Social Sciences Research
111 Results
- 13 May 2013
- Research & Ideas
How to Spot a Liar
- 19 Mar 2013
- First Look
First Look: March 19
- 07 Mar 2013
- Working Papers
Prominent Job Advertisements, Group Learning, and Wage Dispersion
What role do peers play when job seekers assess prospects? This research presents a stylized model that generates wage inequality as a result of people's reliance on peers for information about the wages that are offered in the market and the length of time one can expect to spend unemployed. The key idea of the model is that people whose peers have low wages and short unemployment spells come to expect that all jobs have relatively low wages so they accept low-wage jobs relatively quickly even when they shouldn't. People with peers that have higher wages are, instead, more choosy and wait for better jobs. Read More
- 21 Feb 2013
- Working Papers
Developing the Guts of a GUT (Grand Unified Theory): Elite Commitment and Inclusive Growth
Why do some countries successfully initiate episodes of rapid growth while others suffer extended stagnation? Furthermore, why are some countries able to sustain growth episodes over many decades of rapid or steady growth, while other growth episodes end in reversion to stagnation or collapse? This paper represents an initial step in a research agenda aiming to build a unified theory of growth that considers the complex dynamics and varied roles of elites. The analytical model suggested here is capable of generating both transitory and sustained episodes of accelerated growth. As Pritchett and Werker argue, progress on a unified theory of growth would explain, better than current long-run growth theories, the onset of growth episodes. It would also examine how the dynamics of growth interact with existing political and institutional configurations to produce feedback effects on policy and institutions such that some growth episodes end in bust or stagnation while others are continued. Read More
- 17 Jan 2013
- Working Papers
Deregulation, Misallocation, and Size: Evidence from India
India carried out wide-ranging deregulation policies in 1991. Significant sectors of the economy were opened up for private participation through de-licensing and allowing entry to industries previously reserved exclusively for the state-owned sector. This paper analyzes the efficiency impact of the removal of a specific distortion: compulsory industrial licensing that regulated firm entry and imposed output capacity constraints on Indian firms prior to 1991. Did industrial delicensing in India, which relaxed entry barriers and capacity constraints on firm size, lead to a change in firm size distributions within industries? Read More
- 10 Jan 2013
- Working Papers
The Novelty Paradox & Bias for Normal Science: Evidence from Randomized Medical Grant Proposal Evaluations
A key task for executives and managers involved with innovation is to evaluate new ideas and proposals. In the sciences, one longstanding hypothesis contends that research ideas outside the mainstream are susceptible to being discounted, rejected, or ignored. These days, expert peer review in academic science is the approach most relied upon for enabling research agendas and providing research funds. Are novel research projects—those deviating from existing research paradigms—treated with a negative bias in expert evaluations? In this paper, the authors investigate how nascent scientific hypotheses are evaluated, specifically looking at the process by which medical research grant proposals are assessed by "gatekeepers": in this case, elite researchers from a leading medical school. Innovation requires novelty—but novelty, as this paper shows, is not appreciated and is in fact penalized. These findings help explain concerns about incrementalism in science and also point at the challenge that most organizations face when dealing with novel topics Read More
- 03 Jan 2013
- Working Papers
The Value of Advice: Evidence from Mobile Phone-Based Agricultural Extension
This paper evaluates a new service that provides mobile-phone based agricultural consulting to poor farmers in India. For decades, the Government of India, like most governments in the developing world, has operated a system of agricultural extension, intended to spread information on new agricultural practices and technologies through a large work force of public extension agents. Evidence of the efficacy of these extension services, however, is limited. This paper describes a randomized field experiment examining the potential for an alternate route to improving agricultural management. Specifically, the authors evaluate Avaaj Otalo (AO), a mobile phone-based technology that allows farmers to call a hotline, ask questions, and receive responses from agricultural scientists and local extension workers. Findings show that AO had a range of important, positive effects on farmer behavior. This paper may be the first rigorous evaluation of mobile phone-based extension and, more generally, the first evaluation of a demand-driven extension service delivered by any means. Read More
- 29 Oct 2012
- Research & Ideas
Are You Paying a Tip--or a Bribe?
- 28 Sep 2012
- Working Papers
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. Read More
- 26 Sep 2012
- Working Papers
License to Cheat: Voluntary Regulation and Ethical Behavior
One powerful tool, at least in theory, that policymakers can rely on to stem cheating is regulation through monitoring and sanctions. But regulation does not really help when individuals and firms who are supposed to be regulated may have the ability to determine how much regulation they face, or even whether they face it at all. This paper studies what happens when individuals can avoid or circumvent regulation and monitoring intended to curb unethical conduct. Results from several experiments show significantly more misreporting under voluntary regulation (where participants have a choice of whether to be regulated) than when they are either all submitted to mandatory regulation or when no opportunity for regulation exists. These findings have several practical implications: For example, policies imposing either no regulation or total regulation may be preferable to policies that allow for regulation that is easily circumvented. Read More
- 25 Sep 2012
- Working Papers
Colocation and Scientific Collaboration: Evidence from a Field Experiment
In recent years there has been considerable interest in the policy arena on fostering collaborative and especially interdisciplinary collaborations. Yet there is scant evidence on how to do this in practice. To learn how team members find each other in the scientific community and decide to collaborate, the authors designed and carried out an experiment involving Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals. Results suggest that matching between scientists may be subject to considerable frictions, even among scientists in relatively close geographic proximity and in the same organizational system. However, even a brief and focused event facilitating face-to-face interactions can be useful for the formation of new scientific collaborations. Read More
- 23 Aug 2012
- Working Papers
Field Evidence on Individual Behavior & Performance in Rank-Order Tournaments
Contests abound in everything from amateur and professional sports to arts, architecture, manual labor, and engineering. Just as large-scale online contest platforms that provide ongoing tournament-based work and compensation have emerged, large industrial companies increasingly use them as a complement to in-house research and development. What difference does increased competition make to individual participants? This paper analyzes data from algorithmic programming contests to shed light on the mechanisms that underlie changes in performance in reaction to increased competition. Three mechanisms may account for a performance decline: reduction in effort, increased risk taking, and deterioration in cognitive processing. The study also shows how the ability of competitors affects their reactions to increased competition. Overall, results suggest that a better understanding of behavioral responses in contests can aid both public policy and contest designers. Read More
- 21 Aug 2012
- Working Papers
Children Develop a Veil of Fairness
Is children's fair behavior motivated by a desire to be fair —or merely the desire to appear fair? The results of several experiments suggest that as children grow older they become increasingly concerned with appearing fair to others, which may explain some of their increased tendency to behave fairly. Since even young children can radically shift their behavior from fair to unfair based on whether authority figures are aware of their behavior, it might be naive to believe that shrewd adults will be fair without similar oversight. By understanding the limitations of fairness, policymakers can discover how to leverage fairness to increase socially desirable behavior in some circumstances, while limiting its occasional wastefulness. Read More
