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• Article | Journal of Economics & Management Strategy | Spring 2013

  Salience in Quality Disclosure: Evidence from the U.S. News College Rankings

  Michael Luca and Jonathan Smith

  How do rankings affect demand? This paper investigates the impact of college rankings, and the visibility of those rankings, on students' application decisions. Using natural experiments from U.S. News and World Report College Rankings, we present two main findings. First, we identify a causal impact of rankings on application decisions. When explicit rankings of colleges are published in U.S. News, a one-rank improvement leads to a 1-percentage-point increase in the number of applications to that college. Second, we show that the response to the information represented in rankings depends on the way in which that information is presented. Rankings have no effect on application decisions when colleges are listed alphabetically, even when readers are provided data on college quality and the methodology used to calculate rankings. This finding provides evidence that the salience of information is a central determinant of a firm's demand function, even for purchases as large as college attendance.

  Keywords: Rank and Position; Demand and Consumers; Quality; Decisions; Newspapers; United States;

  Citation:

  Luca, Michael, and Jonathan Smith. "Salience in Quality Disclosure: Evidence from the U.S. News College Rankings." Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 22, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 58–77.

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013

  National Instruments

  Lynda M. Applegate, Keri Pearlson and Natalie Kindred

  This case explores the use of social media to support product design, customer support, marketing and HR activities at National Instruments (NI). Based in Austin, Texas, with over $1 billion in 2011 sales, NI designs, produces, and sells software and hardware platforms that simplify development of its customers measurement and control systems. Its customers, ranging from individuals (professors and their students) to large corporations, consist primarily of scientists and engineers—a pedigree shared by most NI employees. Since dedicating a full-time position to formalizing the use of social media tools in 2006, NI has infused social capabilities into its internal and customer-facing business processes, strengthening relationships and value delivered. NI's story deepens our understanding of how to build a social business strategy, create game changing innovation processes, and measure the value of its social technology investments—a key challenge facing the company. By touching on NI's history and culture, the case also allows students to consider what elements of this company's organization and culture have allowed it to build a robust social business model.

  Citation:

  Applegate, Lynda M., Keri Pearlson, and Natalie Kindred. "National Instruments." Harvard Business School Case 813-001, April 2013.

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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | 2013 (Revised from original 2012 version)

  Bonnier: Digitalizing the Media Business (TN)

  Lynda Applegate, Daniel Nylen, Jonny Holmstrom and Kalle Lyytinen

  Keywords: media and publishing; Media; Publishing Industry;

  Citation:

  Applegate, Lynda, Daniel Nylen, Jonny Holmstrom, and Kalle Lyytinen. "Bonnier: Digitalizing the Media Business (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 813-076, February 2013. (Revised from original November 2012 version.)

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