Social Psychology →
- 19 May 2011
- Research & Ideas
Empathy: The Brand Equity of Retail
Retailers can offer great product selection and value, but those who lack empathy for their customers are at risk of losing them, says professor Ananth Raman. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 May 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
The Impact of Forward-Looking Metrics on Employee Decision Making
In marketing, the use of the customer lifetime value (CLV) metric encourages a focus on long-term customer relationships over short-term sales. This paper examines a situation in which a European bank introduced CLV data to its customer-facing employees, while still maintaining the incentives linked to short-term profitability; the goal was to discover whether and how these employees would modify their mortgage sales decisions. Research was conducted by Pablo Casas-Arce of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and F. Asís Martínez-Jerez and V.G. Narayanan of Harvard Business School. Key concepts include: Having access to the CLV information caused bank managers to shift their focus toward more profitable client segments. However, the implementation of the CLV metric had no effect on how branch managers decided to price mortgages. Rather, they seemed to increase sales to their most valuable customers just by improving customer service. The availability of the CLV information also did not affect the bank managers' risk-taking tendencies—i.e., they did not relax their standards just to please their most valuable customers. The availability of CLV information led bank managers to cross-sell more products to their mortgage customers by targeting segments that bought a higher average number of products, but there was little effect on the average cross-selling to customers from any given segment. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 May 2011
- Research & Ideas
Moving From Bean Counter to Game Changer
New research by HBS professor Anette Mikes and colleagues looks into how accountants, finance professionals, internal auditors, and risk managers gain influence in their organizations to become strategic decision makers. Key concepts include: Many organizations have functional experts who have deep knowledge but lack influence. They can influence high-level strategic thinking in their organizations by going through a process that transforms them from "box-checkers" to "frame-makers." Frame-makers understand how important it is to attach the tools they create to C-level business goals, such as linking them to the quarterly business review. Frame-makers stay relevant by becoming personally involved in the analysis and interpretation of the tools they create. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 04 May 2011
- Research & Ideas
Is Web Surfing Distracting Your Workers?
If you think that banning web surfing at work will improve your employees' productivity, think again. In new research on the effects of temptation, HBS research fellow Marco Piovesan and colleagues found that the act of resisting temptation distracted subjects enough that their work performance actually suffered. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 May 2011
- Research & Ideas
Casino Payoff: Hands-Off Management Works Best
Micromanagers beware: Research of casino hosts by Harvard Business School's Dennis Campbell and Francisco de Asís Martinez-Jerez and Rice's Marc Epstein makes the case that hands-off management can work to improve employee learning and decision making. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 25 Apr 2011
- Research & Ideas
What CEOs Do, and How They Can Do it Better
A CEO's schedule is especially important to a firm's financial success, which raises a few questions: What do they do all day? Can they be more efficient time managers? HBS professor Raffaella Sadun and colleagues set out to find some answers. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 20 Apr 2011
- Research & Ideas
Blind Spots: We’re Not as Ethical as We Think
Even when we think we are making principled decisions, recent research reveals we are not as ethical as we would like to believe. Professor Max H. Bazerman discusses his new book, Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It. Plus: Book excerpt. Key concepts include: Good people do bad things without being aware that they are doing anything wrong. Motivational blindness is the tendency to not notice the unethical actions of others when it is against our own best interests to notice. The "want" self—that part of us that behaves according to self-interest and, often, without regard for moral principles—is silent during the planning stage of a decision but typically emerges and dominates at the time of the decision. Organizations can monitor how they are creating institutions, structures, and incentives that increase the likelihood of unethical actions, while individuals can "precommit" to intended ethical choices. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 01 Apr 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
When Power Makes Others Speechless: The Negative Impact of Leader Power on Team Performance
