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    • COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      Cold Call
      A podcast featuring faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.
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      • 02 Mar 2021
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Can Historic Social Injustices be Addressed Through Reparations?

      Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants believe historic social injustices should be addressed through reparations. Professor Mihir Desai discusses the arguments for and against reparations in response to the Tulsa Massacre and, more broadly, to the effects of slavery and racist government policies in the US in his case, “The Tulsa Massacre and the Call for Reparations.”  Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

      Read the Transcript

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      BehaviorRemove Behavior →

      New insights in behavior from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including how to foster and utilize group loyalty within organizations, giving and taking advice, motivation, and how managers can practice responsive listening.
      Page 1 of 58 Results →
      • 16 Feb 2021
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Information Avoidance and Image Concerns

      by Christine L. Exley and Judd B. Kessler

      People avoid information that might compel them to behave more generously. While many people avoid information due to concerns about their self-image, there is a substantial role for other reasons, such as inattention and confusion.

      • 06 Jan 2021
      • Research & Ideas

      Unexpected Exercise Advice for the Super Busy: Ditch the Rigid Routine

      by Danielle Kost

      Itching to get off the COVID couch? New research by John Beshears bucks conventional wisdom about what it takes to make exercise a habit. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 01 Jul 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Scaling Up Behavioral Science Interventions in Online Education

      by Rene F. Kizilcec, Justin Reich, Michael Yeomans, Christoph Dann, Emma Brunskill, Glenn Lopez, Selen Turkay, Joseph J. Williams, and Dustin Tingley

      Online courses can lack support structures that are often bundled with traditional higher education. Short pre-course interventions can have short-term benefits, but more innovation throughout the course is needed to have sustained impact on student success.

      • 19 May 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Global Behaviors and Perceptions at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

      by Thiemo Fetzer, Marc Witte, Lucas Hensel, Jon M. Jachimowicz, Johannes Haushofer, Andriy Ivchenko, Stefano Caria, Elena Reutskaja, Christopher Roth, Stefano Fiorin, Margarita Gomez, Gordon Kraft-Todd, Friedrich M. Goetz, and Erez Yoeli

      An online survey of more than 110,000 people in 175 countries conducted at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic found that most respondents believe that their governments and fellow citizens are not doing enough, which heightens their worries and depression levels. Decisive actions and strong leadership from policymakers change how people perceive their governments and other citizens, and in turn improve their mental health.

      • 14 May 2019
      • Research & Ideas

      Ethics Bots and Other Ways to Move Your Code of Business Conduct Beyond Puffery

      by Michael Blanding

      Digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics allow companies to create more effective codes of business conduct, says Eugene Soltes. But technology isn't the only solution. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 18 Mar 2019
      • Research & Ideas

      Stuck in Commuter Hell? You Can Still Be Productive

      by Dina Gerdeman

      Commuters who listen to music or browse social media might be increasing their chance of a stressful workday. Research by Francesca Gino and colleagues offers better ways to cope with a bad commute. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 13 Mar 2019
      • Research & Ideas

      Ignore This Advice at Your Own Peril

      by Dina Gerdeman

      Refusing to act on advice from a respected colleague or mentor can backfire and damage your working relationship, a new study says. Hayley Blunden explains the career implications of seeking counsel from others. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 05 Feb 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Stereotypes and Belief Updating

      by Katherine B. Coffman, Manuela Collis, and Leena Kulkarni

      Increasing evidence demonstrates that stereotyped beliefs drive key economic decisions. This paper shows the significant role of self-stereotyping in predicting beliefs about one’s own ability. Stereotypes do not just affect beliefs about ability when information is scarce. In fact, stereotypes color the way information is incorporated into beliefs, perpetuating initial biases.

      • 19 Dec 2018
      • Sharpening Your Skills

      New Year, New Habits

      by Sean Silverthorne

      You are resolved to turn over a new leaf in 2019. Maybe become a better boss or crank up the productivity. What are the best ways to put these good intentions into practice? Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 05 Dec 2018
      • Working Paper Summaries

      The Salary Taboo: Privacy Norms and the Diffusion of Information

      by Zoë B. Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

      Barriers to the diffusion of salary information have implications for a wide range of labor market phenomena. This study of employees of a real organization shows that individuals significantly misinterpret their peers’ salaries, partly due to pervasive preferences for concealing own salary, and a potentially strategic decision of high earners to withhold their personal information.

