Quality
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- 26 Apr 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Assessing the Quality of Quality Assessment: The Role of Scheduling
Accurate inspections enable companies to assess the quality, safety, and environmental practices of their business partners, and enable regulators to protect consumers, workers, and the environment. This study finds that inspectors are less stringent later in their workday and after visiting workplaces with fewer problems. Managers and regulators can improve inspection accuracy by mitigating these biases and their consequences.
- 23 Sep 2013
- Research & Ideas
Status: When and Why It Matters
Status plays a key role in everything from the things we buy to the partnerships we make. Professor Daniel Malter explores when status matters most. Closed for comment; 9 Comment(s) posted.
- 16 May 2011
- Research & Ideas
What Loyalty? High-End Customers are First to Flee
Companies offering top-drawer customer service might have a nasty surprise awaiting them when a new competitor comes to town. Their best customers might be the first to defect. Research by Harvard Business School's Ryan W. Buell, Dennis Campbell, and Frances X. Frei. Key concepts include: Companies that offer high levels of customer service can't expect too much loyalty if a new competitor offers even better service. High-end businesses must avoid complacency and continue to proactively increase relative service levels when they're faced with even the potential threat of increased service competition. Even though high-end customers can be fickle, a company that sustains a superior service position in its local market can attract and retain customers who are more valuable over time. Firms rated lower in service quality are more or less immune from the high-end challenger. Closed for comment; 24 Comment(s) posted.
- 08 Dec 2008
- Research & Ideas
Thinking Twice About Supply-Chain Layoffs
Cutting the wrong employees can be counterproductive for retailers, new research from Harvard Business School professor Zeynep Ton concludes. One suggestion: Pay attention to staff who handle mundane tasks such as stocking and labeling. Your customers do. Key concepts include: It may be employees that customers rarely see—stockers, shippers—whose work has a high influence on the shopping experience. When floor labor is insufficient, merchandise is often unavailable or too inaccessible for the customer to trouble with. Increasing the amount of labor at a store is associated with an increase in profit margin. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.
- 01 Dec 2006
- What Do You Think?
How Important Is Quality of Labor? And How Is It Achieved?
A new book by Gregory Clark identifies "labor quality" as the major enticement for capital flows that lead to economic prosperity. By defining labor quality in terms of discipline and attitudes toward work, this argument minimizes the long-term threat of outsourcing to developed economies. By understanding labor quality, can we better confront anxieties about outsourcing and immigration? Closed for comment; 48 Comment(s) posted.
- 20 Sep 2004
- Research & Ideas
How Consumers Value Global Brands
What do consumers expect of global brands? Does it hurt to be an American brand? This Harvard Business Review excerpt co-written by HBS professor John A. Quelch identifies the three characteristics consumers look for to make purchase decisions. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.
Expected Stock Returns Worldwide: A Log-Linear Present-Value Approach
Over the last 20 years, shortcomings of classical asset-pricing models have motivated research in developing alternative methods for measuring ex ante expected stock returns. This study evaluates the main paradigms for deriving firm-level expected return proxies (ERPs) and proposes a new framework for estimating them.