Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Working Knowledge
Business Research for Business Leaders
  • Browse All Articles
  • Popular Articles
  • Cold Call Podcasts
  • About Us
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • All Topics...
  • Topics
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Finance
    • Gender
    • Globalization
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Negotiation
    • Social Enterprise
    • Strategy
  • Sections
    • Book
    • Cold Call Podcast
    • Executive Education
    • First Look
    • HBS Case
    • Lessons from the Classroom
    • Op-Ed
    • Research & Ideas
    • Research Event
    • Sharpening Your Skills
    • What Do You Think?
    • Working Paper Summaries
  • Browse All
    Cold Call
    A podcast featuring faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.
    Subscribe on iTunes
    • 03 Dec 2019
    • Cold Call Podcast

    Why CalSTRS Chooses to Engage with the Gun Industry

    Should large institutional investors divest or engage if they have an issue with a company? In a recent case study, Vikram Gandhi discusses how CalSTRS, the $200 billion pension plan for California public school teachers, chose to engage with gun makers and retailers.  Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

    Read the Transcript

    Filter Results: (27) Arrow Down
    Filter Results: (27) Arrow Down Arrow Up
    • Popular
    • Browse All Articles
    • About Us
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
    • RSS

    Decision Choices and ConditionsRemove Decision Choices and Conditions →

    New research on decision choices and conditions from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including the hidden biases affecting decision making, the drawback of discrete choice models, and whether judgement trumps experience.
    Page 1 of 27 Results →
    • 24 Jul 2019
    • Lessons from the Classroom

    Can These Business Students Motivate Londoners to Do the Right Thing?

    by Dina Gerdeman

    In the Harvard Business School course Behavioral Insights, students work in the UK with psychology experts to understand what motivates consumers and workers. What they learn can help businesses of all types, says Michael Luca. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

    • 03 Jun 2019
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Memory and Representativeness

    by Pedro Bordalo, Katherine Baldiga Coffman, Nicola Gennaioli, Frederik Schwerter, and Andrei Shleifer

    We explore the foundations of individuals’ probabilistic judgments, looking to better understand the sources of systematic errors. We conduct a laboratory experiment where participants view abstract images and are then asked to recall what they saw. We find evidence that interference in episodic memory contributes to biased probabilistic judgments.

    • 02 May 2019
    • Sharpening Your Skills

    How To Ask Better Questions

    by Kristen Senz

    To make the best decisions, managers must ask the right questions. This collection of past studies by Harvard Business School researchers will help you gather the critical information needed to prepare for action. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

    • 27 Feb 2019
    • Research & Ideas

    The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall

    by Danielle Kost

    Product failures create managerial challenges for companies but market opportunities for competitors, says Ariel Dora Stern. The stakes have only grown higher. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

    • 27 Feb 2019
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Judgment Aggregation in Creative Production: Evidence from the Movie Industry

    by Hong Luo, Jeffrey T. Macher, and Michael Wahlen

    Selecting early-stage ideas in creative industries is challenging because consumer taste is hard to predict and the quantity to sift through is large. Using The Black List that ranks scripts annually based on nominations from film executives, this study shows that aggregating expert opinions helps reduce quality uncertainty and can influence high-budget production.

    • 12 Nov 2018
    • Research & Ideas

    'Always On' Isn't Always Best for Team Decision-Making

    by Roberta Holland

    Is it possible for teams to communicate too frequently? Research by Ethan Bernstein and colleagues suggests that groups that meet less often may be better at problem-solving. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

    • 19 Sep 2018
    • Sharpening Your Skills

    Say Again? Uncommon Advice for Common Business Problems

    by Sean Silverthorne

    Sometimes the right answer is far from obvious. Learn why an introvert may be the best choice to lead your team, taking a pay cut might make you a better manager, and why you should not trust your gut when the pressure is on. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

    • 09 Feb 2018
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Developing Novel Drugs

    by Joshua Krieger, Danielle Li, and Dimitris Papanikolaou

    This paper contributes to our understanding of how financing constraints affect the direction of innovation in drug development. The authors develop a new measure of drug novelty based on molecular characteristics, and explore the tradeoffs involved in decisions to develop more novel therapies. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

    • 08 Jan 2018
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Come Together: Firm Boundaries and Delegation

    by Laura Alfaro, Nick Bloom, Paola Conconi, Harald Fadinger, Patrick Legros, Andrew F. Newman, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen

    The study develops a simple model and provides new data to examine the relationship between vertical integration and delegation of decision-making, two critical aspects of a firm organizational design that are typically studied in isolation. The results show that delegation and vertical integration are positively correlated.

    • 11 Sep 2017
    • Research & Ideas

    Why Employers Favor Men

    by Dina Gerdeman

    Why are women discriminated against in hiring decisions? Research by Katherine Coffman, Christine Exley, and Muriel Niederle finds the answer is more subtle than expected. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

    • 14 Jun 2017
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Minimizing Justified Envy in School Choice: The Design of New Orleans' OneApp

    by Atila Abdulkadiroglu, Yeon-Koo Che, Parag A. Pathak, Alvin E. Roth, and Oliver Tercieux

    TCC (Top Trading Cycles) and DA (deferred acceptance) are the two main algorithms for priority-based resource allocation. In 2012, the New Orleans school system tried to use TCC for school assignments, but dropped it after one year. The authors of this paper compared data from New Orleans and Boston in order to review designs and algorithms for better school assignment systems.

