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- 03 Jun 2013
- Research & Ideas
The Power of Rituals in Life, Death, and Business
Experimental research by Michael I. Norton, Francesca Gino, and colleagues proves multiple benefits of using rituals. Not only do they have the power to alleviate grief, but they also serve to enhance the experience of consuming food—even something as mundane as a carrot. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 May 2013
- Research & Ideas
Faculty Symposium Showcases Breadth of Research
Faculty present their latest research on the human tendency toward dishonesty, the use of crowdsourcing to solve major scientific problems, and the impact of private equity investments. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 20 Mar 2013
- Research & Ideas
How CEOs Sustain Higher-Ambition Goals
At a recent conference, executives underscored the importance of employee engagement, contributing to the community, and creating sustainable environment strategies. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Mar 2013
- First Look
First Look: March 19
When daily deals misfire on merchants ... Lessons of war for negotiators ... The unexpected effect of electronic monitoring of criminals. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 21 Jan 2013
- Research & Ideas
Altruistic Capital: Harnessing Your Employees’ Intrinsic Goodwill
Everyone comes to the table with some amount of "altruistic capital," a stock of intrinsic desire to serve, says professor Nava Ashraf. Her research includes a study of what best motivates hairdressers in Zambia to provide HIV/AIDS education in their salons. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 07 Jan 2013
- Lessons from the Classroom
Culture Changers: Managing High-Impact Entrepreneurs
In her new Harvard Business School course, Creative High-Impact Ventures: Entrepreneurs Who Changed the World, professor Mukti Khaire looks at ways managers can team with creative talent in six "culture industries": publishing, fashion, art-design, film, music, and food. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 14 Nov 2012
- Research & Ideas
New Agenda for Corporate Accountability Reporting
Professor Karthik Ramanna explains three ways to make corporate accountability reports potentially more useful to constituencies that include shareholders, communities, bondholders, and customers. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 28 Sep 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Self-Serving Altruism? When Unethical Actions That Benefit Others Do Not Trigger Guilt
Not a day goes by without the revelation of unethical behavior by a politician, movie star, professional athlete, or high-ranking executive. This paper asks: Is a person's willingness to cross ethical lines influenced by the presence of others who may benefit? Research by Francesca Gino, Shahar Ayal, and Dan Ariely. Findings show that cheating is motivated by potential benefits to others. The authors analyze the results of three experiments to suggest that the potential benefits which dishonesty may create for others not only help people justify their own bad behavior but also serve as a self-serving motivator for it. Focusing on the social utility of others, people more freely categorize their own actions in positive terms and avoid negative updating of their moral self-image. As a result, people feel less guilty about their dishonest behavior when others-in addition to themselves-can benefit from them. Among the implications: Team settings might be conducive to dishonest behavior among group members, and thus might not be ideal to foster learning. Key concepts include: People cheat more when other individuals can benefit from their cheating. Individuals also cheat more when the number of beneficiaries of wrongdoing is larger. Individuals often resolve ethical dilemmas through creative reassessments and self-serving rationalizations. They think they can act dishonestly enough to profit from their unethicality, but honestly enough to maintain a positive self-concept. Dishonesty should be studied not only at the individual level but also at the group level, where members can influence one another in their ethical as well as unethical behavior. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 Aug 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
The Need for (Long) Chains in Kidney Exchange
It is illegal in the U.S. and in most of the world to buy or sell organs for transplantation. Kidney exchange arises because a healthy person has two kidneys and can donate one to a person in need of a transplant. But a donor and his or her intended recipient may be incompatible. An incompatible patient-donor pair can exchange with another pair, or with more than one other pair, in a cycle of exchanges among patient-donor pairs that allows each patient to receive a kidney from a compatible donor. In addition, sometimes exchange can be initiated by an altruistic donor who does not designate a particular intended patient, and in that case a chain of exchanges need not form a closed cycle. This paper seeks to understand why such longer chains have become increasingly important in practical kidney exchange. The answer has to do with the growing percentage of patients for whom finding a compatible donor is difficult. These "highly sensitized" patients are those for whom finding a transplantable kidney is difficult, even from a donor with the same blood type, because of tissue-type incompatibilities. This paper shows that highly sensitized patients are the ones to benefit from longer cycles and chains, and that this does not harm low-sensitized patients. Key concepts include: As long as there is such a high percentage of highly sensitized patients, long chains will help by increasing the number of these patients who can receive transplants, and each altruistic donor can have a big effect. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 07 Aug 2012
- Research & Ideas
Off and Running: Professors Comment on Olympics
The most difficult challenge at The Olympics is the behind-the-scenes efforts to actually get them up and running. Is it worth it? HBS professors Stephen A. Greyser, John D. Macomber, and John T. Gourville offer insights into the business behind the games. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 30 Jul 2012
- Research & Ideas
How Technology Adoption Affects Global Economies
In a series of research papers, Associate Professor Diego A. Comin and colleagues investigated the relationship between technology adoption and per capita income. They found that the rate at which nations adopted new tools hundreds of years ago strongly affects whether those nations are rich or poor today. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 07 Jun 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
How Short-Termism Invites Corruption--And What to Do About It