History has shown that possessing a great deal of power does not necessarily make someone a good leader. This paper explores the idea that power actually has a detrimental effect on leadership, especially with regard to how it affects open communication within a team. Research was conducted by Leigh Plunkett Tost of the University of Washington, Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, and Richard P. Larrick of Duke University. Key concepts include: Members of teams with high-power leaders are likely to keep quiet in meetings, both because high-power leaders talk a lot, meaning there's not much time for others to talk, and because of the perception—fair or not—that powerful people aren't interested in anyone else's ideas. This can result in a dearth of ideas during brainstorming sessions. Leader power has a negative effect on team members' perceptions of the leader's ability and desire to engage in open communication. Because open communication is vital to any project, these perceptions can hurt team performance. These negative effects of leader power can be virtually eliminated simply by clearly communicating the idea that every team member is individually instrumental to any given task at hand. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 30 Mar 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Temptation at Work
Among the many distractions that keep office employees from their work, surfing the web is arguably the most irresistible time-waster of all. In order to deal with that problem, many companies either prohibit Internet use during working hours, or closely monitor employees' web activity. This means workers must wait until they get home to get their daily YouTube fix. But does forbidding this distraction actually increase productivity? In this paper, researchers find that the answer is no—and that delaying gratification actually has a negative impact on employee performance. Research was conducted by Alessandro Bucciol of the University of Verona and the University of Amsterdam, Daniel Houser of George Mason University, and Marco Piovesan, a research fellow at Harvard Business School. Key concepts include: Experimental research finds that subjects who were told to resist the temptation of watching a funny video made significantly more mistakes on a subsequent task than subjects who were allowed to watch the video right away. The findings suggest that employers should not tell employees not to surf the web in situations where the web is technically available to them. Rather, these companies should either remove web access entirely or, when this is not practical, allow a certain amount of time for personal Internet activity. Employers might also consider allowing regular Internet breaks, in the same way that they offer coffee and cigarette breaks. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 Mar 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Risky Trust: How Multi-entity Teams Develop Trust in a High Risk Endeavor
Work that comes with high risk requires a great deal of trust among the individuals involved, whether it's the financial risk of producing a high-budget film or the personal safety risk of working in a war zone. In this paper, reporting on case study research on a high-risk, multimillion-dollar construction project, HBS doctoral candidate Faaiza Rashid and professor Amy C. Edmondson explore the concept of "risky trust," and examine how colleagues can learn to trust each other in the midst of high-risk work situations. Key concepts include: Trusting the intentions and competence of other team members always matters, but in risky situations it's especially vital that workers can also trust the procedures of a team project. Teams can repair damaged trust not only through process innovations, but also by overcoming social barriers to trust. Leadership is a vital activity that can come from multiple individuals in a high-risk project, to facilitate and build understanding. This requires a focus on initial discourse among the team, as well as communicating the importance of trust to the project. Trust at an interpersonal level does not automatically translate to trust at the interorganizational level. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 16 Mar 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Driven by Social Comparisons: How Feedback about Coworkers’ Effort Influences Individual Productivity
Francesca Gino and Bradley R. Staats explore how the valence (positive versus negative), type (direct versus indirect), and timing (one-shot versus persistent) of performance feedback affects an employee's job productivity. Specifically, through field experiments at a Japanese bank, they investigate the extent to which job performance is affected when employees learn where they stand relative to their coworkers. Key concepts include: Telling an employee that her job performance falls in the bottom of her group will lead that employee to better her performance. But telling her that she is at the top of the group will not significantly affect performance. An indirect approach yields different results. An employee who simply learns that he doesn't fall in the bottom of his group is likely to worsen his productivity, while an employee who simply learns that he isn't in the top of his group is not likely to change his work habits at all. Persistence is effective. Employees who receive persistent feedback from employers are likely to perform better at work than those who don't, and that goes for both positive and negative feedback. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 Mar 2011
- What Do You Think?
To What Degree Does the Job Make the Person?