- 15 Aug 2012
- Working Papers
Legislating Stock Prices
This paper examines the importance of firms' relationships with their legal and political environment, and the actors who form this environment. Governments pass laws that affect firms' competitive landscape, products, labor force, and capital, both directly and indirectly. And yet, it remains difficult to determine which firms any given piece of legislation will affect, and how it will affect them. By observing the actions of legislators whose constituents are the affected firms, the authors gather insights into the likely impact of government legislation on firms. Specifically, the authors demonstrate that legislation has a simple yet previously undetected impact on firm prices. Read More
- 19 Jul 2012
- Working Papers
Charitable Giving When Altruism and Similarity are Linked
This paper presents a model to help explain several aspects of charitable giving. First, individuals do not appear to reduce their contributions to a charity significantly when they learn that the government or other individuals have increased the funds that they devote to the charity's beneficiaries. Indeed, sometimes people increase their contributions when they hear that others have contributed more. Second, there are often several distinct charities that contribute to the same beneficiaries, and these charities frequently differ by the donor population to whom they target their appeal. Lastly, the extent to which individuals contribute to charity differs greatly, even among countries that appear otherwise quite similar. Rotemberg's model shows that two assumptions grounded in evidence from psychology are helpful in explaining these regularities. Specifically, the combination of (1) letting altruism be larger towards like-minded people and (2) having self-esteem depend on the number of people that agree with oneself is consistent with small reductions in one's own giving in response to larger giving by others. Read More
- 27 Jan 2012
- Working Papers
Discretion Within the Constraints of Opportunity: Gender Homophily and Structure in a Formal Organization
Research has demonstrated that people associate most with others who are similar to themselves, including others of the same sex. What are the implications of such patterns for organizations? This study, written by Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart, and Michael L. Tushman, offers evidence of how and by whom formal lateral structures serve to link together an otherwise siloed organization. Analyzing millions of e-mail interactions among tens of thousands of employees of a single large firm, the researchers find that it is women more than men who tend to bridge formal structural boundaries in organizations. Thus women play a potentially valuable role in creating ties throughout an otherwise siloed multidivisional corporation. Despite the influence of a firm's formal organizational structure, people often have plenty of discretion to exercise choice. Same-sex interaction results from discretionary choice within the boundaries of the firm's opportunity structure. These results suggest (but do not prove) that same-sex interaction especially by woman can help to span formal organizational boundaries that are otherwise difficult to traverse. The findings raise questions for future research about whether conventional wisdoms regarding gender differences in social network structure remain accurate in current-day organizations. Read More
- 26 Jan 2012
- Working Papers
Behavioral Ethics: Toward a Deeper Understanding of Moral Judgment and Dishonesty
What makes even good people cross ethical boundaries? Society demands that business and professional schools address ethics, but the results have been disappointing. This paper argues that a behavioral approach to ethics is essential because it leads to understanding and explaining moral and immoral behavior in systematic ways. The authors first define business ethics and provide an admittedly biased history of the attempts of professional schools to address ethics as a subject of both teaching and research. They next briefly summarize the emergence of the field of behavioral ethics over the last two decades, and turn to recent research findings in behavioral ethics that could provide helpful directions for a social science perspective to ethics. These new findings on both intentional and unintentional unethical behavior can inform new courses on ethics as well as new research investigations. Such new directions can meet the demands of society more effectively than past attempts of professional schools. They can also produce a meaningful and significant change in the behavior of both business school students and professionals. Read More
- 28 Oct 2011
- Working Papers
Fairness, Efficiency, and Flexibility in Organ Allocation for Kidney Transplantation
For many people who suffer end-stage renal disease, a kidney transplant is considered a potentially life-saving gift. Allocation policies for kidneys from deceased donors are thus of central importance and have to accomplish major objectives in alleviating human suffering, prolonging life, and providing nondiscriminatory, fair, and equal access to organs for all patients. In this paper, the authors focused on national allocation policies in the United States and the recent effort to revise the current policy. Their design of a national allocation policy focuses on perhaps the simplest, most common and currently used priority method, namely a point system. They also present four case studies in which they designed new policies under different scenarios. Read More
- 29 Jun 2011
- Working Papers
Better-reply Dynamics in Deferred Acceptance Games
There's an inherent problem in the market design theory known as mechanism design, in that the players in the market may not understand the design, and thus may make bad choices until they learn to work the system better. This paper explores the issue of learning the design. It focuses on a particular mechanism, the Deferred Acceptance algorithm for two-sided matching markets, which is used in many real-life markets. Research was conducted by Guillaume Haeringer of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Hanna Halaburda of Harvard Business School. Read More
- 05 Apr 2011
- Working Papers
The Power of Political Voice: Women’s Political Representation and Crime in India
Protecting the rights of disadvantaged citizens remains a challenge in both developing and developed countries. These individuals often are targets of verbal abuse, discrimination, and violent crime. Using evidence from India, this paper shows that political representation of disadvantaged groups is an important means of giving them a voice in the criminal justice system. Research was conducted by Lakshmi Iyer of Harvard Business School, Anandi Mani of the University of Warwick, and Prachi Mishra and Petia Topalova of the International Monetary Fund. Read More
- 24 Mar 2011
- Working Papers
Individual Rationality and Participation in Large Scale, Multi-Hospital Kidney Exchanges
As kidney exchange moves from local networks to a national level, a new set of problems arises. One central issue, for example, is how individual hospitals can be motivated to participate. This paper by Itai Ashlagi (Sloan School of Management, MIT) and Alvin E. Roth (Harvard Business School) provides a theoretical framework to study and overcome the kinds of problems that can be anticipated. Read More
- 17 Mar 2011
- Working Papers
Marketplace Institutions Related to the Timing of Transactions
Certain markets face the problem of "unraveling," in which competition for good talent leads a firm to make job offers earlier and earlier, without sufficient knowledge about any given applicant—and in which applicants are forced to decide whether to accept a job before they really know much about working for that firm. Harvard Business School professor Alvin E. Roth discusses how this issue affects the labor markets for new lawyers and gastroenterology fellows, as well as the market for postseason college football bowls. Read More
- 04 Mar 2011
- Working Papers
From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America