A long-term time horizon is most sensible where a business or investor has some edge and when short-term risks associated with a longer-term strategy are hedged and opportunity costs minimized. However, when perverse, short-term incentives artificially encourage executives to ignore high-yielding, long-term opportunities, then the costs of short-termism set in. The recent financial crisis suggests that the rise of short-termism has been especially troublesome in the finance industry. In this paper, Malcom Salter starts by analyzing a case involving the mortgage-banking desk at Citigroup because it can help us think about how short-termism-the collapsed time horizon of both business decision makers and investors-not only sabotages an enterprise's reputation and value, but also invites individual and institutional corruption. He then examines the key drivers of short-termism in contemporary business, and their potential effects on the behavior of both executives and their organizations. He concludes by proposing mechanisms to deter the corrupting effects of short-termism, including changes in both business and public policy. Key concepts include: Today the seedbed for institutional corruption is richly endowed by perverse business and public policies that tend to limit the decision horizons of investment managers and corporate executives. The absence of horizon-stretching management systems and public policies has tended to fertilize rather than discourage lawful but corrupt behavior-such as the purposeful and often institutionally supported gaming of society's rules. The current wave of institutional corruption has inevitably led to diminished public trust in our leading business institutions, and persistent public calls for radical reform. While business leaders and policymakers have been cautious in implementing countermeasures to the ill effects of short-termism, we must seriously consider them if we truly want to rein in the public and private costs of institutional corruption. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 30 Apr 2012
- Research & Ideas
India’s Ambitious National Identification Program
The Unique Identification Authority of India has been charged with implementing a nationwide program to register and assign a unique 12-digit ID to every Indian resident—some 1.2 billion people—by 2020. In a new case, Professor Tarun Khanna and HBS India Research Center Executive Director Anjali Raina discuss the complexities of this massive data management project. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 15 Feb 2012
- Op-Ed
Occupy Wall Street Protestors Have a Point
The concerns of the Occupy Wall Street movement are not far different from what business leaders have told professors Joseph L. Bower, Herman B. Leonard, and Lynn S. Paine. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 13 Feb 2012
- Research & Ideas
The Case Against Racial Colorblindness
Research by Harvard Business School's Michael I. Norton and colleagues shows that attempting to overcome prejudice by ignoring race is an ineffective strategy that—in many cases—only serves to perpetuate bias. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 Feb 2012
- Op-Ed
Once a Castle, Home is Now a Debtors’ Prison
Forget the notion of the home as "castle." Twenty-two percent of Americans owe more on their mortgages than the value of their homes. Nicolas P. Retsinas offers ideas for how these "debtors' prisons" can be turned into productive housing. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 20 Jan 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Income Inequality and Social Preferences for Redistribution and Compensation Differentials
Market-based factors have substantially increased inequality in the United States over the last three decades. If the inequality caused by these mechanisms reduces social preferences regarding distributive equality, the inequality can become amplified and entrenched. The potential thus exists for the formation of a "vicious cycle" where increases in disparity weaken concern for wage equality or redistribution. This weakened concern affords greater future compensation differentials, a shrinking of the welfare state, and so on that further increase inequality and again shift preferences. Alternatively, changes in social preferences can counteract inequality increases. William Kerr characterizes how changes in inequality affect social attitudes towards government-led redistribution and compensation differentials. The results of this study provide mixed evidence regarding the vicious-cycle hypothesis. Kerr's findings suggest that social preferences regarding inequality adjust to desire more redistribution while allowing greater labor market inequality. Key concepts include: Controlling for people's initial positions and views of social mobility, local changes in inequality are positively and significantly correlated with changes in support for government-led redistribution. While greater class conflict is perceived along income dimensions, the increases in support for redistribution among wealthy individuals are as strong as those of poorer individuals. The results of this study suggest that a short-term increase in inequality is unlikely to prompt a vicious cycle where support for redistribution declines, thereby promoting further increase in inequality. On the other hand, significant growth in proposed wage differentials are evident in the international analyses with higher inequality. While less than one-for-one, increases in inequality are associated with greater acceptance of wage disparities. This pattern suggests that labor market changes may reinforce inequality growth. How political systems are structured will govern whether rising latent concerns for redistribution produce higher effective support to which politicians are held accountable. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 04 Jan 2012
- What Do You Think?
Income Inequality: What’s the Right Amount?
Summing Up Comments were large in number and broad of opinion reflecting on Professor Jim Heskett's question, Does income inequality promote or stunt economic growth? Is there a "right" right amount of income disparity? Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 30 Nov 2011
- Research & Ideas
Only Capitalists Can Save Capitalism
Capitalism appears to be going through a crisis of confidence, evident in everything from Occupy Wall Street to middle-class riots across the globe. The fix? Capitalists themselves. An interview with the authors of Capitalism at Risk, Joseph L. Bower, Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard, and Lynn S. Paine. Key concepts include: Executives cited 10 major systemic problems that have created a break in trust between business and society, including a breakdown in the rule of law, environmental degradation, and weakened oversight of the financial system. With government regulators and politicians unable to address these problems effectively, it's up to business leaders to step up. Even as the market system has created threats to its own sustainability, it can also reward enterprising companies of any size that can turn these problems into opportunities. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
How to Do Away with the Dangers of Outsourcing
The collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh should be a warning to companies that embrace outsourcing, says Professor Ranjay Gulati. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.