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    InformationRemove Information →

    New research on information from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including IT management, knowledge management, data mining, and analytics.
    Page 1 of 45 Results →
    • 15 Nov 2022
    • Op-Ed

    Why TikTok Is Beating YouTube for Eyeball Time (It’s Not Just the Dance Videos)

    by John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

    Quirky amateur video clips might draw people to TikTok, but its algorithm keeps them watching. John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld explore the factors that helped propel TikTok ahead of established social platforms, and where it might go next.

    • 12 Apr 2022
    • Research & Ideas

    Swiping Right: How Data Helped This Online Dating Site Make More Matches

    by Kara Baskin

    Machine learning might have the answer to an age-old dating conundrum: Who makes the first move? Research by Edward McFowland probes how data can spur more digital interactions, with potentially wide-reaching implications. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 15 Sep 2021
    • Research & Ideas

    Don't Bring Me Down: Probing Why People Tune Out Bad News

    by Kristen Senz

    People often go out of their way to avoid unpleasant information, but not always for the reasons you might expect. Research by Christine Exley and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 11 May 2021
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Time Dependency, Data Flow, and Competitive Advantage

    by Ehsan Valavi, Joel Hestness, Marco Iansiti, Newsha Ardalani, Feng Zhu, and Karim R. Lakhani

    The perishability of data has strategic implications for businesses that provide data-driven products and services. This paper illustrates how different business areas might differ with respect to the rate of decay in data value and the importance of data flow in their operations.

    • 24 Mar 2020
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Free Riding in Loan Approvals: Evidence From SME Lending in Peru

    by Irani Arraiz, Miriam Bruhn, Benjamin N. Roth, Claudia Ruiz-Ortega, and Rodolfo Stucchi

    Using data from a large Peruvian bank trying to expand credit access to small and medium enterprises, this study shows that competing lenders use one another’s loan approvals as an input into their own approval process. Such “free riding” has great impact on market outcomes and might warrant policy intervention.

    • 11 Dec 2019
    • Working Paper Summaries

    When to Apply?

    by Katherine Coffman, Manuela Collis, and Leena Kulkarni

    Using a series of experiments, the authors studied gender differences in how job-seekers perceive their own qualifications for different opportunities and how this affects their decision to apply. Results suggest that soft touch employer interventions can improve the diversity of applicant pools even if candidate beliefs about their own ability are unchanged.

    • 02 May 2019
    • Sharpening Your Skills

    How To Ask Better Questions

    by Kristen Senz

    To make the best decisions, managers must ask the right questions. This collection of past studies by Harvard Business School researchers will help you gather the critical information needed to prepare for action. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 28 Nov 2018
    • HBS Case

    On Target: Rethinking the Retail Website

    by Dina Gerdeman

    Target is one big-brand retailer that seems to have survived and even thrived in the apocalyptic retail landscape. What's its secret? Srikant Datar discusses the company's relentless focus on online data. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 06 Jun 2018
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Complex Disclosure

    by Ginger Zhe Jin, Michael Luca, and Daniel Martin

    This study shows that companies looking to hide unfavorable information might strategically be making contract terms unnecessarily complex, harming consumers and undermining the effectiveness of disclosure. These results highlight a role for regulation that would encourage simpler forms of disclosure.

    • 30 Mar 2018
    • What Do You Think?

    What Should Mark Zuckerberg Do?

    by James Heskett

    SUMMING UP: Facebook doesn't necessarily need a better data-privacy policy, James Heskett's readers suggest. Instead, Mark Zuckerberg needs a new business model. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 23 Feb 2018
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Trade Creditors' Information Advantage

    by Victoria Ivashina and Benjamin Iverson

    Trade credit represents about a quarter of the liabilities of US firms. There are several theories explaining this fact. This study reexamines whether suppliers hold private information about their trade partners, by analyzing their behavior in bankruptcy.

    • 11 Jan 2018
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Brokers and Order Flow Leakage: Evidence from Fire Sales

    by Andrea Barbon, Marco Di Maggio, Francesco Franzoni, and Augustin Landier

    This study finds that brokers tend to reveal the occurrence of a fire sale to their best clients, allowing them to generate significant profits by predating on the liquidating fund. Such information leakage comes at the expense of higher price impact, and leads to a more costly liquidation for the fire sale originator.