      • 16 Apr 2018
      • Research & Ideas

      Can Consumers Be Saved From Their Misguided Decisions?

      by Rachel Layne

      Even with a world of information at our fingertips, consumers routinely make bad decisions on everything from investments to health coverage. Can science help? Research by Joshua Schwartzstein and Benjamin Handel. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 11 Apr 2018
      • Research & Ideas

      Sexual Harassment: What Employers Should Do Now

      by Dina Gerdeman

      Organizations are realizing they are not doing enough to stop the inappropriate behavior that can lead to an awkward office environment, lawsuits, and reputation damage. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 02 Feb 2018
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Last Place Aversion in Queues

      by Ryan W. Buell

      While no one likes standing in line for service, being last intensifies the pain of waiting, doubles the probability of switching queues, and quadruples the chances of leaving the line altogether. Many service settings could be improved if managers actively mitigated last place aversion.

      • 24 Jan 2018
      • Research & Ideas

      How to Get People Addicted to a Good Habit

      by Carmen Nobel

      Reshmaan Hussam and colleagues used experimental interventions to determine if people could be persuaded to develop a healthy habit. Potentially at stake: the lives of more than a million children. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 17 Nov 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Equity Concerns Are Narrowly Framed

      by Christine L. Exley and Judd B. Kessler

      This paper based on a large online study finds that individuals tend to differentiate in their concerns about fairness along specific dimensions, especially time and money, and are much more worried about fairness in one (time) than the other (money). These attitudes may help explain a seemingly wide variety of phenomena.

      • 13 Oct 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Shopping for Confirmation: How Disconfirming Feedback Shapes Social Networks

      by Paul Green, Jr., Francesca Gino, and Bradley Staats

      Managers who use feedback processes often assume that employees will respond to them with dutiful efforts to improve. This study finds that negative feedback instead causes employees to reshape their networks in order to shore up their professional and personal identity. This reshaping lowers performance—a result at odds with the goal of performance feedback.

      • 11 Oct 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Crime and Violence: Desensitization in Victims to Watching Criminal Events

      by Rafael Di Tella, Lucia Freira, Ramiro H. Gálvez, Ernesto Schargrodsky, Diego Shalom, and Mariano Sigman

      Findings from an experiment show that victims of crimes become desensitized to violence in biological and cognitive ways. These results may help explain a troubling contradiction in Latin America: rising crime along with decreasing public concern about it. As the rate of crime victimization increases, a larger group of the population shares this increased desensitization.

      • 09 Oct 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Habit Formation and Rational Addiction: A Field Experiment in Handwashing

      by Reshmaan Hussam, Atonu Rabbani, Giovanni Reggiani, and Natalia Rigol

      This study in rural West Bengal considers the role of habituation in an essential but unpopular preventive health behavior: handwashing with soap. The study finds that frontloading both financial and social incentives facilitates habituation, and agents internalize this habitual nature. Findings help guide the design of optimal incentives to increase the adoption of positive habits.

      • 07 Aug 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior in Japan

      by Akash Chattopadhyay, Matthew D. Shaffer, and Charles C.Y. Wang

      By exploiting the unique features of Japan’s JPX-Nikkei 400 index, this paper examines how membership in a stock index serves as a source of prestige that can motivate managers and influence corporate governance norms. Findings are important for understanding non-pecuniary mechanisms to induce meaningful changes in corporate behavior.

      • 31 Jul 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      In Pursuit of Everyday Creativity

      by Teresa M. Amabile

      This paper describes the most compelling research trends around creativity and innovation. It suggests that 1) creative behavior of ordinary individuals is likely to become more important to the development of products and services, and 2) future studies should focus on such creative behavior—and related psychological states and environmental contexts—as it happens.

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