243 Posts found for Source: INSEAD Knowledge

Human beings are creatures of habit. Many of our actions are repetitive and require little conscious thought or effort. However, according to a new study, by predicting our behavior we can actually reinforce good habits and break bad ones. The study by INSEAD Assistant Professor of Marketing Pierre Chandon and four US-based Marketing professors is called ‘When Does the Past Repeat Itself? The Role of … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Pierre Chandon | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Organizational Behavior

To what extent do firms pursue strategies of flexibility in response to uncertainty – to what extent do they use ‘real options’? Goncalo Pacheco-de-Almeida and Professor Peter Zemsky explain how resource accumulation affects whether a firm will jump into an investment from the get-go, or if it will take the option to wait for investment. They present research in a realistic light, offering a theory … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Goncalo Pacheco-de-Almeida, Peter Zemsky | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Finance, Management

Even the unforeseeable can be prepared for if you have the right tools. Start-ups are often faced with the unknown, when traditional methods cannot help them. But there are two options for managers of young companies such situations. So how to choose which method is most appropriate? Authors Sommer, Loch and Dong look at a sample of 62 start-up companies in Shanghai to shed light … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Christoph Loch, Jing Dong, Svenja Sommer | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Strategy

Venture capital is a crucial part of enterprise and job creation, but it also represents a market in itself. Does the venture capital sector behave like other markets, or does it have features that mark it as different? By identifying the characteristic features of the venture capital market, this paper from Bruce Kogut, Pietro Urso and Gordon Walker, provides valuable information for policy makers looking … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Bruce Kogut, Gordon Walker, Pietro Urso | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Finance, Venture Capital

It is a truism that firms can increase their profitability by motivating managers. However, research surprisingly reveals that increased pay and lower risk aversion are not necessarily motivating factors. So what are the major motivational drivers within organisations, and how can Human Resources identify and use them? In their working paper, “Managerial Motivation Dynamics and Incentives,” Ayse Kocabiyikoglu and Ioana Popescu investigate the drivers of … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Ayse Kocabiyikoglu, Ioana Popescu | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Two commonplace business assumptions are that lower quality products must attract buyers with lower prices, and that firms enjoy higher profits in a monopoly than in a competitive market. But information is not a commonplace product. So, should information providers with a low-quality product offer price discounts and fear competition? In this paper, Markus Christen and Miklos Sarvary present evidence that prices for reliable information … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Markus Christen, Miklos Sarvary | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Economics, Marketing / Sales

While profit and loss can be measured easily enough, the emotional responses that determine whether results feel like success or failure are much more complicated. INSEAD’s Associate Professor of Decision Sciences, Philippe Delquié and Alessandra Cillo argue this response is not a factor of prior expectations, as suggested by previous studies. Instead, outcomes are valued relative to all missed outcomes, whether these alternatives were foreseen … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alessandra CILLO, Philippe Delquié | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Finance, Organizational Behavior

Ethan Kapstein poses the question of what economic “justice” actually means in today’s increasingly interconnected world. He compares the views held by the three predominant contemporary schools of thought on globalisation issues – the communitarians, the liberal internationalists and the cosmopolitans – and offers evidence either supporting or undermining their different positions.

Editor’s Note: I don’t know why, but there is no direct link to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Ethan Kapstein | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Economics, Social Responsibility (ESG)

“The bullwhip effect” has become infamous as one of the worst and most widespread forces capable of paralysing supply chains. INSEAD Chaired Professor of Marketing Paddy Padmanabhan and Hau Lee and Seungjin Whang of Stanford present a study considered to be one of the Top Ten Most Influential Papers by the INFORMS Membership of Management Science in 2004.