    • 03 Nov 2016
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Ideological Segregation among Online Collaborators: Evidence from Wikipedians

    by Shane Greenstein, Yuan Gu, and Feng Zhu

    This study analyzes the dynamics supporting or undermining segregated conversations. Among the findings: In spite of their great differences, contributors on Wikipedia tend to move toward less segregated conversations. Contributors’ positions become more neutral over time, not more extreme. In addition, the conflict resolution mechanisms and the mix of informal and formal norms at Wikipedia play an important role in encouraging a community that works toward a neutral point of view.

    • 29 Jun 2015
    • HBS Case

    Consumer-centered Health Care Depends on Accessible Medical Records

    by Dina Gerdeman

    There is a problem with medical records—they are scattered everywhere. John Quelch discusses approaches to integrate patient data so that medical professionals and patients can make better decisions. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 19 Jan 2015
    • Research & Ideas

    Is Wikipedia More Biased Than Encyclopædia Britannica?

    by Michael Blanding

    By identifying politically biased language in Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia, Feng Zhu hopes to learn whether professional editors or open-sourced experts provide the most objective entries. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 26 Mar 2014
    • Research & Ideas

    How Electronic Patient Records Can Slow Doctor Productivity

    by Dina Gerdeman

    Electronic health records are sweeping through the medical field, but some doctors report a disturbing side effect. Instead of becoming more efficient, some practices are becoming less so. Robert Huckman's research explains why. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 10 Jun 2013
    • Research & Ideas

    How Numbers Talk to People

    In their new book Keeping Up with the Quants, Thomas H. Davenport and Jinho Kim offer tools to sharpen quantitative analysis and make better decisions. Read our excerpt. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 10 Dec 2012
    • Research & Ideas

    Why We Blab Our Intimate Secrets on Facebook

    by Carmen Nobel

    Leslie K. John and colleagues set out to discover the reason behind a common discrepancy: While many of us purport to be concerned about Internet privacy, we seem to have no worries about sharing our most intimate details on Facebook. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 02 Aug 2012
    • Working Paper Summaries

    The Rich Get Richer: Enabling Conditions for Knowledge Use in Organizational Work Teams

    by Melissa A. Valentine, Bradley R. Staats & Amy C. Edmondson

    Individuals on the periphery of organizational knowledge-sharing networks, due to inexperience, location, or lack of social capital, may struggle to access useful knowledge at work. An electronic knowledge repository (KR) offers a practical solution to the challenges of making knowledge available to people who might otherwise lack access to relevant expertise. Such a system may function as a knowledge-access equalizer. However, the presence of a knowledge repository will not solve the problem of access to knowledge for those at the periphery of the organization unless it is used. In this paper, the authors begin to theorize the social and structural conditions that support KR use by exploring whether individuals on the organizational periphery take advantage of KRs, or whether KRs function more to enrich individuals whose experience and position already provide them better access to other knowledge sources. Using extensive data on KR use at a global, outsourced provider of software services, the authors' results show that despite the seeming promise of a KR to integrate or equalize peripheral players, it instead enriches knowledge access for people who are already well positioned. Findings thus suggest that KR use is not simply an individual activity based on need, but is instead enabled by certain social conditions (such as familiarity and experience) and inhibited by others (such as status disparities and remote location). An organizational KR thus fails to serve as an equalizer absent intervention. Key concepts include: There is a cautionary note for managers: In this study, KRs supported team performance by enriching the knowledge access of central players in the organization. KRs were less effective at ensuring much-needed access for those on the periphery. If individuals cannot get the knowledge that they need, then both their performance and their careers may suffer. Although some individuals are deployed into positions seen as organizationally necessary - such as remote offices or onto teams where they all may not know each other - in these positions they are less likely to make use of available organizational resources. There is a pattern of greater use of a KR and success for teams working in more supportive conditions. Individual and team characteristics enable people to support each other, make use of available resources, and perform effectively. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 30 Apr 2012
    • Research & Ideas

    India’s Ambitious National Identification Program

    by Dina Gerdeman

    The Unique Identification Authority of India has been charged with implementing a nationwide program to register and assign a unique 12-digit ID to every Indian resident—some 1.2 billion people—by 2020. In a new case, Professor Tarun Khanna and HBS India Research Center Executive Director Anjali Raina discuss the complexities of this massive data management project. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

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