No transformation looks more consequential for the history of American higher education than the extraordinary rise of business schools and business degrees in the twentieth century. Marion Fourcade (UC Berkeley) and Rakesh Khurana (HBS) analyze the changing place of economics in American business education as reflected in the teaching of three elite business schools over the course of the twentieth century: the Wharton School (1900-1930), the Carnegie Tech Graduate School of Industrial Administration (post World War II), and the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago (1960s-present). Read More
- 01 Mar 2011
- Working Papers
How Foundations Think: The Ford Foundation as a Dominating Institution in the Field of American Business Schools
What causes institutions to change? This paper adds organizational and exogenous perspective to existing theories by looking at the idea of "dominating institutions"—a class of formal organizations purposively designed to change other institutions. HBS professor Rakesh Khurana and colleagues look at the Ford Foundation and its work reshaping America's graduate schools of management between 1952 and 1965 through funding of "centers of excellence" at a number of schools, including Harvard Business School. Read More
- 26 Jan 2011
- Working Papers
Conveniently Upset: Avoiding Altruism by Distorting Beliefs about Others
This paper explores the idea that people who can take advantage of a particular situation will tend to believe that others would choose to take advantage of the same situation if given the chance-thus helping to justify the decision to act selfishly. In their research, Harvard Business School professor Rafael Di Tella and Harvard PhD student Ricardo Pérez-Truglia test their hypothesis on a group of well-heeled Argentinean college students, using a modified version of the "dictator game" in which both the "dictators" and the "recipients" are given the chance to make a selfish choice. Read More
- 20 Jan 2011
- Working Papers
Testing Coleman’s Social-Norm Enforcement Mechanism: Evidence from Wikipedia
Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and doctoral candidate Andreea Gorbatai look to the editing process on Wikipedia to test and validate the well-accepted (but little-verified) theory of sociologist James Coleman that social norm violations decline as network density increases. Support for Coleman's mechanism would alert us to the importance of punishments for norm violations and rewards for such punishments, and thus help us to design social systems in which norms are observed. Open for comment; 4 Comments posted.
- 15 Dec 2010
- Working Papers
Cognitive Barriers to Environmental Action: Problems and Solutions
Researchers have long studied the cognitive barriers that cloud our thinking and decision-making. In a recent book chapter, HBS doctoral student Lisa L. Shu and professor Max H. Bazerman look at three barriers that can prevent clear decision-making, specifically on environmental issues. They also propose ways in which these biases could be put to advantage in promoting sound environmental policy and practice. Read More
- 27 Oct 2010
- Working Papers
Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal
Can money buy happiness? Apparently it can--if that money is spent on someone else. New research shows that people around the world gain emotional benefits from using their financial resources to benefit others. The research, which included data from 136 countries, was conducted by Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh, and John Helliwell, University of British Columbia; Robert Biswas-Diener, Centre of Applied Positive Psychology; Imelda Kemeza, Mbarara University of Science & Technology; Paul Nyende, Makerere University; Claire Ashton-James, University of Groningen; and Michael I. Norton, Harvard Business School. Read More
- 13 Sep 2010
- Research & Ideas
The Consumer Appeal of Underdog Branding
Research by HBS professor Anat Keinan and colleagues explains how and why a "brand biography" about hard luck and fierce determination can boost the power of products in industries as diverse as food and beverages, technology, airlines, and automobiles. Closed for comment; 21 Comments posted.
- 10 May 2010
- Research & Ideas
What Top Scholars Say about Leadership
As a subject of scholarly inquiry, leadership—and who leaders are, what makes them tick, how they affect others—has been neglected for decades. The Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, edited by Harvard Business School's Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana, brings together some of the best minds on this important subject. Q&A with Khurana, plus book excerpt. Read More
- 21 Apr 2010
- Working Papers
Why Do Firms Use Non-Linear Incentive Schemes? Experimental Evidence on Sorting and Overconfidence
The use of "non-linear" performance-based incentive contracts is very common in many business environments. The most well-known example is salesperson compensation, though many other types of performance-based pay, including stock options, bonus systems based on defined metrics, and pay based on subjective performance, often exhibit non-linear characteristics. Research has demonstrated that non-linear incentives are highly distortionary because employees manipulate their work in order to maximize their pay. While some scholars have recommended that companies stop using non-linear incentives, little research has been done to investigate the possible benefits of non-linear schemes. In this paper, HBS professor Ian Larkin and Ross School of Business professor Stephen Leider (HBS PhD '09) explore the role that the behavioral bias of overconfidence may play in explaining the prevalence of non-linear incentive schemes. They conclude that the linearity or non-linearity of an incentive system could play an important role in sorting employees according to their level of confidence; in addition, there may be three possible benefits to having overconfident employees. Read More
- 05 Mar 2010
- Working Papers
Will I Stay or Will I Go? Cooperative and Competitive Effects of Workgroup Sex and Race Composition on Turnover
Inequalities in the senior ranks by sex and race remain rampant in up-or-out knowledge organizations such as consulting firms, law firms, and universities. HBS professor Kathleen L. McGinn and Wharton School professor Katherine L. Milkman focus on patterns of voluntary and involuntary turnover over six years in one such organization to untangle the multiple ways in which social identity influences career mobility. Predicting that higher proportions of demographically similar supervisors will reduce the likelihood of subordinate turnover, while higher proportions of demographically similar peers will increase the likelihood of turnover, the researchers find evidence of the hypothesized effects. They suggest that integrating research about social cohesion and social comparison enhances understanding of racial and gender inequality within organizations and facilitates organizations' ability to reduce that inequality. Read More
- 04 Mar 2010
- Working Papers
The Determinants of Individual Performance and Collective Value in Private-Collective Software Innovation
Why do people expend personal time and effort toward creating a public good? Over the past decade, collaborative, community-based approaches to developing knowledge-intensive products like encyclopediae, music, and software have gained prominence in both practice and scholarly analysis. "Open source software development," for example, is distinguished by self-selection of distributed participants into tasks, free revealing of knowledge, collective creation of shared software artifacts, and participants' ability to generate new innovations by reinterpreting and repurposing knowledge and artifacts created by others. The MathWorks' Ned Gulley and HBS professor Karim R. Lakhani study the determinants of individual performance and collective value in software innovation by analyzing 11 programming competitions that mimic the working of the open source software community. Read More
- 01 Feb 2010
- Research & Ideas
The ‘Luxury Prime’: How Luxury Changes People
What effect does luxury have on human cognition and decision making? According to new research, there seems to be a link between luxury and self interest, an insight that may help curb corporate excesses. Roy Y.J. Chua of Harvard Business School discusses findings from his work conducted with Xi Zou of London Business School. Read More
- 25 Nov 2009
- Working Papers
The Devil Wears Prada? Effects of Exposure to Luxury Goods on Cognition and Decision Making
