Publications

July–August 2020
Article

Price Bargaining and Competition in Online Platforms: An Empirical Analysis of the Daily Deal Market

By: Lingling Zhang and Doug J. Chung

The prevalence of online platforms opens new doors to traditional businesses for customer reach and revenue growth. This research investigates platform choice in a setting where prices are determined by negotiations between platforms and businesses. We compile a unique... View Details

Keywords: Business-to-business Marketing; Platform Competition; Two-Sided Markets; Price Bargaining; Daily Deals; Structural Model; Digital Platforms; Competition; Price; Negotiation

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December 2012
Background Note

Are Daily Deals Good for Merchants?

By: Sunil Gupta, Timothy Keiningham, Ray Weaver and Luke Williams

In the relatively short time since Groupon was founded, the response to "daily deals"—services that promote businesses by marketing deeply discounted, pre-paid vouchers to an online subscriber base—has by all accounts been spectacular. Our evaluation of daily deals is... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Technology; Business Strategy; Digital; Marketing Strategy; Web Services Industry

07 Apr 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Strategic Channel Selection with Online Platforms: An Empirical Analysis of the Daily Deal Industry

Keywords: by Lingling Zhang and Doug J. Chung; Retail

February 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Case

What's the Deal with LivingSocial?

By: Michael I. Norton, Luc Wathieu, Betsy Page Sigman and Marco Bertini

Tim O'Shaughnessy, the 29-year-old CEO of LivingSocial, is growing a revolutionary worldwide business of "daily deals"—in which retailers offer a heavily-discounted product or service available for purchase for brief (often 24-hour) windows. The case explores the... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Innovation and Invention; Advertising; Brands and Branding; Management; Web Services Industry

November 2013
Case

Groupon for Local Businesses

By: Thales Teixeira and Leora Kornfeld

Local businesses' experiences with using Groupon to promote themselves ran the gamut of roaring success to absolute failure. Why is there such a large range in outcomes for firms that used daily deal sites such as Groupon? This case examines the effectiveness of online... View Details

Keywords: Online Business; Online Marketing; Digital Marketing; Marketing; Advertising Industry; North and Central America

19 Mar 2013
First Look

First Look: March 19

Are Daily Deals Good for Merchants? Gupta, Sunil, Ray Weaver, Timothy Keiningham, and Luke WilliamsHarvard Business School Case 513-059 In the relatively short time since Groupon was founded, the response to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2011
Article

Meeting the Challenges of a Person-Centric Work Psychology

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

In this article, the authors discuss person-centric work psychology, a paradigm developed by H. M. Weiss and D. E. Rupp regarding daily work life psychology. They cited three challenges of the paradigm such as the collection, and analysis of data, the certainty of the... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Social Psychology; Emotions; Perception; Motivation and Incentives

May 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

Improving Repurchase Rates at zulily

By: Thales Teixeira and Sarah McAra

In February 2015, zulily cofounder and CEO Darrell Cavens faced a major challenge in his business, a Seattle-based daily deals site that catered to moms. The more he spent to acquire new customers, the less he retained them in the form of repeat purchases. This was an... View Details

Keywords: Zulily; Repurchase; E-commerce; Online Shopping; Fashion; Customer Relationship Management; Internet and the Web; Digital Marketing; Customer Satisfaction; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Seattle

17 Dec 2001
Research & Ideas

Venture Capital: Hot Markets and Current Industry Trends

Capital Partners. "A lot of noise has been eliminated. The people I deal with are true believers." His company is "not looking for quick flips. We're willing to roll up our sleeves." The growing field of photonics will... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

12 Nov 2008
First Look

First Look: November 12, 2008

Working Papers Direct versus Indirect Colonial Rule in India: Long-term Consequences (revised) Author: Lakshmi Iyer Abstract This paper compares economic outcomes across areas in India which were under direct British colonial rule with areas which were under indirect... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2023
Working Paper

Organizational Responses to Product Cycles

By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham, Jorge Tamayo and Nicolas Torres

Product cycles entail the mass production of new—and often increasingly complex—products on a regular basis. How do firms manage these changes? We use granular daily data from a leading automobile manufacturer to study the organizational impacts of introducing new... View Details

Keywords: Training; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Knowledge Management; Production; Product; Organizational Structure; Auto Industry; Argentina

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29 Mar 2010
Research & Ideas

Ruthlessly Realistic: How CEOs Must Overcome Denial

to acknowledge and deal with reality. It is the choice—sometimes willful, sometimes unconscious, often semiconscious—to enter an "as if" world, to act "as if" facts are not facts because they are difficult to face. Sigmund Freud referred... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Auto; Retail; Technology

30 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Temptation at Work

Keywords: by Alessandro Bucciol, Daniel Houser & Marco Piovesan

16 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Private Meetings of Public Companies Thwart Disclosure Rules

it might benefit investors, might not always benefit the companies themselves. (Indeed, a recent study of CEO daily activity showed that time spent meeting with company insiders correlated with increases in a firm's profits, while time... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

13 Jul 2010
First Look

First Look: July 13

offered. While significant cost savings goals would be realized in part through employee layoffs, he wondered about ITG's ability to deal with these changes. Adjusting its customer portfolio meant that ITG would be pulling back products... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

25 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

More Proof That Money Can Buy Happiness (or a Life with Less Stress)

outlined in a forthcoming paper in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, The Sharp Spikes of Poverty: Financial Scarcity Is Related to Higher Levels of Distress Intensity in Daily Life. Higher income amounts to lower... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

January–February 2018
Article

Some Customers Would Rather Leave Without Saying Goodbye

By: Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer and Bruce G.S. Hardie

We investigate the increasingly common business setting in which companies face the possibility of both observed and unobserved customer attrition (i.e., “overt” and “silent” churn) in the same pool of customers. This is the case for many online-based services where... View Details

Keywords: Churn; Retention; Attrition; Customer Base Analysis; Hidden Markov Models; Latent Variable Models; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior