Mack Institute Research Archives

Returns to Brand Building via Advertising

We aim to test if investment in branding – specifically investment in advertising – improves a firms’ outcomes in the labor markets. A…Read More

New Technologies to Detect and Mitigate Unethical Conduct

Activities such as employee theft, dishonest reporting, and fraudulent bookkeeping impede innovation and disrupt the cultural and practical goals of organizations.…Read More

Behavioral and Operational Lens into Managing Flexible Workforce

On-demand or gig economy has been growing dramatically in the past decade and is starting to become an everyday feature of modern society. Although independent contractors have been around for centuries, recent technologies allow workers to quickly connect with customers online and create new work arrangements. …Read More

Commensurability and Collective Impact in Strategic Management Research: When Non-replicability Is a Feature, Not a Bug

Strategic management theories can be enhanced by considering their applicability across various actors and contexts. …Read More

Power to X – Why and When to Use Electricity to Make Gas Renewable

With this proposal, we request research funding for the development of one paper studying the operational benefits of Power-to-X technologies to discern when shifting power systems to renewable oil and gas becomes optimal.…Read More

The Impact of Video Visits on Care Utilization, Health Outcomes, and Physician Productivity

Video visits are transforming the way patients connect with providers—by not only providing an additional pathway for patients to access care from anywhere but also one that is available sooner. …Read More

Reference Point Dependence under Dynamic Pricing

Alongside advances in technological innovation, dynamic pricing — which allows prices to change according to current market conditions — has played an increasingly important role in marketing.…Read More

Organizational Change and the Dynamics of Innovation: Formal R&D Structure and Intrafirm Inventor Networks

Prior research has argued and shown that firms with centralized R&D produce broader innovations relative to decentralized firms, but the organizational mechanisms underlying this relationship are underexplored. This gap limits our understanding of whether and how formal R&D structure can be used as a lever to influence research outcomes.…Read More

Does Crowdfunding Benefit Entrepreneurs and Venture Capital Investors?

We study how a new development in entrepreneurship—crowdfunding—interacts with more traditional financing sources, such as venture capital (VC) and bank financing. …Read More

Data Analytics, Innovation, and Firm Productivity

This study focuses on how data analytics talent in firms can have an effect on firms’ return on their technology investment. Especially with the rise of social media, cloud computing, as well as many other technologies that can capture detailed digital trace about various human interactions, we hope to understand how some firms can capture the value of the data and gain competitive advantage while some could not.…Read More

How Do Product Attributes and Reviews Moderate the Impact of Recommender Systems through Purchase Stages?

We investigate the impact of several different recommender algorithms (e.g., Amazon.com’s “Consumers who bought this item also bought”), commonly used in ecommerce and online services, on sales volume and diversity, using field experiment data on movie sales from a top retailer in North America. …Read More

Algorithmic Literacy in the Labor Market

Using data on employer job search, this study demonstrates that employers are seeking algorithmic literacy from workers in a particularly broad class of occupations because familiarity with algorithms in downstream “using” occupations is important for integrating AI and data science into production. …Read More

Economics of Leveraged Buyouts: Theory and Evidence from the UK Private Equity Industry

Empirical analysis of a sample of companies with private equity (PE) ownership in the UK shows that PE firms act as deep-pocket investors for their portfolio companies, rescuing them if they fall in financial distress.…Read More

Initial Coin Offerings, Speculators, and Asset Tokenization

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are an emerging form of fundraising for blockchain-based startups. We examine how ICOs can be leveraged in the context of asset tokenization, whereby firms issue tokens backed by future assets (i.e., inventory) to finance growth.…Read More

Physician-Industry Interactions: Persuasion and Welfare

In markets where consumers seek expert advice regarding purchases, firms seek to influence experts, raising concerns about biased advice. We combine a model of supply and demand with a local instrumental variables strategy based on regional spillovers from academic medical center conflict-of-interest policies. …Read More

Competition, Technology Licensing-in, and Innovation

Although the relationship between competition and firm innovation has long been of scholarly interest, prior research has predominantly considered changes in internal research and development (R&D) as a strategic response to competitors’ actions.…Read More

The Impact of Acquisitions on Clinical Decisions: Evidence from Physician Practice Management Companies

Mergers and acquisitions are rapidly transforming the organization of physician services in the United States, raising concerns over the cost and the quality of health care. This paper studies how medical practice acquisitions by Physician Practice Management Companies (PPMCs) impact physician behavior and patient health.…Read More