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- 2022
- Working Paper
Ethical Risks of Autonomous Products: The Case of Mental Health Crises on AI Companion Applications
By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp and Zeliha Uğuralp
Increasingly, some products do not merely automate some piece of our lives but act as
autonomous agents. When these technologies are not yet perfected, what are their risks? Here
we explore the case of AI companion apps. Although these apps are designed...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Moral Thin-Slicing: How Snap Judgments Affect Online Sharing of Moral Content
By: Julian De Freitas and Alon Hafri
Consumers are exposed to a range of provocative moral transgressions online, as when consuming viral videos on social media or morally charged advertisements. Given limits on time and attention, consumers increasingly make moral evaluations in a few seconds or less,...
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Keywords:
Moral Judgement;
Thin Slices;
Social Media;
Fake News;
Misinformation;
Moral Sensibility;
Behavior;
News
- July 2022
- Case
FIJI Water: Carbon Negative? (Abridged)
In the midst of increasing press scrutiny of the bottled water industry’s environmentally harmful practices, FIJI Water made a series of sustainability promises. The boldest of these was a pledge to go “carbon negative.” The company said that not only would they offset...
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Keywords:
Carbon Footprint;
Carbon Offsetting;
Environmental Accounting;
Climate Change;
Environmental Sustainability;
Pollution;
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;
Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising;
Non-Governmental Organizations;
Brands and Branding;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Fiji;
United States
- July 2022
- Teaching Note
The DivaCup: Navigating Distribution and Growth
By: Ayelet Israeli
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-055. When the mother-daughter founders of DivaCup set out with a mission to disrupt the menstrual care industry with an innovative product form, they initially struggled to gain legitimacy and convince retailers to carry their unique...
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Keywords:
Female;
Female Ceo;
Female Entrepreneur;
Female Protagonist;
Health ＆ Wellness;
Healthcare;
Price Policies;
Minimum Advertised Price;
Differentiation;
Positioning;
Growth;
Health;
Health Care and Treatment;
Price;
Disruption;
Distribution;
Distribution Channels;
Competitive Strategy;
Competition;
Growth Management;
Mission and Purpose;
Product Development;
Product Marketing;
Product Launch;
Product Positioning;
Advertising;
Business Startups;
Internet and the Web;
Entrepreneurship;
Social Entrepreneurship;
Social Issues;
Social Enterprise;
Retail Industry;
Medical Devices and Supplies Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
Health Industry;
Green Technology Industry;
Education Industry;
Distribution Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Canada;
United States;
United Kingdom
- May 2022
- Case
Timnit Gebru: 'SILENCED No More' on AI Bias and The Harms of Large Language Models
By: Tsedal Neeley and Stefani Ruper
Dr. Timnit Gebru—a leading artificial intelligence (AI) computer scientist and co-lead of Google’s Ethical AI team—was messaging with one of her colleagues when she saw the words: “Did you resign?? Megan sent an email saying that she accepted your resignation.” Heart...
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- Article
Do the Right Firms Survive Bankruptcy?
By: Samuel Antill
In U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, firms are either reorganized, acquired, or liquidated. I show that decisions to liquidate often reduce creditor recovery, costing creditors billions of dollars every year. I exploit the within-district random assignment of...
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- May 2022
- Article
When Does Product Liability Risk Chill Innovation? Evidence from Medical Implants
By: Alberto Galasso and Hong Luo
Liability laws designed to compensate for harms caused by defective products may also affect innovation. We examine this issue by exploiting a major quasi-exogenous increase in liability risk faced by U.S. suppliers of polymers used to manufacture medical implants....
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Dynamic Pricing Algorithms, Consumer Harm, and Regulatory Response
By: Alexander J. MacKay and Samuel Weinstein
Pricing algorithms are rapidly transforming markets, from ride-sharing apps, to air travel, to online retail. Regulators and scholars have watched this development with a wary eye. Their focus so far has been on the potential for pricing algorithms to facilitate...
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- January 2022 (Revised July 2022)
- Case
TotalEnergies’ Investment in Hyzon Motors
By: Vikram S. Gandhi and David Lane
In November 2021, Girish Nadkarni, the head of TotalEnergies’ corporate venture capital arm (TEV) was considering whether, and on what terms, to exit an investment in Hyzon Motors, a start-up supplier of hydrogen-powered trucks. TEV had invested $4 million in Hyzon,...
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Keywords:
Business Units;
Communication Intention and Meaning;
Renewable Energy;
Venture Capital;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Market Design;
Standards;
Commercialization;
Investment Portfolio;
Market Transactions;
Energy Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Transportation Industry;
Europe;
New York (city, NY)
- November 22, 2021
- Article
Manage Your Talent Pipeline Like a Supply Chain
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Matthew Sigelman
In supply-chain management, you get what you plan for. Companies understand that principle when it comes to the goods that they consume and produce, but not when it comes to the people they hire and train. For decades, companies have adopted a short-term, ad hoc...