Gandhi once wrote that "a certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help." This observation raises interesting questions for psychologists regarding the effects of luxury. What psychological consequences do luxury goods have on people? In this paper, the authors argue that luxury goods can activate the concept of self-interest and affect subsequent cognition. The argument involves two key premises: Luxury is intrinsically linked to self-interest, and exposure to luxury can activate related mental representations affecting cognition and decision-making. Two experiments showed that exposure to luxury led people to think more about themselves than others. Read More
- 24 Sep 2009
- Working Papers
“I read Playboy for the articles”: Justifying and Rationalizing Questionable Preferences
We want others to find us good, fair, responsible and logical; and we place even more importance on thinking of ourselves this way. Therefore, when people behave in ways that might appear selfish, prejudiced, or perverted, they tend to engage a host of strategies designed to justify questionable behavior with rational excuses: "I hired my son because he's more qualified." "I promoted Ashley because she does a better job than Aisha." Or, "I read Playboy for the articles." In this chapter from a forthcoming book, HBS doctoral student Zoë Chance and professor Michael I. Norton describe various means of coping with one's own questionable behavior: through preemptive actions and concurrent strategies for re-framing uncomfortable situations, forgoing decisions, and forgetting those decisions altogether. Read More
- 10 Sep 2009
- Working Papers
Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior
Helping others takes countless forms and springs from countless motivations, from deep-rooted empathy to a more calculated desire for public recognition. Social scientists have identified a host of ways in which charitable behavior can lead to benefits for the giver, whether economically via tax breaks, socially via signaling one's wealth or status, or psychologically via experiencing well-being from helping. Charitable organizations have traditionally capitalized on all of these motivations for giving, with a recently emerging focus on highlighting the mood benefits of giving—the feelings of empowerment, joy, and inspiration that giving engenders. Indeed, if giving feels good, why not advertise the benefits of "self-interested giving," allowing people to experience that good feeling while increasing contributions to charity at the same time? HBS doctoral candidate Lalin Anik, Professor Michael I. Norton, and coauthors explore whether organizations that seek to increase charitable giving by advertising the benefits of giving are making claims supported by empirical research and, most importantly, whether such claims actually increase donations. Read More
- 08 Sep 2009
- Research & Ideas
The Height Tax, and Other New Ways to Think about Taxation
The notion of levying higher taxes on tall people—an idea offered largely tongue in cheek—presents an ideal way to highlight the shortcomings of current tax policy and how to make it better. Harvard Business School professor Matthew C. Weinzierl looks at modern trends in taxation. Read More
- 20 Aug 2009
- Working Papers
A Decision-Making Perspective to Negotiation: A Review of the Past and a Look into the Future
The art and science of negotiation has evolved greatly over the past three decades, thanks to advances in the social sciences in collaboration with other disciplines and in tandem with the practical application of new ideas. In this paper, HBS doctoral student Chia-Jung Tsay and professor Max H. Bazerman review the recent past and highlight promising trends for the future of negotiation research. In the early 1980s, Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a hot spot on the negotiations front, as scholars from different disciplines began interacting in the exploration of exciting new concepts. The field took a big leap forward with the creation of the Program on Negotiation, an interdisciplinary, multicollege research center based at Harvard University. At the same time, Roger Fisher and William Ury's popular book Getting to Yes (1981) had a pronounced impact on how practitioners think about negotiations. On a more scholarly front, a related, yet profoundly different change began with the publication of HBS professor emeritus Howard Raiffa's book The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982), which for years to come transformed how researchers would think about and conduct empirical research. Read More
- 19 Aug 2009
- Working Papers
Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice
Are developments in the theory of taxation improving tax policies around the world? The optimal design of a tax system is a topic that has long fascinated economic theorists and flummoxed economic policymakers. This paper explores the interplay between tax theory and tax policy. It identifies key lessons policymakers might take from the academic literature on how taxes ought to be designed, and it discusses the extent to which these lessons are reflected in actual tax policy. The authors find that there has been considerable change in the theory and practice of taxation over the past several decades—although the two paths have been far from parallel. Overall, tax policy has moved in the directions suggested by theory along a few dimensions, even though the recommendations of theory along these dimensions are not always definitive. Read More
- 19 Aug 2009
- Working Papers
The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution
A tax on height follows inexorably from a well-established empirical regularity and the standard approach to the optimal design of tax policy. Many readers of this paper, however, will not so quickly embrace the idea of levying higher taxes on tall taxpayers. Indeed, when first hearing the proposal, most people either recoil from it or are amused by it. That reaction is precisely what makes tax policy so intriguing, according to N. Gregory Mankiw of Harvard University and Matthew Weinzierl of HBS. This paper addresses a classic problem: the optimal redistribution of income. A Utilitarian social planner would like to transfer resources from high-ability individuals to low-ability individuals, but is constrained by the fact that he cannot directly observe ability. Taxing height helps the planner achieve redistribution efficiently because height, the data show, is an indicator of income-earning ability. Although readers might take this paper in one of two ways—some seeing it as a small, quirky contribution aimed to clarify the literature on optimal income taxation, others as a broader effort to challenge the entire literature—the authors' results raise a fundamental question about the framework for optimal taxation for which William Vickrey and James Mirrlees won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Economics and which remains a centerpiece of modern public finance. Read More
- 13 Aug 2009
- Working Papers
In Favor of Clear Thinking: Incorporating Moral Rules into a Wise Cost-Benefit Analysis
Policy decisions may be the most important set of decisions we make as a society. In this realm, moral rules often play an active and dysfunctional role. The typical way in which we make decisions—by weighing them individually—leads us to overuse moral rules in a manner that is inconsistent with the more reflective set of preferences we would identify through joint consideration of options. In their response to a companion article in Perspectives on Psychological Science, Max Bazerman, of HBS, and Joshua D. Greene, of Harvard University, argue that cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is unfairly stereotyped. The critique of CBA in the companion article could be better framed as a set of considerations that can contribute to more careful CBAs. Read More
- 15 Jul 2009
- Working Papers
Policy Bundling to Overcome Loss Aversion: A Method for Improving Legislative Outcomes
Citizens hope their elected representatives will pass legislation that creates net gains that outweigh net harms—in other words, legislation that has positive expected value for society. However, economist Joseph Stiglitz has noted that legislators often fail to pass such legislation, even when its net positive expected value is highly significant. The psychology and economics literature suggests that legislators face an uphill battle when proposing legislation that has both costs and benefits due to the power of loss aversion, a cognitive bias that has been found to cause individuals to dramatically overweight losses relative to gains. Here the authors propose and test a new type of policy bundling technique in which related bills that have both costs and benefits are combined in a way that reduces the harmful effects of loss aversion. Read More
- 08 Jul 2009
- Working Papers
Truth in Giving: Experimental Evidence on the Welfare Effects of Informed Giving to the Poor
