Publications

Article

Design of Search Engine Services: Channel Interdependence in Search Engine Results

By: Benjamin Edelman and Zhenyu Lai

The authors examine prominent placement of search engines' own services and effects on users' choices. Evaluating a natural experiment in which different results were shown to users who performed similar searches, they find that Google's prominent placement of its... View Details

Keywords: Search Engine; Organic Search; Sponsored Search Advertising; User Interface; Channel Substitution; Search Technology; Consumer Behavior; Online Advertising

May 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Teaching Note

Nashton Partners and Its Search Fund Process

By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld

Teaching Note for HBS No. 212-006. In 2008, Jay Davis (HBS’ 08) and Jason Pananos (HBS’ 08) formed Nashton Partners and raised $500,000 from investors to fund their search. After 30 months of searching, and exhausting the money they raised to fund their search, Davis... View Details

Keywords: Search Fund; Acquisition; Capital Structure; Financing and Loans; Investment Funds; Partners and Partnerships

2012
Chapter

Problem Solving and Search in Networks

By: David Lazer and Ethan Bernstein

This chapter examines the role that networks play in facilitating or inhibiting search for solutions to problems at both the individual and collective levels. At the individual level, search in networks enables individuals to transport themselves to a very different... View Details

Keywords: Network Organizations; Search; Problem Solving; Individual; Individuals And Teams; Collective; Cognitive Search; Network Search; Search Typology; Networks; Social and Collaborative Networks; Theory; Knowledge Sharing

August 2019
Case

Twiggle: E-Commerce with Semantic Search

By: Shane Greenstein and Danielle Golan

Four years after being founded, in 2014, by former Google executives Amir Konigsberg (CEO) and Adi Avidor (CTO), Twiggle had developed a search enhancement that plugged into an online merchant’s existing framework. The company utilized advanced structuring and... View Details

Keywords: Search Technology; Customer Acquisition; Internet and the Web; Technological Innovation; Commercialization; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Technology Industry; Israel

2019
Working Paper

Large-Scale Demand Estimation with Search Data

By: Tomomichi Amano, Andrew Rhodes and Stephan Seiler

In many online markets, traditional methods of demand estimation are difficult to implement because assortments are very large and individual products are sold infrequently. At the same time, data on consumer search (i.e., browsing) behavior are often available and are... View Details

Keywords: High-dimensional Data; Demand Estimation; Consideration Sets; Consumer Search

SSRN

March 2014
Article

Search Diversion and Platform Competition

By: Andrei Hagiu and Bruno Jullien

Platforms use search diversion in order to trade off total consumer traffic for higher revenues derived by exposing consumers to unsolicited products (e.g., advertising). We show that competition between platforms leads to lower equilibrium levels of search diversion... View Details

Keywords: Market Intermediation; Search; Two-Sided Markets; Platform Design; Platform Competition; Competition; Two-Sided Platforms

April 2021
Article

A Model of Multi-Pass Search: Price Search Across Stores and Time

By: Navid Mojir and K. Sudhir

In retail settings with price promotions, consumers often search across stores and time. However, the search literature typically only models one pass search across stores, ignoring revisits to stores; the choice literature using scanner data has modeled search across... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Search; Multi-pass Search; Price Search; Store Search; Spatial Search; Temporal Search; Spatiotemporal Search; Dynamic Structural Models; MPEC; Price Promotions; Store Loyalty; Consumer Behavior; Price; Spending; Marketing; Mathematical Methods

SSRN

2017
Working Paper

Investment Timing with Costly Search for Financing

By: Samuel Antill

I develop a dynamic model of investment timing in which firms must first choose when to search for external financing. Search is costly and the arrival of investors is uncertain, leading to delay in financing and investment. Depending on parameters, my model can... View Details

Keywords: Real Options; Search And Bargaining; Time-varying Financial Conditions; Investment; Venture Capital; Mathematical Methods

