Research

2002

Rapid Immunizations Recommended in Event of Bioterrorist Attack
Federal health officials made a major change in September in their guidelines for nationwide immunization against a smallpox attack after researchers argued for mass immunizations rather than a slower process based on who had been exposed to disease. [Details]

Not Tracking Double Orders Can Hurt Manufacturing Firms
When management fails to correctly estimate demand for a product or customers' sensitivity to delay, the lapse can cost a company dearly say researchers. Not taking into account double orders and not knowing clearly why a customer has canceled an order can cause companies to build too much capacity or not enough. [Details]

2001

Study Probes Causes of Gasoline Price Spikes
Consumers may argue it’s a conspiracy, but research by Jeremy Bulow and others shows that gasoline prices spike each summer because of a complex set of events including crude oil, refining, and shipping costs. [Details]

Organizational Ecology Puts Business Under the Microscope
A small group of Business School faculty who pioneered the study of organizational ecology say there is much to be learned from businesses that failed. A December conference will celebrate the 25th anniversary of this field of study. [Details]

2000

Game Theory: A New Tool for Economists
In the last 25 years, many and perhaps most significant innovations in economics have been driven by the use of game theory, which provides economists with a language and analytical tools to study many economic interactions that older tools, such as price theory, couldn't touch. [Details]

The Chronic Search for a Health Care Cure
For nearly three decades, Professor Alain Enthoven has blazed a trail of research and real-world analysis in the pressing field of health economics. He and his colleagues have shaped the excruciating debate over health care and the role of managed care. [Details]

The Many Faces of Human Capital
Since the early 1990s, the Business School has made a concerted effort to develop its research and teaching in human resource management and organizational behavior. With its mix of economists, psychologists, and sociologists, HR management covers a lot of territory at the Business School. [Details]

Managing Supply Chain Key Link to Growth
The Internet and other forms of rapid data exchange are creating more efficient supply chains. How companies can best build these "exchanges" is at the crux of good supply chain management, say Hau Lee and his colleague Seungjin Whang, both professors of operations, information, and technology at Stanford Business School. [Details]

Can A Global Brand Speak Different Languages
Jennifer Aaker, assistant professor of marketing, undertook a study to determine the degree to which brands are similarly perceived across cultures. [Details]

Hospital Competition Can Be Good for Your Health
Economists long have disagreed about the impact of competition among health care providers on patients. Stanford Business School economist Daniel Kessler found that competition was good for a group of acutely ill patients he studied, and that managed care in part explains why hospital competition has had a positive effect. [Details]

The Limits of One-to-One Marketing
Theoretically, a firm can predict what customers will want before the consumers are even aware of their own needs. But that, warns marketing professor Itamar Simonson, is unrealistic. Studies on buyer decision making suggest that these predictions are exaggerated and create overblown expectations. [Details]

Traffic Drives Internet Stock Price
When it comes to valuing Internet businesses or stocks, traditional measures of sales, assets, and profits largely fail, since most dot-coms have no net income, no hard assets, and few inventories. With virtually no financial clues to go on, Mohan Venkatachalam, an assistant professor of accounting, and two others tackled the problem of how one begins to place value on such companies. [Details]

Blame-Game Politics Manipulates Voters
Political economist Timothy Groseclose studied an important but relatively unexplored class of game-theory bargaining problems that involve negotiators who send signals to a third party. [Details]

Status Ambivalence Inhibits Change
In his research, social scientist John Jost has merged two longstanding but contradictory theories about how disadvantaged minorities view themselves. [Details]

Customer Surveys: Don't Tell, Just Ask
Research by marketing professor Itamar Simonson found that people who expect to evaluate are decidedly more negative. He also discovered that merely asking people to state their expectations before they receive a service made them more negative. [Details]

There's Power in Anger
Larissa Tiedens, assistant professor of organizational behavior, looks at how a person's emotional expressions affect the way others award that person status and power. Her research findings have implications for corporate behavior and the kinds of people we are likely to promote. [Details]

How Much Would It Take to Buy Out a Congressional Seat?
Thanks to the availability of some unusual data, Stanford Business School political economist Timothy Groseclose completed game theory research looking at whether it would be cheaper for interest groups to contribute to the campaigns of their favorite candidates or whether it would be more expedient simply to buy out incumbent politicians they do not like. [Details]

Technology Widens Wage Gap
Social scientist Roberto Fernandez has devoted a good part of his career to the study of hiring, wages, and inequality. In his study, he adds to the debate about how technological change affects employment and finds that technology has indeed exacerbated wage inequality. [Details]

Business Deals Rely on Trust, Not Law
Common sense suggests that commercial laws designed to hold business partners to their promises are essential to sustain the trust that makes markets flourish. But look around the world, and you will find that not every thriving economy exists in a land of commercial law and order. That paradox drew GSB economist John McMillan to find out what makes commercial agreements work in such an uncertain, scrappy environment. [Details]

Price Support for IPOs Justified
Is price support of economic consequence? There is evidence, analyzed by GSB Assistant Professor of Finance Manju Puri, showing that supported IPOs are typically larger, have lower underwriter commissions, offer higher prices than unsupported stocks, and are not likely to be underwritten by lesser-known investment banks. Price support seems to have a role in helping after-market liquidity. [Details]

Internet Marketing: Building Brand, Personalization and Distribution
In in one of the first comprehensive books about online marketing, Principles of Internet Marketing, Stanford Business School faculty member Ward Hanson lays out the strengths and weaknesses of Internet technology, how it can generate immediate benefits, and how it can cause a company to rethink its entire marketing organization. [Details]