Accounting & Management
-
- March 2021
- Article
The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance
This paper investigates the impact of customer compatibility – the degree of fit between the needs of customers and the capabilities of the operations serving them – on customer experiences and firm performance. We use a variance decomposition analysis to quantify the relative importance of customer, employee, process, location, and market-level effects on customer satisfaction. In our models, which explain roughly a quarter of the aggregate variance, differences among customers account for 96-97% of the explainable portion. Further analysis of interaction-level data from banking and quick service restaurants reveals that customers report relatively consistent satisfaction across transactions with particular firms, but that some customers are habitually more satisfied than others. A second set of empirical studies provides evidence that these customer-level differences are explained in part by customer compatibility. Customers whose needs, proxied by differences in demographics and product choices, diverge more starkly from those of their bank’s average customers report significantly lower levels of satisfaction. Consistently, banks that serve customer bases with more dispersed needs receive lower satisfaction scores than banks serving customer bases with less dispersed needs. Finally, a longitudinal analysis of the deposit and loan growth of all federally insured banks in the United States from 2006-2017 reveals that customer compatibility affects a firm’s financial performance. Branches with more divergent customers grow more slowly than branches with less divergent customers. Institutions serving customer bases with more dispersed needs have branches that exhibit slower growth than those of institutions serving customer bases with less dispersed needs.
- March 2021
- Article
The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance
This paper investigates the impact of customer compatibility – the degree of fit between the needs of customers and the capabilities of the operations serving them – on customer experiences and firm performance. We use a variance decomposition analysis to quantify the relative importance of customer, employee, process, location, and market-level...
-
-
- February 2021
- Case
Marie Curie: Changing the World
By: Robert L. Simons and Shirley SunThis case describes the rise of Marie Curie from a poor family in Poland to the pinnacle of scientific fame. The case describes how Curie, as a young woman interested in science, found a way to earn a doctorate at the Sorbonne and perform pathbreaking research on radioactive materials that won her two Nobel Prizes. Students will learn how Marie Curie navigated life’s choices to leave a lasting impact on the world.
- February 2021
- Case
Marie Curie: Changing the World
By: Robert L. Simons and Shirley SunThis case describes the rise of Marie Curie from a poor family in Poland to the pinnacle of scientific fame. The case describes how Curie, as a young woman interested in science, found a way to earn a doctorate at the Sorbonne and perform pathbreaking research on radioactive materials that won her two Nobel Prizes. Students will learn how Marie...
About the Unit
The Accounting & Management unit at Harvard Business School strives to be the worldwide leader in research, course development, and teaching on top managements' use of performance measurement systems to:
- Communicate with external investors to ensure that their firms' securities are fairly priced and that they are able to access capital,
- Measure and evaluate their firms' economic performance,
- Improve resource allocation and strategy implementation within their firms, and
- Build accountability for performance through effective external and internal governance.
Unit research, course development, and teaching fall into two broad areas: Financial Reporting and Analysis and Management Accounting. Our research helps scholars and educators understand current best practices for the design and use of performance measurement systems that help managers to build more effective, value-creating organizations. Our teaching materials enable us to bring the results of this research into the classroom, and to practice.
Recent Publications
The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance
- March 2021 |
- Article |
- Management Science
Measuring Impact at JUST Capital
- February 2021 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Accounting for Leases at American Airlines
- February 2021 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
Marie Curie: Changing the World
- February 2021 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Accounting for Leases at American Airlines (A)
- February 2021 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
New England Baptist Hospital: Getting Paid for Value
- February 2021 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Enterprise Agility at Komerční Banka
- February 2021 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Sarah Breedlove: Changing the World
- February 2021 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research