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All HBS Web
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- Faculty Publications (84)
- September 2011
- Article
The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value
By: Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton
A ubiquitous feature of even the fastest self-service technology transactions is the wait. Conventional wisdom and operations theory suggests that the longer people wait, the less satisfied they become; we demonstrate that due to what we term the labor illusion, when...
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Keywords:
Internet and the Web;
Perception;
Valuation;
Service Delivery;
Consumer Behavior;
Performance Effectiveness;
Customer Satisfaction;
Service Industry
Buell, Ryan W., and Michael I. Norton. "The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value." Management Science 57, no. 9 (September 2011): 1564–1579.
- May 2011
- Article
Think Customers Hate Waiting? Not So Fast...
By: Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton
Managers typically look for ways to reduce wait time to increase customer satisfaction. New research suggests there's a better approach: showing customers a representation of the effort, whether literal or not, being expended on their behalf while they wait. (The...
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Keywords:
Customer Relationship Management;
Service Delivery;
Consumer Behavior;
Performance Effectiveness;
Customer Satisfaction
Buell, Ryan W., and Michael I. Norton. "Think Customers Hate Waiting? Not So Fast..." Harvard Business Review 89, no. 5 (May 2011).
- 2011
- Article
The Consumer Psychology of Mail-in Rebates
By: John T. Gourville and Dilip Soman
Consumers who buy a product intending to use an accompanying mail-in rebate often do not redeem the rebate. To explain this behavior, we argue that consumers use an anchoring and adjustment approach to predicting the likelihood of redeeming a rebate. In keeping with...
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Gourville, John T., and Dilip Soman. "The Consumer Psychology of Mail-in Rebates." Journal of Product & Brand Management 20, no. 2 (2011).
- Article
The Social Utility of Feature Creep
By: Debora V. Thompson and Michael I. Norton
Previous research shows that consumers frequently choose products with too many features that they later find difficult to use. Our research shows that this seemingly suboptimal behavior may in fact confer benefits when factoring in the social context of consumption....
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Keywords:
Impression Management;
Social Influence;
Conspicuous Consumption;
Signaling;
Product Features;
Consumer Behavior;
Information Technology;
Experience and Expertise;
Status and Position
Thompson, Debora V., and Michael I. Norton. "The Social Utility of Feature Creep." Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) 48, no. 3 (June 2011): 555–565.
- 2010
- Working Paper
Employee Selection as a Control System
By: Dennis Campbell
Theories from the economics, management control, and organizational behavior literatures predict that when it is difficult to align incentives by contracting on output, aligning preferences via employee selection may provide a useful alternative. This study...
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Keywords:
Accounting;
Decision Making;
Governance Controls;
Employees;
Selection and Staffing;
Management Systems;
Financial Services Industry
Campbell, Dennis. "Employee Selection as a Control System." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 11-021, August 2010. (Revised September 2010, April 2012.)
- June 2009
- Article
Highbrow Films Gather Dust: Time-inconsistent Preferences and Online DVD Rentals
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman
We report on a field study demonstrating systematic differences between the preferences people anticipate they will have over a series of options in the future and their subsequent revealed preferences over those options. Using a novel panel data set, we analyze the...
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Keywords:
Decision Choices and Conditions;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Film Entertainment;
Demand and Consumers;
Renting or Rental;
Power and Influence;
Prejudice and Bias;
Online Technology;
Motion Pictures and Video Industry
Milkman, Katherine L., Todd Rogers, and Max H. Bazerman. "Highbrow Films Gather Dust: Time-inconsistent Preferences and Online DVD Rentals." Management Science 55, no. 6 (June 2009): 1047–1059.
- April 2009 (Revised August 2009)
- Case
Linden Lab: Crossing the Chasm
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
In early 2008, managers at Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life, faced decisions about the company's growth strategy. Despite profound initial skepticism about demand for a user-generated virtual world that was not a traditional game, Second Life had...
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Keywords:
Entrepreneurship;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Marketing Strategy;
Demand and Consumers;
Infrastructure;
Technology Adoption;
Digital Platforms
Eisenmann, Thomas R., and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld. "Linden Lab: Crossing the Chasm." Harvard Business School Case 809-147, April 2009. (Revised August 2009.)
- March – April 2009
- Article
Market Research and Innovation Strategy in a Duopoly
By: Dominique Lauga and Elie Ofek
We model a duopoly in which ex-ante identical firms must decide where to direct their innovation efforts. The firms face market uncertainty about consumers' preferences for innovation on two product attributes and technology uncertainty about the success of their R&D...
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Keywords:
Profit;
Innovation and Management;
Demand and Consumers;
Duopoly and Oligopoly;
Research and Development;
Competitive Strategy
Lauga, Dominique, and Elie Ofek. "Market Research and Innovation Strategy in a Duopoly." Marketing Science 28, no. 2 (March–April 2009): 373–396.
- 2009
- Chapter
Nonlinear Pricing
By: Raghuram Iyengar and Sunil Gupta
A nonlinear pricing schedule refers to any pricing structure where the total charges payable by customers are not proportional to the quantity of their consumed services. We begin the chapter with a discussion of the broad applicability of nonlinear pricing schemes. We...