It is often difficult for donors to predict the value of charitable giving because they know little about the persons who receive their help. While there is substantial evidence that individuals use information about recipients to decide how generous a donation to make, we know surprisingly little about how much donors care to help their preferred types. To start closing this gap, HBS professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Carnegie Mellon University coauthor Christina Fong study transfers of income to real-world poor people in the context of experimental games. Their findings have implications for governments and nongovernmental organizations that seek to increase the financial and political support for wealth transfer programs. Read More
- 11 Jun 2009
- Working Papers
Social Influence Given (Partially) Deliberate Matching: Career Imprints in the Creation of Academic Entrepreneurs
How do people select partners for relationships? Most relationships arise from a matching process in which individuals pair on a limited number of high-priority dimensions. Although people often match on just a few attributes, it may be that some set of additional characteristics, which was not considered when a choice was made to develop the relationship, results in the social transmission of attitudes and behaviors. For this reason, social matching is only "partially" deliberate. HBS professor Toby Stuart and coauthors observe this phenomenon in an analysis of the origins and consequences of the matching of postdoctoral biomedical scientists to their faculty advisers. This work shows the imprints of postdoctoral advisers on the subsequent choices of the scientists-in-training who travel through their laboratories. The researchers' findings contribute to a burgeoning literature on the interface between academic and commercial science. Read More
- 20 May 2009
- Working Papers
On Good Scholarship, Goal Setting, and Scholars Gone Wild
When confronted by anecdotal evidence and some causal evidence, how should scholars—and indeed businesses and society—react? In this response to a critique in the journal Academy of Management Perspectives, the authors articulate the aims of their article "Goals Gone Wild: How Goals Systematically Harm Individuals and Organizations," describe points of disagreement with the critics, offer a definition of good scholarship, and suggest a program of research for future studies of goal setting. Read More
- 16 Apr 2009
- Working Papers
Phenomenological Assumptions and Knowledge Dissemination within Organizational Studies
Field-wide integration of knowledge generated by subfield specialists is critical for new discoveries and for a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of complex phenomena. In spite of the value of broadly disseminating knowledge within the social and physical sciences, scholarly discourse tends to be contained within subfields of research. Further constraining innovation and understanding, knowledge dissemination between academics and practitioners or clinicians is often limited and inaccurate. In this article, UCLA professor Corinne Bendersky and HBS professor Kathleen L. McGinn introduce "phenomenological assumptions"—revealed beliefs about the fundamental qualities of the phenomenon under investigation and its relationship to the environment in which it occurs—as barriers limiting the integration of knowledge generated within a subfield into the broader intellectual discourse of its field. Read More
- 19 Mar 2009
- Working Papers
Beyond Gender and Negotiation to Gendered Negotiations
How does gender affect negotiations within organizations or rather how do organizations affect gender relations? Deborah Kolb, a professor at Simmons College School of Management, and HBS professor Kathleen McGinn explore how definitions of work, specified roles in organizations, status hierarchies, and the politics and practices of organizational realities affect how gender plays out in organizations. Considering gender in organizations from a "negotiated order perspective"—that is, from the perspective that cultural patterns and work practices are the result of past interaction and negotiation—not only expands the range of issues that are potentially negotiable, it also turns attention to rethinking certain dimensions of the negotiation process itself. Read More
- 19 Feb 2009
- Working Papers
Dishonest Deed, Clear Conscience: Self-Preservation through Moral Disengagement and Motivated Forgetting
Why do people engage in unethical behavior repeatedly over time? In Everybody Does It! (1994), Thomas Gabor documents the pervasive immorality of ordinary people. Challenging the stereotype that only criminals violate the law, Gabor describes the numerous transgressions of everyday life and suggests that the excuses people make for their dishonest behavior parallel the justifications criminals make for their crimes. This common tendency of people to justify and distance themselves from their unethical behavior has captured the attention of several psychologists, and a long stream of research has documented differences in the way people think about their own ethical behavior and that of others. Harvard Business School's Lisa Shu and Max Bazerman, with colleague Francesca Gino, show that seemingly innocuous aspects of the environment can promote the decision to act ethically or unethically. Read More
- 17 Feb 2009
- Research & Ideas
What’s Good about Quiet Rule-Breaking
If your company quietly allows employees to break some rules with the tacit approval of management, that's a moral gray zone. And your company is not alone. When rules are broken but privileges are not abused, such unspoken pacts between workers and management can allow both to achieve their respective goals of expressing professional identity and sustaining efforts in positive ways, says HBS professor Michel Anteby. Q&A Read More
- 17 Nov 2008
- Research & Ideas
Decoding the Artful Sidestep
Do you notice when someone changes the subject after you ask them a question? If you don't always notice or even mind such conversational transformations, you're not alone. New research by Todd Rogers and Harvard Business School professor Michael I. Norton explores the common occurrence of "conversational blindness." Q&A with Rogers. Read More
- 15 Oct 2008
- Working Papers
The Artful Dodger: Answering the Wrong Question the Right Way
Individuals frequently attempt to avoid questions they do not want to answer, from politicians dodging reporters' requests to clarify their position on when life begins, to employees sidestepping their bosses' questions as to why they are late for the third straight day. Rogers, a recent PhD grad from HBS, and Norton, an assistant professor in the Marketing unit, suggest that when faced with unwanted queries, question-dodgers sometimes exploit conversational blindness—a phenomenon whereby listeners fail to notice when speakers respond to a different question than the one they are asked—by responding with answers that seem to address the question asked, but which in fact address an entirely different question. In the context of political debates, two studies demonstrate conversational blindness, exploring both the conditions that impact the likelihood of such dodges going unnoticed, and how speakers' successful—and failed—attempts to capitalize on conversational blindness impact listeners' opinions of them. Read More
- 09 Oct 2008
- Working Papers
Dirty Work, Clean Hands: The Moral Psychology of Indirect Agency
When powerful people do morally questionable things, they rarely interact directly with their putative victims. Mobsters have hit men. CEOs have vice presidents, lawyers, and accountants. More specifically, the powerful are likely to carry out their intentions through the actions of other agents, with varying degrees of explicit direction and control. This working paper describes four studies that explore the effects of such "indirect agency" on moral judgment. Read More
- 02 Oct 2008
- Working Papers
Nameless + Harmless = Blameless: When Seemingly Irrelevant Factors Influence Judgment of (Un)ethical Behavior
Most of us regularly make ethical judgments about others' behavior and make decisions regarding whether or not to punish others' unethical behavior. Although many of us know how we would rationally like to behave in these situations, little prior research has explored the systematic errors we commit in the process of evaluating others' unethical behavior and acting upon it. The present research by Gino, Shu, and Bazerman focuses on the effects of both the outcome of unethical acts and the identifiability of the victim of wrongdoing on ethical judgments and decisions to punish unethical behavior. Read More
- 28 Aug 2008
- Working Papers
How Can Decision Making Be Improved?
