: Michael D. Watkins and Max H. Bazerman

1993
Working Paper

Strategies for Managing a Project Portfolio

By: Michael D. Watkins and Kim B. Clark

Article

Algorithms Need Managers, Too

By: Michael Luca, Jon Kleinberg and Sendhil Mullainathan

Algorithms are powerful predictive tools, but they can run amok when not applied properly. Consider what often happens with social media sites. Today many use algorithms to decide which ads and links to show users. But when these algorithms focus too narrowly on... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Algorithms; Predictive Analytics; Management; Big Data; Analytics and Data Science

Register to Read

September 2023
Article

Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy: Experimental Evidence from Nine Countries during the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Vincenzo Galasso, Vincent Pons, Paola Profeta, Martin McKee, David Stuckler, Michael Becher, Sylvain Brouard and Martial Foucault

We study the impact of public health messages on intentions to vaccinate and vaccination uptakes, especially among hesitant groups. We performed an experiment comparing the effects of egoistic and altruistic messages on COVID-19 vaccine intentions and behaviour. We... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Vaccination; Vaccine Hesitancy; Information Campaigns; Health Pandemics; Behavior; Information

Register to Read

Read Now

May 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Hubei Lantian (A)

By: David F. Hawkins, Michael Shih-Ta Chen and Nancy Hua Dai

Emily Wang, an analyst with Future Securities, a Shanghai-based investment firm, is given the task of making stock purchase recommendations to her supervisor from a number of Chinese common stocks. One stock in particular, Hubei Lantian Co., Ltd. (Hubei Lantian),... View Details

Keywords: Financial Analysis; Ratio Analysis

Educators

21 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: February 21

States, Neeley argues that an organization’s lingua franca is the catalyst by which all employees become some kind of “expat”(someone detached from their mother tongue or home culture). Through her unfettered access to the inner workings... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

June 2003
Article

A Dynamic Model of Top Management Team Effectiveness: Managing Unstructured Task Streams

By: A. Edmondson, Michael A. Roberto and Michael Watkins

Keywords: Management; Groups and Teams; Performance Effectiveness

2024
Working Paper

The Cram Method for Efficient Simultaneous Learning and Evaluation

By: Zeyang Jia, Kosuke Imai and Michael Lingzhi Li

We introduce the "cram" method, a general and efficient approach to simultaneous learning and evaluation using a generic machine learning (ML) algorithm. In a single pass of batched data, the proposed method repeatedly trains an ML algorithm and tests its empirical... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning

Read Now

June 2020
Teaching Note

Brand Storytelling at Shinola

By: Jill Avery, Giana M. Eckhardt and Michael Beverland

Detroit, Michigan, aka “The Motor City,” is known as the birthplace of most of the American classic automotive brands. It is a city filled with the rich history of the industrial age, the pride of American manufacturing, and of the soulful sounds of Motown music. It is... View Details

Keywords: Brand Storytelling; Brand Management; Brand Management Of Places; Luxury Brand; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Advertising; Luxury; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; United States

17 Jul 2012
First Look

First Look: July 17

identified and classified in terms of specifying, allocating, and utilizing capacity. The first two categories reflect challenges faced by infrastructure providers; the last category, challenges faced by... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

20 Nov 2012
First Look

First Look: November 20

their increased tendency to behave fairly. Read the paper: http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/shaw et al.pdf Robust Enforcement Should Complement Voluntary Regulation Authors:Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel Publication:Georgetown... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 5

case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/709469-PDF-ENG Gilt Groupe Michael J. Roberts, William A. Sahlman, and Tamara ObradovHarvard Business School Case 811-049 The case explores decisions faced by Gilt... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

11 Sep 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, September 11, 2018

explains changing bond risks but only when risk premia change endogenously as predicted by the model. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=45672 Full Substitutability By: Hatfield, John William, Scott... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Article

Preventing Fairness Gerrymandering: Auditing and Learning for Subgroup Fairness

By: Michael J Kearns, Seth Neel, Aaron Leon Roth and Zhiwei Steven Wu

The most prevalent notions of fairness in machine learning are statistical definitions: they fix a small collection of pre-defined groups, and then ask for parity of some statistic of the classifier (like classification rate or false positive rate) across these groups.... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Algorithms; Fairness; Mathematical Methods

Read Now

15 Nov 2011
First Look

First Look: November 15

Purchase this case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/412045-PDF-ENG Michael Lester at Lachlan Consulting Anthony J. Mayo and Joshua D. MargolisHarvard Business School Case 412-041 Michael Lester, a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Jul 2013
First Look

First Look: July 2

capture important information seemingly ignored by the market. A long-short portfolio based on these legislators' views earns abnormal returns of over 90 basis points per month following the passage of legislation. Industries that we... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

February 2001
Case

McLean Watson/Media Synergy Inc. (C2): Mark Dubowitz

By: Carin-Isabel Knoop, Michael D. Watkins and Cate Reavis

June 2011
Article

Segmenting the Base of the Pyramid

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Michael Chu and Djorjiji Petkoski

The bottom of the economic pyramid is a risky place for business, but decent profits can be made there if companies link their financial success with their constituencies' well-being. To do that effectively, you must understand the nuances of people's daily lives, say... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Risk and Uncertainty; Value Creation; Human Needs; Income; Poverty; Profit; Relationships; Economics; Segmentation