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Keywords:
Price;
Demand and Consumers;
Duopoly and Oligopoly;
Monopoly;
Service Operations;
Research
- June 2008
- Article
How Are Preferences Revealed?
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Revealed preferences are tastes that rationalize an economic agent's observed actions. Normative preferences represent the agent's actual interests. It sometimes makes sense to assume that revealed preferences are identical to normative preferences. But there are many...
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Beshears, John, James J. Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. "How Are Preferences Revealed?" Journal of Public Economics 92, nos. 8-9 (June 2008): 1787–1794.
- September 2007
- Supplement
Corning: Convertible Preferred Stock (CW)
By: Malcolm P. Baker and James Quinn
- 2007
- Working Paper
Extremeness Seeking: When and Why Consumers Prefer the Extremes
By: John T. Gourville and Dilip Soman
Gourville, John T., and Dilip Soman. "Extremeness Seeking: When and Why Consumers Prefer the Extremes." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 07-092, May 2007.
- February 2005
- Article
European Integration and Corporate Restructuring: The Strategy of Unilever c1957-c1990
By: Geoffrey Jones and Peter Miskell
This article examines the role of the large Anglo-Dutch consumer products company in promoting European integration. It shows that Unilever contributed financially to campaigns to support the creation of the European Union, and its subsequent expansion, despite a...
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Keywords:
Horizontal Integration;
Organizations;
Policy;
Expansion;
Market Transactions;
Geographic Location;
Restructuring;
Competition;
Brands and Branding;
Production;
Capital Structure;
Value;
Consumer Products Industry;
European Union;
United States
Jones, Geoffrey, and Peter Miskell. "European Integration and Corporate Restructuring: The Strategy of Unilever c1957-c1990." Economic History Review 58, no. 1 (February 2005): 113–139.
- 2005
- Article
Early Decisions: A Regulatory Framework
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We describe a regulatory framework that helps consumers who have difficulty sticking to their own long-run plans. Early Decision regulations help long-run preferences prevail by allowing consumers to partially commit to their long-run goals, making it harder for a...
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Beshears, John, James J. Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. "Early Decisions: A Regulatory Framework." Swedish Economic Policy Review 12, no. 2 (2005): 41–60.
- February 2001 (Revised October 2002)
- Background Note
Entrepreneurial History: A Conceptual Overview
By: Nancy F. Koehn
Analyzes HBS cases on five entrepreneurs and the companies they built: Josiah Wedgwood, Henry Heinz, Marshall Field, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and Michael Dell. These five cases and their accompanying teaching notes comprise a course module on entrepreneurial...
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Keywords:
Transition;
Demand and Consumers;
Competition;
Business History;
Entrepreneurship;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Business Strategy;
Society
Koehn, Nancy F. "Entrepreneurial History: A Conceptual Overview." Harvard Business School Background Note 801-368, February 2001. (Revised October 2002.)
- 1999
- Chapter
Multinational Cross-Investment between Switzerland and Britain 1914-1945
By: G. Jones
This chapter examines multinational cross-investment between Switzerland and Great Britain between 1914 and 1945. While Great Britain and Switzerland were both major home economies for multinationals,few companies from either country were interested in investing in the...
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- March 1999 (Revised December 2001)
- Background Note
Analyzing Consumer Preferences
By: Robert J. Dolan
Presents a non-traditional description of the conjoint analysis methodology. Discusses the process by which a study is done and cites areas of application.
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Dolan, Robert J. "Analyzing Consumer Preferences." Harvard Business School Background Note 599-112, March 1999. (Revised December 2001.)
- Forthcoming
- Article
Acceptance of Automated Vehicles Is Lower for Self than Others
By: Stuti Agarwal, Julian De Freitas, A. Ragnhildstveit and C. Morwedge
Road traffic accidents are the leading cause of death worldwide for people aged 2–59. Nearly all deaths are due to human error. Automated vehicles could reduce mortality risks, traffic congestion, and air pollution of human-driven vehicles. However, their adoption...
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Agarwal, Stuti, Julian De Freitas, A. Ragnhildstveit, and C. Morwedge. "Acceptance of Automated Vehicles Is Lower for Self than Others." Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (forthcoming).
- Research Summary
Anonymity and Identity
By: John A. Deighton
In most consumer markets, consumers are accustomed to operating in relative anonymity. A complex social adjustment is occurring as people realize that anonymity is often no longer their default condition - it must be sought and in some cases bought. New conceptions of...
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- Forthcoming
- Article
Canary Categories
By: Eric Anderson, Chaoqun Chen, Ayelet Israeli and Duncan Simester
Past customer spending in a category is generally a positive signal of future customer spending. We show that there exist “canary categories” for which the reverse is true. Purchases in these categories are a signal that customers are less likely to return to that...
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Keywords:
Churn;
Churn Management;
Churn/retention;
Assortment Planning;
Retail;
Retailing;
Retailing Industry;
Preference Heterogeneity;
Assortment Optimization;
Customers;
Retention;
Consumer Behavior;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Retail Industry
Anderson, Eric, Chaoqun Chen, Ayelet Israeli, and Duncan Simester. "Canary Categories." Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) (forthcoming). (Pre-published online November 29, 2023.)