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- October 2021
- Article
Can Self-Regulation Save Digital Platforms?
By: Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer and David B. Yoffie
This article explores some of the critical challenges facing self-regulation and the regulatory environment for digital platforms. We examine several historical examples of firms and industries that attempted self-regulation before the Internet. All dealt with similar...
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- Article
Health Equity, Schooling Hesitancy, and the Social Determinants of Learning
By: Meira Levinson, Alan C. Geller, Joseph G. Allen and John D. Macomber
At least 62 million K-12 students in North America—disproportionately low-income children of color— have been physically out of school for over a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These children are at risk of significant academic, social, mental, and physical harm...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
'Just Letting You Know…': Underestimating Others' Desire for Constructive Feedback
People often avoid giving feedback to others even when it would help fix a problem immediately. Indeed, in a pilot field study (N=155), only 2.6% of individuals provided feedback to survey administrators that the administrators had food or marker on their faces....
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Keywords:
Feedback;
Helping;
Prosocial Behavior;
Relationships;
Social Psychology;
Theory;
Perception
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Changing Role of Business in Society
Business interaction with the U.S. government, historically based on securing industry or company special interests at the expense of the public good, has enabled and furthered government dysfunction. Gridlock within the American political system has precluded the...
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Keywords:
Politics;
Shared Value;
Social Progress Index;
Competitiveness;
Walmart;
BlackRock;
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance;
ESG;
Transparency;
Campaign Contributions;
Campaign Finance;
Lobbying;
Revolving Door;
Political Ideology;
Political Parties;
Political Partisanship;
Government And Business;
Government Innovation;
Elections;
Democracy;
Capitalism;
Stakeholder Capitalism;
Shareholder Engagement;
Competition;
Strategy;
Government and Politics;
Society;
Social Issues;
Human Needs;
Wealth and Poverty;
Business and Community Relations;
Business and Government Relations;
Corporate Accountability;
Financial Services Industry;
Banking Industry;
United States
- July 2021
- Article
Making Medications Stick: Improving Medication Adherence by Highlighting the Personal Health Costs of Non-compliance
By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Joe J. Gladstone, Dan Berry, Charlotte L. Kirkdale, Tracey Thornley and Adam D. Galinsky
Poor compliance of prescription medication is an ongoing public health crisis. Nearly half of patients do not take their medication as prescribed, harming their own health while also increasing public health care costs. Despite these detrimental consequences, prior...
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- June 2021
- Article
Short-Termism, Shareholder Payouts, and Investment in the EU
By: Jesse M. Fried and Charles C.Y. Wang
Investor-driven "short-termism" is said to harm EU public firms' ability to invest for the long term, prompting calls for the EU to better insulate managers from shareholder pressure. But the evidence offered—rising levels of repurchases and dividends—is incomplete and...
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- Article
Missing the Near Miss: Recognizing Valuable Learning Opportunities in Radiation Oncology
By: Palak Kundu, Olivia Jung, Luca F. Valle, Amy C. Edmondson, Nzhde Agazaryan, John Hegde, Michael Steinberg and Ann Raldow
“Near miss” events are valuable low-cost learning opportunities in radiation oncology as they do not result in patient harm and are more pervasive than adverse events that do. Near misses vary depending on the presence of a latent error of behavior or process, and the...
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- April 2021
- Supplement
Buy Online, Pickup in Store: Vice President of E-Commerce Supplement
By: Antonio Moreno, Santiago Gallino and Amy Klopfenstein
In April 2019, Sylvarella VP of E-Commerce Charla Limont must review an analysis of her department’s sales data to determine the impact of the company’s Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program. The program implementation created significant problems for the...
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- April 2021
- Supplement
Buy Online, Pickup in Store: Vice President of Store Operations Supplement
By: Antonio Moreno, Santiago Gallino and Amy Klopfenstein
In April 2019, Sylvarella VP of Store Operations Axley Vega must review an analysis of her department’s sales data to determine the impact of the company’s Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program. BOPS implementation created significant problems for the store...
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- March 2021
- Article
Deliberately Prejudiced Self-driving Vehicles Elicit the Most Outrage
By: Julian De Freitas and Mina Cikara
Should self-driving vehicles be prejudiced, e.g., deliberately harm the elderly over young children? When people make such forced-choices on the vehicle’s behalf, they exhibit systematic preferences (e.g., favor young children), yet when their options are unconstrained...
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