SSRN

December 2012 (Revised January 2015)
Technical Note

Early Career LBOs Using the Search Fund Model

By: Howard Stevenson, Michael Roberts and Jim Sharpe

The funded search model is one alternative for individuals who, at some point in their career, want to run their own companies. This note looks at the funded search, as a means to entrepreneurship through acquisition and describes the path to buy and run a business... View Details

Keywords: Search Funds; Search; Entrepreneurial Finance; Investor Behavior; Career Planning; Entrepreneurial Management; Fundraising; Negotiation; Entrepreneurship; Capital Structure; Borrowing and Debt; Personal Development and Career; Private Ownership; Acquisition; Finance; Leveraged Buyouts

Article

A Field Experiment on Search Costs and the Formation of Scientific Collaborations

By: Kevin Boudreau, Tom Brady, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva C. Guinan, Anthony Hollenberg and Karim R. Lakhani

We present the results of a field experiment conducted at Harvard Medical School to understand the extent to which search costs affect matching among scientific collaborators. We generated exogenous variation in search costs for pairs of potential collaborators by... View Details

Keywords: Search Costs; Cost; Marketplace Matching; Groups and Teams; Science; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

January 2009
Case

Microsoft's Search

By: Jan W. Rivkin and Eric J. Van den Steen

In 2008, executives at Microsoft must decide how to compete against Google in the market for Internet search and advertising. The case describes how Microsoft has responded to a set of competitive threats in the past, how Google has gained a dominant position in... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Competitive Strategy; Internet and the Web; United States

December 2021
Article

The Evolutionary Nature of Breakthrough Innovation: An Empirical Investigation of Firm Search Strategies

By: Dominika Kinga Randle and Gary P. Pisano

Breakthrough innovation has been an important topic of study for generations of scholars. Previous research in this domain has focused on exploring the way breakthroughs emerge from cumulative combination and recombination of prior technologies and knowledge components... View Details

Keywords: Breakthrough Innovation; Exploration And Exploitation; Search Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Strategy

June 2021
Case

HelloSelf: Search

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In August 2018, after nearly six months of searching, Charles Wells was convinced that he should found HelloSelf to help people improve their sense of mental wellbeing. Those feeling mentally unwell would receive support from fully qualified clinical psychotherapists,... View Details

Keywords: Mental Health; Health Care and Treatment; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Product Launch

29 Apr 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Exclusive Preferential Placement as Search Diversion: Evidence from Flight Search

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman & Zhenyu Lai; Publishing; Technology

October 1988 (Revised July 2000)
Case

Matt Compton's Job Search

By: Shoshana Zuboff and Dave DeLong

Matt Compton wrestles with the problems of a post-MBA job search and finds himself captivated by the aggressive recruiting tactics of the large management consulting firms. The case raises issues of how a passive job search that relies on options presented by... View Details

Keywords: Recruitment; Job Search; Problems and Challenges

December 2019
Article

The Impact of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Donald Ngwe, Kris J. Ferreira and Thales Teixeira

Many online stores are designed such that shoppers can easily access any available discounted products. We propose that deliberately increasing search frictions by placing small obstacles to locating discounted items can improve online retailers’ margins and even... View Details

Keywords: Online Retailing; Friction; Effor; Search Costs; Price Discrimination; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Strategy; Price; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry

August 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Amy Kelly's Job Search

Narrates the job search of former Self-Assessment and Career Development student Amy Kelly. View Details

Keywords: Job Search

Research Summary

The Economics of Search

Utilizing data on web searches, we characterize the economics of search and estimate the path of diffusion for information, allowing us to specify how choice sets are actually formed among consumers and examine the impact of cybergeography vs. spatial geography. Joint... View Details

March 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Perplexity: Redefining Search

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Michelle Hu, Sriraghav Srinivasan and Radhika Kak

By early 2025, Perplexity had rapidly evolved from a modest startup into a popular "answer engine" valued at $9 billion. The company had boldly positioned itself as the disruptor to Google aiming to redefine search for the AI age. Through novel AI... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Venture Capital; Innovation Leadership; Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Business Startups; Competitive Strategy; Technology Industry; United States