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  • All HBS Web  (184)
    • News  (20)
    • Research  (142)
  • Faculty Publications  (70)

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  • All HBS Web  (184)
    • News  (20)
    • Research  (142)
  • Faculty Publications  (70)
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  • May 2021
  • Simulation

Customer Compatibility Exercise Application

By: Ryan W. Buell
Customers impose considerable variability on the operating systems of service organizations. They show up when they wish (arrival variability), they ask for different things (request variability), they vary in their willingness and ability to help themselves (effort... View Details
Keywords: Customer Compatibility; Customer Relationship Management; Strategy; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance Efficiency; Analysis; Consumer Behavior; Analytics and Data Science
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Buell, Ryan W. "Customer Compatibility Exercise Application." Harvard Business School Simulation 620-707, May 2021.
  • February 2025
  • Article

Improving Customer Compatibility with Tradeoff Transparency

By: Ryan W. Buell and MoonSoo Choi
Through a large-scale field experiment with 393,036 customers considering opening a credit card account with a nationwide retail bank, we investigate how providing transparency into an offering’s tradeoffs affects subsequent rates of customer acquisition and long-run... View Details
Keywords: Transparency; Customer Selection; Customer Compatibility; Retention; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Banking Industry; Australia
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Buell, Ryan W., and MoonSoo Choi. "Improving Customer Compatibility with Tradeoff Transparency." Management Science 71, no. 2 (February 2025): 1335–1355.
  • June 2020
  • Article

Frenemies in Platform Markets: Heterogeneous Profit Foci as Drivers of Compatibility Decisions

By: Ron Adner, Jianqing Chen and Feng Zhu
We study compatibility decisions of two competing platform owners that generate profits through both hardware sales and royalties from content sales. We consider a game-theoretic model in which two platforms offer different standalone utilities to users. We find that... View Details
Keywords: Compatibility; Platform Competition; Profit Foci; Digital Platforms; Competition; Profit; Decision Making
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Adner, Ron, Jianqing Chen, and Feng Zhu. "Frenemies in Platform Markets: Heterogeneous Profit Foci as Drivers of Compatibility Decisions." Management Science 66, no. 6 (June 2020): 2432–2451.
  • March 2021
  • Article

The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance

By: Ryan W. Buell, Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei
This paper investigates the impact of customer compatibility – the degree of fit between the needs of customers and the capabilities of the operations serving them – on customer experiences and firm performance. We use a variance decomposition analysis to quantify the... View Details
Keywords: Customer Compatibility; Satisfaction; Profitability; Service Operations; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Performance
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Buell, Ryan W., Dennis Campbell, and Frances X. Frei. "The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance." Management Science 67, no. 3 (March 2021): 1468–1488.
  • 2019
  • Working Paper

The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance

By: Ryan W. Buell, Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei
This paper investigates the impact of customer compatibility – the degree of fit between the needs of customers and the capabilities of the operations serving them – on customer experiences and firm performance. We use a variance decomposition analysis to quantify the... View Details
Keywords: Customer Compatibility; Satisfaction; Profitability; Customer Relationship Management; Service Operations; Customer Satisfaction; Banking Industry; Retail Industry
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Buell, Ryan W., Dennis Campbell, and Frances X. Frei. "The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-091, February 2016. (Revised December 2019.)
  • 30 Jan 2020
  • Research & Ideas

The Upside of Highlighting a Product's Downsides

When booking an international flight, the choice often comes down to “expensive but direct” or “cheap with connections.” But what if an airline warned customers that the direct flight was frequently delayed? Would customers appreciate knowing that they might spend more... View Details
Keywords: by Danielle Kost
  • December 2015 (Revised October 2018)
  • Exercise

Customer Compatibility Exercise

By: Ryan W. Buell
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Buell, Ryan W. "Customer Compatibility Exercise." Harvard Business School Exercise 616-043, December 2015. (Revised October 2018.)
  • January 2020 (Revised February 2025)
  • Teaching Note

Customer Compatibility Exercise

By: Ryan W. Buell
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Buell, Ryan W. "Customer Compatibility Exercise." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 620-078, January 2020. (Revised February 2025.)
  • Article

On Coalition Incentive Compatibility

By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont
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Green, Jerry R., and Jean-Jacques Laffont. "On Coalition Incentive Compatibility." Review of Economic Studies 46, no. 2 (April 1979): 243–254.
  • 1987
  • Chapter

Limited Communication and Incentive Compatibility

By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont
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Green, Jerry R., and Jean-Jacques Laffont. "Limited Communication and Incentive Compatibility." In Information, Incentives and Economic Mechanisms: Essays in Honor of Leonid Hurwicz, edited by Theodore Groves, Roy Radner, and Stanley Reiter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
  • 21 Aug 2019
  • Working Paper Summaries

Improving Customer Compatibility with Operational Transparency

Keywords: by Ryan W. Buell and MoonSoo Choi; Banking
  • 1985
  • Chapter

Differential Information, the Market and Incentive Compatibility

By: Jerry Green
Keywords: Game Theory; Economics
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Green, Jerry. "Differential Information, the Market and Incentive Compatibility." Chap. 3 in Frontiers of Economics, by Kenneth J. Arrow and Seppo Honkapohja, 178–226. Basil Blackwell, 1985.

    Frenemies in Platform Markets: Heterogeneous Profit Foci as Drivers of Compatibility Decisions

    We study compatibility decisions of two competing platform owners that generate profits through both hardware sales and royalties from content sales. We consider a game-theoretic model in which two platforms offer different standalone utilities to users. We find that... View Details
    • Article

    The Economics of Compatibility of Standards: A Survey

    By: Paul David and Shane Greenstein
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    David, Paul, and Shane Greenstein. "The Economics of Compatibility of Standards: A Survey." Economics of Innovation and New Technology 1, nos. 1-2 (1990): 3–41.
    • 1982
    • Article

    Incentive Compatibility in a Market with Indivisible Goods

    By: A. E. Roth
    Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Markets; Goods and Commodities
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    Roth, A. E. "Incentive Compatibility in a Market with Indivisible Goods." Economics Letters 9, no. 2 (1982): 127–132.
    • 1978
    • Article

    An Incentive Compatible Planning Procedure for Public Good Production

    By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont
    It is only recently that economic theorists have faced the fact that the proposed allocation mechanisms in economies with public goods might have bad incentive properties. In this paper we introduce a new planning procedure such that truthful revelation of the marginal... View Details
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    Green, Jerry R., and Jean-Jacques Laffont. "An Incentive Compatible Planning Procedure for Public Good Production." Scandinavian Journal of Economics 80, no. 1 (1978): 20–33.
    • 1979
    • Article

    An Incentive Compatible Planning Procedure for Public Good Production: A Corrigendum

    By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont
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    Green, Jerry R., and Jean-Jacques Laffont. "An Incentive Compatible Planning Procedure for Public Good Production: A Corrigendum." Scandinavian Journal of Economics 81, no. 3 (1979): 443–444.
    • 2019
    • Working Paper

    Collusive Investments in Technological Compatibility: Lessons from U.S. Railroads in the Late 19th Century

    By: Daniel P. Gross
    Collusion is widely condemned for its negative effects on consumer welfare and market efficiency. In this paper, I show that collusion may also in some cases facilitate the creation of unexpected new sources of value. I bring this possibility into focus through the... View Details
    Keywords: Collusion; Compatibility; Railroads; Rail Transportation; Standards; Integration; Trade; History; United States
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    Gross, Daniel P. "Collusive Investments in Technological Compatibility: Lessons from U.S. Railroads in the Late 19th Century." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-044, December 2016. (Accepted at Management Science.)
    • December 2014 (Revised February 2020)
    • Case

    Compass Group: The Ascension Health Decision

    By: Ryan W. Buell
    In 2012, Compass Group (Compass) was on the verge of closing a $2 billion deal with Ascension Health (Ascension), one of the largest healthcare systems in the United States. Under the deal, Compass would provide foodservice management and cleaning services for 86 of... View Details
    Keywords: Operations Strategy; Sectorization; Operational Focus; Customer Compatibility; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Operations; Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Service Industry; Health Industry; United States
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    Buell, Ryan W. "Compass Group: The Ascension Health Decision." Harvard Business School Case 615-026, December 2014. (Revised February 2020.)
    • March 2016
    • Supplement

    Compass Group: The Ascension Health Decision

    By: Ryan W. Buell
    In 2012, Compass Group (Compass) was on the verge of closing a $2 billion deal with Ascension Health (Ascension), one of the largest healthcare systems in the United States. Under the deal, Compass would provide foodservice management and cleaning services for 86 of... View Details
    Keywords: Operations Strategy; Sectorization; Operational Focus; Customer Compatibility; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Operations; Customer Focus and Relationships; Service Industry; Health Industry; United States
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    Buell, Ryan W. "Compass Group: The Ascension Health Decision." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Supplement 616-705, March 2016.
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