Publications

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November 2020
Case

Creating a Virtual Internship at Goldman Sachs

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Iavor I. Bojinov and Emma Salomon

Goldman Sachs runs an annual internship for over 3,000 participants, spread across dozens of the firm's global offices. In 2020, the team brought all its resources to bear to transform the internship program into a fully virtual format in just a few short weeks. The... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Remote Operations; Remote Internship; Internship; Virtual Socialization; Human Capital Management; Human Resources; Management; Health Pandemics; Adaptation

2012
Working Paper

With Us or Against Us? Networks, Identity and Order in a Virtual World

By: Magnus Thor Torfason

Social networks and social groups have both been seen as important to discouraging malfeasance and supporting the global pro-social norms that underlie social order, but have typically been treated either as pure substitutes or as having completely independent effects.... View Details

Keywords: Social Norms; Social Networks; Triadic Closure; Social Groups; Group Identity; Groups and Teams; Boundaries; Organizations; Identity; Social and Collaborative Networks; Societal Protocols

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28 Aug 2006
Research & Ideas

Online Match-Making with Virtual Dates

help to better mimic an offline experience. Although a number of dating sites come with chat clients, the interfaces are often quite impersonal and lead to vague conversations, according to the researchers. Virtual Dates goes beyond those... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Publishing

December 2021
Article

Seeing Oneself as a Valued Contributor: Social Worth Affirmation Improves Team Information Sharing

By: Julia Lee Cunningham, Francesca Gino, Dan Cable and Bradley Staats

Teams often fail to reach their potential because members’ concerns about being socially accepted prevent them from offering their unique perspectives to the team. Drawing on relational self and self-affirmation theory, we argue that affirmation of team members’ social... View Details

Keywords: Social Worth Affirmation; Relational Identity; Self-affirmation; Information Sharing In Teams; Concerns About Social Acceptance; Groups and Teams; Identity; Relationships; Knowledge Sharing

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May–June 2024
Article

Should Your Brand Hire a Virtual Influencer?

By: Serim Hwang, Shunyuan Zhang, Xiao Liu and Kannan Srinivasan

Followers respond more favorably to sponsored posts by virtual influencers versus those by humans, costs are lower, and creating an influencer from scratch allows marketers to introduce more diversity. View Details

Keywords: Social Media; AI and Machine Learning; Brands and Branding; Power and Influence

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2009
Working Paper

Virtual Team Learning: Reflecting and Acting, Alone or With Others

By: Deborah L. Soule and Lynda M. Applegate

This paper examines virtual team learning in new product development situations. New product development activities manifest novelty, uncertainty and complexity, presenting an extreme need for learning in the course of the work. We present data from an exploratory... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Learning; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Product Development; Groups and Teams; Behavior

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Research Summary

Branding in Digital and Social Media

By: Jill J. Avery

This very contemporary line of research explores the rapidly changing digital world, and investigates how emerging technologies are creating a new consumer culture in which consumers expect to be partners in the co-creation of brands. The work explores the branding... View Details

05 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Are Virtual Tours Still Worth It in Real Estate? Evidence from 75,000 Home Sales

Virtual tours helped propel homebuying through the height of COVID-19. But now that life is back to normal, new research finds these 3D tours don’t significantly boost sale prices and may even prolong a property’s time on the market. When... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Real Estate

06 May 2024
Research & Ideas

The Critical Minutes After a Virtual Meeting That Can Build Up or Tear Down Teams

Virtual meetings have become the standard for global and hybrid team communication, but what happens when the call ends? Participants who are in the same room keep talking—and the tone of those conversations can dramatically impact team... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

27 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Social Network Marketing: What Works?

social networking site in South Korea with almost 21 million members. Cyworld users buy virtual items to decorate their home pages. Our research shows that some users are influenced by the purchases of their... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Advertising; Publishing; Retail

March 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Case

Metaverse Wars

By: Andy Wu, David B. Yoffie and Matt Higgins

In 2023, the term metaverse — a combination of “meta” and “universe” — had become a catch-all for a diverse set of expectations about online virtual worlds and the future of the internet. To some, the metaverse conjured images of a massive participatory videogame... View Details

Keywords: Metaverse; Technology; Virtual Reality; Facebook; Social Media; Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption

April 16, 2021
Article

A Playbook for Negotiators in the Social Media Era

By: James K. Sebenius, Ben Cook, David Lax, Ron S. Fortgang, Isaac Silberberg and Paul Levy

The disruptive effects of social media have been felt in virtually every corner of the world. Yet the information revolution has been largely ignored in the field of negotiation. Through a series of case studies we explore how savvy practitioners can ethically harness... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Analysis; Bargaining; Negotiation; Analysis; Negotiation Tactics; Social Media; North America

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04 Feb 2008
Research & Ideas

Putting Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector

innovative, social value-creating activity that can occur within or across the nonprofit, government, or business sectors. While virtually all enterprises, commercial and social, generate View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

02 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

Secrets to a Successful Social Media Strategy

according to Alexa Internet. The business-oriented social network has more than 300 million members, all of whom list their educational and professional achievements on the site in the name of professional networking. Of course, these... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

November 2008 (Revised November 2008)
Case

Cyworld: Creating and Capturing Value in a Social Network

By: Sunil Gupta and Sangman Han

In May 2008, the new CEO of Cyworld, a social network company in Korea, had to decide how to create and capture value from his rapidly growing user base. Cyworld was founded in 1999, and in 2003 it was acquired by SK Telecom, a leading mobile service provider in Korea.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Consumer Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Segmentation; Value Creation; South Korea

February 2019
Case

Halliday's OASIS

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Nicole Tempest Keller

Wade Watts has won control of the OASIS – a futuristic, immersive virtual reality game world. He must decide on rules, rights, and marketplace design, balancing the founding principles of the OASIS with the platform’s potentially negative externalities. View Details

Keywords: Managing Markets; Corporate Responsibility; Virtual Reality; Digital Platforms; Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Media; United States

12 Feb 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Platform Competition, Compatibility, and Social Efficiency

Keywords: by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Francisco Ruiz-Aliseda; Computer

02 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Why We Still Need Twitter: How Social Media Holds Companies Accountable

the need for reporting on corporate misconduct, acting as a watchdog to help keep companies accountable for their actions. It comes at a time of upheaval in social media, with the rapid rise of TikTok, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter,... View Details

Keywords: by Kasandra Brabaw; Technology

1994
Chapter

The Virtual Organization: Bureaucracy, Technology, and the Implosion of Control

By: N. Nohria and J. D. Berkley

Keywords: Organizational Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Power and Influence