    • 05 Jul 2016
    • Working Paper Summaries

    The Impact of Campus Scandals on College Applications

    by Michael Luca, Patrick Rooney, and Jonathan Smith

    This paper explores the prevalence and impact of negative incidents at top United States colleges covered in the media, looking at data from 2001 through 2013. During this period, the authors identified 124 widely covered scandals. Scandals lead to large reductions in applications; a scandal covered in a long-form article has roughly the same impact on applications as a 10-ranking drop in the influential US News and World Report College Rankings.

    • 01 Jun 2015
    • Research & Ideas

    The Surprising Benefits of Oversharing

    by Michael Blanding

    In a social media culture that encourages sharing of embarrassing information, revealing too much can benefit individuals but hurt businesses. New research papers from Leslie John and Michael Luca help explain why. Open for comment; 10 Comment(s) posted.

    • 25 Jul 2013
    • Research & Ideas

    Why Unqualified Candidates Get Hired Anyway

    by Anna Secino

    Why do businesses evaluate candidates solely on past job performance, failing to consider the job's difficulty? Why do university admissions officers focus on high GPAs, discounting influence of easy grading standards? Francesca Gino and colleagues investigate the phenomenon of the "fundamental attribution error." Closed for comment; 24 Comment(s) posted.

    • 21 Dec 2011
    • Research & Ideas

    The Most Common Strategy Mistakes

    by Joan Magretta

    In the book, Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy, Joan Magretta distills Porter's core concepts and frameworks into a concise guide for business practitioners. In this excerpt, Porter discusses common strategy mistakes. Closed for comment; 36 Comment(s) posted.

    • 20 Oct 2011
    • Research & Ideas

    Getting the Marketing Mix Right

    by Dina Gerdeman

    Marketers have a wide array of selling tools at their disposal, but lack an effective method for predicting their success. Associate Professor Thomas J. Steenburgh and collaborators offer a new model for guiding their marketing investments. Key concepts include: Discrete choice models commonly used to evaluate marketing strategies often provide misleading results, leaving managers with the inability to accurately measure how they can get the best bang for their buck. A new model could help managers figure out which marketing efforts work best, and therefore decide which strategies to invest in. Open for comment; 2 Comment(s) posted.

    • 02 Dec 2010
    • What Do You Think?

    Making Right Choices: Art or Science?

    by Jim Heskett

    Summing Up Is choice an art or science? Jim Heskett's readers wonder whether the question is the right one to ask. (Online forum has closed; next forum opens January 6.) Closed for comment; 46 Comment(s) posted.

    • 26 Oct 2009
    • Lessons from the Classroom

    The New Deal: Negotiauctions

    by Julia Hanna

    Whether negotiating to purchase a company or a house, dealmaking is becoming more complex. Harvard Business School professor Guhan Subramanian sees a new form arising, part negotiation, part auction. Call it the negotiauction. Here's how to play the game. Key concepts include: In a negotiauction, the rules are never perfectly pinned down, which creates both opportunities and challenges. The three common negotiauction moves are set-up, rearranging, and shut-down. Negotiauctions help in the current economic downturn by providing a more nuanced mechanism and better outcome for both parties. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

    • 11 Jan 2008
    • Working Paper Summaries

    See No Evil: When We Overlook Other People’s Unethical Behavior

    by Francesca Gino, Don A. Moore & Max H. Bazerman

    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. Key concepts include: Most people value ethical decisions and behavior, and strive to be good. Yet psychological processes sometimes lead them to engage in questionable behaviors that are inconsistent with their own values and beliefs. It is common to fail to notice or act on information when dealing with ethically relevant decisions. Organizational leaders must understand these processes and make the structural changes necessary to reduce the harmful effects of human psychological and ethical limitations. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

    • 03 Jan 2008
    • What Do You Think?

    Does Judgment Trump Experience?

    by Jim Heskett

    It's a question as relevant for business as for the U.S. presidential campaign, says HBS professor Jim Heskett. If "judgment capability" is a function of experience, what kind of experience is important? Does plenty of experience really improve judgment? Online forum now CLOSED. Closed for comment; 111 Comment(s) posted.

    • 1
    • 2
    • →
    ǁ
    Campus Map
    Campus Map
    Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
    Baker Library | Bloomberg Center
    Soldiers Field
    Boston, MA 02163
    Email: Editor-in-Chief
    →Map & Directions
    →More Contact Information
    • Make a Gift
    • Site Map
    • Jobs
    • Harvard University
    • Trademarks
    • Policies
    Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College
    • Site Map
    • Jobs
    • Harvard University
    • Trademarks
    • Policies
    Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College