While scholars can describe how people make decisions, and can envision how much better decision-making could be, they still have little understanding of how to help people overcome blind spots and behave optimally. Chugh, Milkman, and Bazerman organize the scattered knowledge that judgment and decision-making scholars have amassed over several decades about how to reduce biased decision-making. Their analysis of the existing literature on improvement strategies is designed to highlight the most promising avenues for future research. Read More
- 14 Aug 2008
- Working Papers
The Agglomeration of U.S. Ethnic Inventors
The higher concentration of immigrants in certain cities and occupations has long been noted. There has been very little theoretical or empirical work to date, however, on the particular agglomeration of U.S. immigrant scientists and engineers. This scarcity is disappointing given the scale of these ethnic contributions and the importance of innovation to regional economic growth. William R. Kerr's study contributes to our empirical understanding of agglomeration and innovation by documenting patterns in the city-level agglomeration of ethnic inventors (e.g., Chinese, Indian) within the United States from 1975 through 2007. It is hoped that the empirical platform developed in this study provides a foothold for furthering such analyses. Read More
- 02 Jun 2008
- Research & Ideas
Spending on Happiness
Money can't buy you love but it can buy happiness—as long as it's money for someone else. New research by HBS professor Michael I. Norton and colleagues Elizabeth W. Dunn and Lara B. Aknin, described in the journal Science, looks into how and why spending money on others promotes happiness. Norton explains more in this Q&A. Read More
- 19 May 2008
- Research & Ideas
Connecting School Ties and Stock Recommendations
School connections are an important yet underexplored way in which private information is revealed in prices in financial markets. As HBS professor Lauren H. Cohen and colleagues discovered, school ties between equity analysts and top management of public companies led analysts to earn returns of up to 5.4 percent on their stock recommendations. Cohen explains more in our Q&A. Read More
- 01 Apr 2008
- Working Papers
No Harm, No Foul: The Outcome Bias in Ethical Judgments
Too often, workers are evaluated based on results rather than on the quality of the decision. Given that most consequential business decisions involve some uncertainty, the upshot is that organizations wind up rewarding luck rather than wisdom. From a rational decision-making perspective, people's decisions should be evaluated based on the information the decision maker had available to him or her at the time, and not based on the ultimate results. This paper tests predictions about this effect, known as the outcome bias, in two studies in which participants were asked to consider various ethically questionable behaviors. Participants were also given information about the outcome of such behaviors and were asked to rate the ethicality of the described actions with or without the outcome information. The findings extend prior research in psychology and ethics. Read More
- 25 Mar 2008
- Working Papers
Incompatible Assumptions: Barriers to Producing Multidisciplinary Knowledge in Communities of Scholarship
Just as flows of knowledge within and across communities of practice improve the quality of new products, knowledge sharing among knowledge workers within interdisciplinary communities may be critical for new discoveries and for a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of phenomena. In spite of this, biologists tend to talk to biologists, economists tend to talk to economists, and lawyers tend to talk to lawyers. This paper argues that producing and disseminating knowledge within a multidisciplinary community of practice is enhanced when knowledge workers hold compatible assumptions, even when the form and content of knowledge generation across those workers varies. Read More
- 13 Feb 2008
- Working Papers
Unconventional Insights for Managing Stakeholder Trust
Most organizations understand the need to manage stakeholder trust. The bad news: Most organizations don't really understand how to manage the difficult job effectively. However, for those companies wishing to reap the benefits of improved cooperation with suppliers, increased motivation and productivity among employees, enhanced loyalty among customers, and higher levels of support from investors, managing stakeholder trust is a prudent, if not critical investment. Trust management may require an appreciation for some unconventional insights regarding the appropriate investment of resources. Stakeholders differ in regard to the kinds and degrees of vulnerability they face; what they need to believe before they will trust also differs. Would-be trust managers will be wise to consider these varying needs and to anticipate the tradeoffs that exist in strengthening relationships with specific stakeholders. Read More
- 08 Feb 2008
- Working Papers
Psychological Influence in Negotiation: An Introduction Long Overdue
This paper attempts to encourage a better dialogue between research on social influence and on negotiation. It provides an overview of the literature on both areas, and identifies opportunities for creating more effective and useful research. First, HBS professors Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman identify those elements of psychological influence that do not require the influencer to change the economic or structural aspects of the bargaining situation in order to persuade the target. Second, they review prior research on behavioral decision-making in negotiation to identify those ideas that may be relevant to influence in negotiation. Third, they provide a framework for thinking about how to leverage behavioral decision research to wield influence in negotiation. Fourth, they consider how targets of influence might defend against these tactics. Fifth, because psychological influence is, by definition, aimed at achieving one's own ends through the strategic manipulation of another's judgment, they consider the ethical issues surrounding its application in negotiation. Read More
- 31 Jan 2008
- Working Papers
Peer Effects and Entrepreneurship
How do your coworkers affect your decision to become an entrepreneur? The vast majority of entrepreneurs launch their new ventures following a period of employment in established organizations. To date, factors such as the degree of bureaucracy that individuals have experienced have been shown to shape their likelihood to go into business for themselves. But socialization matters, too. Nanda and Sřrensen show that the career experiences of coworkers shape both the information and the resources available to prospective entrepreneurs, as well as the value that individuals attach to entrepreneurial activity as a career choice. Read More
- 11 Jan 2008
- Working Papers
See No Evil: When We Overlook Other People’s Unethical Behavior
Even good people sometimes act unethically without their own awareness. This paper explores psychological processes as they affect the ethical perception of others' behavior, and concludes with implications for organizations. First, there is a tendency for people to overlook unethical behavior in others when recognizing such behavior would harm them. Second, people might readily ignore unethical behavior when others have an agent do their dirty work for them. Third, gradual moral decay leads people to grow comfortable with behavior to which they would otherwise object. Fourth, the tendency to value outcomes over processes can lead us to accept unethical processes for far too long. Read More
- 13 Dec 2007
- Working Papers
Acting Globally but Thinking Locally? The Influence of Local Communities on Organizations