Editor’s Note: this is just a description … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Hau L. Lee, Paddy Padmanabhan, Seungjin Whang | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subject: Operations

The doughnut or the celery stick … go to a party, or study for an exam…. take the apartment close to the office, or the one with the stunning view and accept the nightmare daily commute. It might seem a given that most of us base our consumer choices between more overtly pleasurable, hedonic options and more practical, utilitarian concerns. But most pioneering work in … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Klaus Wertenbroch | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that some of the key teachings of classic economic theory do not fit today’s business environment. Though firms try to follow economic logic, the nature of innovation strains their capacity to do so. From the inadequacy of classic economic theory to explain the constraints acting on firms, New Institutional Economics (NIE) was born. Combining several approaches, including … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Erin Anderson, Hubert Gatignon | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Economics, Marketing / Sales

How customers perceive or feel about a firm changes over time. Building trust and a mutually satisfying relationship with customers is an important goal for many organizations. Understanding how these relationships build and deteriorate is thus critical. By helping shed light on that process, this study by Professors Sandy Jap and Erin Anderson offers some important insights into relationship management.

Content: Article | Authors: Erin Anderson, Sandy D. Jap | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Organizational Behavior

While the Balanced Scorecard is widely discussed in the business world, there is little empirical evidence of its usefulness. The answer to this question is key for those who want to explore the integration of environmental and social actions using the Balanced Scorecard. To contribute to this discussion, Francesco Zingales and Kai Hockerts look at examples from literature and practice of the Balanced … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Francesco Zingales, Kai Hockerts | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Management, Social Responsibility (ESG)

It stands to reason that dysfunctional leaders would create dysfunctional organizations. Yet, as Professor Manfred Kets de Vries suggests, there is little research on the dark side of leaders, the “Darth Vader” aspect that is at the core of so many organizational downfalls. In this Working Paper, he looks at specific personality dysfunctions alongside organizational dysfunctions, illustrating how the two, more often than … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Manfred Kets de Vries | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subject: Leadership

Improving the cost, quality or timeliness of a firm’s products and processes requires a variety of scarce firm-specific resources. Though firms need to engage in these practices to remain competitive there is also a cost involved. This leads to a key question: When should a firm switch all its learning resources from an older to a newer product generation? Professors Demeester and Qi … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Lieven L. Demeester, Mei Qi | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subject: Operations

Where should we look for new innovations in manufacturing? Perhaps nature has some answers, say Professors Demeester, Loch and Van Wassenhove, who see in the biological cell a lean, adaptive system that allows the kind of performance today’s manufacturing facilities could only dream of achieving.

Content: Article | Authors: Christoph Loch, Lieven L. Demeester, Luk N. Van Wassenhove | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Innovation, Operations

Retirement generally conjures up images of golf courses and swimming pools, card games and cocktails. But for many people, particularly top-level executives and CEOs, these images are nothing short of a nightmare. In this new Working Paper, Professor Kets de Vries looks at the dark side of retirement, and outlines how individuals and organizations can help ease the process of letting go.

Content: Article | Author: Manfred Kets de Vries | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

The key to success in medicine is to match the right cure to the right ailment. Similarly, a strategic business initiative is only as good as its appropriateness to the landscape into which it is introduced. In this Working Paper, Professor Steven White proposes a framework for describing this landscape in order to understand better why problems arise, how solutions are generated, and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Steven White | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

As firms pay greater attention to managing their relationships with customers, there has been a proliferation of interest in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). However, what constitutes a CRM initiative exactly, or whether it can help a firm perform better, remains still unclear. This Working Paper by Professors Reinartz, Krafft, and Hoyer seeks to clarify some of these issues, conceptualizing, operationalizing and validating the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Manfred Krafft, Wayne D. Hoyer, Werner Reinartz | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Customer Related, IT / Technology / E-Business

What can a man born in 356 BC teach business leaders today? Plenty, says Professor Manfred Kets de Vries in this new Working Paper about Alexander the Great of Macedonia, one of history’s most successful leaders. His successes and failures, says the author, offer insights into what makes for effective leadership and what contributes to leadership derailment.

Content: Article | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: History, Leadership