It is a paradox that in a globalizing and "boundaryless" economy, factors associated with local communities—such as interpersonal networks, laws, and tax rates, among others—remain important for understanding organizational behavior. As Marquis and Battilana argue, communities influence organizational behavior not only as local markets and resource environments, but also through a number of institutional pressures. Focusing on communities as institutional environments provides fresh theoretical insights into organizational behavior, in addition to offering a more unified perspective to the diverse set of research that is emerging on local communities. Read More
- 15 Nov 2007
- Working Papers
The Dynamic Interplay of Inequality and Trust: An Experimental Study
Trust makes economic agents more willing to engage in interactions involving the risk of being deceived. Like a lubricant, trust may positively influence efficiency and economic growth, and at the same time affect the distribution of wealth within an economy. However, trust is difficult to measure on both the microeconomic and the macroeconomic level. Survey data frequently discover individual attitudes toward trust, but cannot easily identify to what extent such self-reported attitudes reflect economic behavior, and how trust interacts with the dynamics of efficiency and distribution. This paper complements empirical and survey literature on the relationship between inequality and trust with the help of experimental games, which systematically investigate the dynamic interplay of trust, efficiency, and distribution. Read More
- 12 Oct 2007
- Working Papers
Mental Accounting and Small Windfalls: Evidence from an Online Grocer
In the course of daily life, people occasionally receive small windfalls. Every so often we are handed a gift certificate for $5 off a meal, find a $10 bill on the street, or win $20 in an impromptu game of poker. According to standard economic theory, these types of small windfalls should have no noticeable effect on spending decisions because such windfalls constitute meaningless changes to lifetime wealth. However, if you have ever been the recipient of a small windfall, you may remember thinking about ways to spend this unexpected cash, buying items you might not have otherwise purchased. This kind of behavior can be interpreted as an example of "mental accounting" as theorized by economists Richard H. Thaler and Hersh M. Shefrin. This paper presents evidence supporting some of the implications of a theory of mental accounting in the domain of online grocery shopping. Read More
- 10 Oct 2007
- Working Papers
Harnessing Our Inner Angels and Demons: What We Have Learned About Want/Should Conflicts and How That Knowledge Can Help Us Reduce Short-Sighted Decision Making
Many of the most important problems facing the world today are exacerbated by myopic decision-making. Examples include climate change, under-saving for retirement, deficit spending, and obesity. As observed by Freud, contemporary psychologists and researchers, and entertainers, people everywhere struggle to choose between doing what they want to do and what they should do. This paper synthesizes 15 years of empirical explorations of this "want/should" conflict and discusses the most important applications of this work. The results of recent studies have the potential to help individuals and policymakers by arming them with insights about how to increase the chances that they and their constituents, respectively, will favor options that are in their best interest. Read More
- 12 Sep 2007
- Working Papers
The Ethnic Composition of U.S. Inventors
The contributions of immigrants to U.S. technology formation are staggering. While the foreign-born account for just over 10 percent of the U.S. working population, they represent 25 percent of the U.S. science and engineering workforce and nearly 50 percent of those with doctorates. Even looking within the Ph.D. level, ethnic researchers make an exceptional contribution to science as measured by Nobel Prizes, election to the National Academy of Sciences, patent citation counts, and so on. The magnitude of these ethnic contributions raises many research and policy questions: 4 examples are debates regarding the appropriate quota for H1-B temporary visas, the possible crowding out of native students from the science and engineering fields, the brain-drain or brain-circulation effect on sending countries, and the future prospects for U.S. technology leadership. This paper describes a new approach for quantifying the ethnic composition of U.S. inventors with previously unavailable detail. Read More
- 06 Sep 2007
- Working Papers
Why We Aren’t as Ethical as We Think We Are: A Temporal Explanation
People commonly predict that they will behave more ethically in the future than they actually do. When evaluating past (un)ethical behavior, they also believe they behaved more ethically than they actually did. These misperceptions, both of prediction and of recollection, have important ramifications for the distinction between how ethical we think we are and how ethical we really are, as well as understanding how such misperceptions are perpetuated over time. This paper draws on recent research in psychology and decision-making to gain insight into these forces. It also provides recommendations for reducing them. Read More
- 06 Aug 2007
- Research & Ideas
High Hills, Deep Poverty: Explaining Civil War in Nepal
Nepal, the home of Mount Everest, has been gripped in recent years by civil war. A new paper by Harvard Business School professor Lakshmi Iyer and Quy-Toan Do of the World Bank looked at the roots of Nepal's conflict from a variety of angles. For the future, investing in poverty reduction strategies is a key for peace, Iyer says. Read More
- 12 Jul 2007
- Working Papers
Toward a Theory of Behavioral Operations
Research in psychology over the past several decades teaches us that behavioral biases and cognitive limits are not just "noise"; they systematically affect (and often distort) people's judgment and decision making. Despite such advances, however, most scholarly research in operations management still assumes that agents—be they decision makers, problem solvers, implementers, workers, or customers—either are fully rational or can be induced to behave rationally, usually with economic incentives. This paper builds on earlier studies to explore the theoretical and practical implications of incorporating behavioral and cognitive factors into operations management models. It then points to fruitful areas for future research. Read More
- 10 Jul 2007
- Working Papers
The Persuasive Appeal of Stigma
Are minority groups more persuasive when their conversations with majority groups are conducted face-to-face? Interracial interactions are among the most perilous social occasions in contemporary America, full of opportunities for things to go awry. People in stigmatized groups, for instance, may worry that members of majority groups hold prejudiced attitudes that can lead to discriminatory or offensive behavior. Members of majority groups, for their part, may fear coming across as biased or racist. While psychology has traditionally explored the damaging effects of such interactions on social exchange, new findings contribute to the growing recognition that stigma may be a two-sided construct, marked with a host of costs but occasional benefits. This study demonstrates the persuasive power of stigmatized individuals and shows how self-presentational concerns may change attitudes. Read More
- 28 Jun 2007
- Working Papers
Film Rentals and Procrastination: A Study of Intertemporal Reversals in Preferences and Intrapersonal Conflict
Throughout our lives, we face many choices between activities we know we should do and those we want to do. Examples of such choices include whether or not to visit the gym, to smoke, to order a greasy pizza or a healthy salad for lunch, and to watch an action-packed blockbuster or a history documentary on Saturday night. Using data on consumption decisions over time from an Australian online DVD rental company, this paper investigates how and why individuals make systematically different decisions when their choices will take effect in the present versus the future. Read More
- 22 May 2007
- Working Papers
The Speed of New Ideas: Trust, Institutions and the Diffusion of New Products
Does trust confer competitive advantage in terms of time, money, and productivity? Previous research indicates that it does. This study shifts perspective slightly and asks whether trust can also act as a barrier to entry. In other words, are trusted suppliers protected from competition if buyers are reluctant to try new products and services offered by other suppliers? Oberholzer-Gee and Calanog explored the link between levels of trust and the decision to adopt a new product using a field experiment on the diffusion of an innovative floor drain for the plumbing market. Read More
- 18 May 2007
- Working Papers
An Empirical Approach to Understanding Privacy Valuation
What do consumers value and why? Researchers on privacy remain stumped by a "privacy paradox." Consumers declare that they value privacy highly, yet do not take steps to guard it during transactions. At the same time, consumers feel unable to enact their preferences on privacy. Clearly, scholars need a more nuanced understanding of how consumers treat information privacy in complex situations. To test the hypothesis that there is a homo economicus behind privacy concerns, not just primal fear, Wathieu and Friedman conducted an experiment based on a real-world situation about the transmission of personal information in the context of car insurance. Their experiment was based on a previous case study about marketing processes that use membership databases of trusted associations (such as alumni associations) to channel targeted deals to members through a blend of direct mail and telemarketing. Read More
- 15 May 2007
- Working Papers
I’ll Have the Ice Cream Soon and the Vegetables Later: Decreasing Impatience over Time in Online Grocery Orders
How do people's preferences differ when they make choices for the near term versus the more distant future? Providing evidence from a field study of an online grocer, this research shows that people act as if they will be increasingly virtuous the further into the future they project. Researchers examined how the length of delay between when an online grocery order is completed and when it is delivered affects what consumers order. They find that consumers purchase more "should" (healthy) groceries such as vegetables and less "want" (unhealthy) groceries such as ice cream the greater the delay between order completion and order delivery. The results have implications for public policy, supply chain managers, and models of time discounting. Read More
- 31 Jan 2007
- Working Papers
Behavioral Decision Research, Legislation, and Society: Three Cases
Insights about how people make decisions have enormous importance for society and public policy, yet often behavioral decision findings are overlooked or dismissed in favor of arguments based on sometimes-simplistic economic theory. This is particularly true in Washington, D.C., where Bazerman provided expert testimony in government cases on auditor bias, pharmaceutical company collusion, and big tobacco, respectively. His experiences highlight the barriers to the use of the most appropriate social science under the existing legal and legislative frameworks. In this article that is based on analysis and opinion, he tells what happened and reflects on the need for social sciences, in addition to economics, to be brought to the legal and policy-making domains. Read More
- 22 Dec 2006
- Working Papers
Future Lock-in: Or, I’ll Agree to Do the Right Thing...Next Week
Most of us believe that we should make certain choices—save more money or reduce gas consumption, for example—but we do not want to carry out these choices. In psychology this tension has been referred to as a "want/should" conflict. Rogers and Bazerman show through four experiments that people are more likely to choose what they believe they should choose when the choice will be implemented in the future rather than in the present, a tendency they call "future lock-in." They also discuss directions for future research and applications for public policy, an arena in which citizens are often asked to consider binding policies that trade short-term interests for long-term benefits. Read More
- 11 Dec 2006
- Working Papers
Three Perspectives on Team Learning: Outcome Improvement, Task Mastery, and Group Process
Organizations increasingly rely on teams to carry out critical strategies and operational tasks. How do teams learn, and what factors are most important to team learning? This paper reports on current perspectives and findings that address these questions, looking at empirical studies on team learning from three areas of research: outcome improvement, task mastery, and group process. Overall, Edmondson and coauthors characterize the nature of research to date and assemble what is known and unknown about the theoretically and practically important topic of team learning. Read More
- 18 Oct 2006
- Working Papers
Racial Diversity Initiatives in Professional Service Firms: What Factors Differentiate Successful from Unsuccessful Initiatives?
What organizational factors are needed for racial diversity initiatives to succeed? While diversity continues to grow in importance in organizations, very little research has focused on the processes that underlie diversity management. Modupe Akinola and David A. Thomas propose a study intended to explore management initiatives that focus on racial diversity in professional service firms. Given that such firms rely on the high level of skills, expertise, and diverse perspectives offered by their professional staff, these firms may be ideal laboratories for examining diversity initiatives. Read More
- 08 May 2006
- Research & Ideas
The Cost of Cutting in Line
Harvard Business School faculty rarely put their personal safety at risk to prove a point, but Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee came close when he cut ahead in line—all in the name of science. Here's what companies can learn about long lines and social behavior. Read More
- 13 Mar 2006
- Research & Ideas
New Research Explores Multi-Sided Markets
Dating clubs, credit cards, and video games are all examples of multi-sided markets, where firms need to get two or more distinct groups of customers on the same platform. Professor Andrei Hagiu discusses this new field of business research—and why it matters to you. Read More
- 05 Jul 2006
- Working Papers
Empirical Tests of Information Aggregation
While neither buyers nor sellers may be certain of the worth of used goods, both may possess private information about the value. Do prices become more informative as the number of bidders grows? Using data from a sample of eBay auctions for computers, Yin looked at how and under what conditions auction prices converge to the common value of a given item. Read More
- 05 Jul 2006
- Working Papers
Effects of Task Difficulty on Use of Advice
We make most of our choices by weighing other people's advice counter to our own opinions. People generally underweight advice from others, though the practice is not universal. In two studies, it is determined that people overweight advice on difficult tasks but underweight it on the easy ones. Read More
- 23 Jun 2003
- Research & Ideas
Psychology, Pathology, and the CEO
- 30 Sep 2002
- Research & Ideas
Use the Psychology of Pricing To Keep Customers Returning
When to charge for a product or service can be more important than how much to charge, says Harvard Business School professor John Gourville. If you want to build long-term loyalty with customers, you better understand the difference. Read More
- 05 Jun 2000
- What Do YOU Think?
What’s Happening to Our Patience?
- 15 Feb 2000
- Research & Ideas