Summing Up: Jobs shape us as much as we shape our jobs, Jim Heskett's readers suggest. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 08 Mar 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Memory Lane and Morality: How Childhood Memories Promote Prosocial Behavior
Little Damien from The Omen notwithstanding, we generally associate childhood with goodness, purity, and innocence. This paper investigates whether feelings of moral purity can be triggered by reminding adults of their childhoods, and whether this can help to induce kind and philanthropic behavior both in social settings and in the workplace. Research was conducted by Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino and Sreedhari D. Desai of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Key concepts include: Through four experiments, the researchers show that triggering childhood memories induces feelings of moral purity in adults, which leads them to behave pro-socially—that is, to do kind, ethical things that benefit others. Recalling childhood memories also can lead adults to judge (and punish) unethical behavior more harshly than they would have otherwise. Businesses can promote positive, ethical behavior by using tasks and triggers that cause employees to hearken back to their childhoods. For example, Google, Disney, and IDEO decorate their offices with toys and colorful furniture. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 28 Feb 2011
- Research & Ideas
The Importance of ‘Don’t’ in Inducing Ethical Employee Behavior
In a new study, HBS professors Francesca Gino and Joshua D. Margolis look at two ways that companies can encourage ethical behavior: the promotion of good deeds or the prevention of bad deeds. It turns out that employees tend to act more ethically when focused on what not to do. That can be problematic in firms where success is commonly framed in terms of advancement of positive outcomes rather than prevention of bad ones. Key concepts include: In general, there are two ways a company can encourage ethical conduct among its employees: either the promotion of good actions and outcomes or the prevention of bad ones. Through several experiments, the professors found that inducing a prevention focus will lead to ethical behavior more than inducing a promotion focus. In encouraging ethical behavior among employees, it behooves firms to consider focusing on preventing negative outcomes, not only in creating a code of ethics but also in setting goals and framing task directives. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 Feb 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
The Dark Side of Creativity: Original Thinkers Can Be More Dishonest
Anyone who has spent significant time with artists knows that creative genius often comes with a dark side. This paper offers experimental evidence, specifically with regard to the relationship between creativity and unethical behavior. Research involving four experiments with university students was conducted by Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of the Fuqua School of Business. Key concepts include: Creative students who showed a natural aptitude for divergent thinking tended to cheat more than linear thinkers. Creativity is a better predictor of unethical behavior than intelligence. Students who were deliberately induced to think creatively were, in turn, more likely to cheat than those who weren't primed to think outside the box. Creative people are more likely to cheat in part because their creativity helps them to come up with ingenious explanations to justify their unethical behavior. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 24 Jan 2011
- HBS Case
Terror at the Taj
Under terrorist attack, employees of the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower bravely stayed at their posts to help guests. A look at the hotel's customer-centered culture and value system. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 27 Dec 2010
- Research & Ideas
HBS Faculty on 2010’s Biggest Business Developments
Three Harvard Business School professors—former Medtronic chairman and CEO Bill George, economist and entrepreneurship expert William Sahlman, and innovation and strategy authority Rosabeth Moss Kanter—offer their thoughts on the most significant business and economic developments of 2010. Key concepts include: Social networking is the most significant business development of 2010, says Bill George, noting that some 600 million people are now active on Facebook—and half of them spend at least an hour per day on the site. The problems of the Great Recession continued to dominate the economy in 2010, according to Bill Sahlman, who says that the popular media have grossly underestimated both the current deficit and level of debt in the United States. Rosabeth Kanter points out that new technology shined in 2010, in spite of the world's economic anxieties. She gives kudos to the Apple iPad, which accelerated the trend toward digital content. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 13 Dec 2010
- Research & Ideas
Managing the Support Staff Identity Crisis
Employees not connected directly to profit and loss can suffer from a collective "I-am-not-strategic" identity crisis. Professor Ranjay Gulati suggests that business managers allow so-called support function employees to become catalysts for change. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 03 Dec 2010
- Working Paper Summaries
Creating Leaders: An Ontological Model
HBS professor emeritus Michael C. Jensen and coauthors have created an ontological approach to creating leaders in which leadership emerges through spontaneous and intuitive natural self-expression. Key concepts include: The ontological model of leader and leadership opens up and reveals the actual nature of being when one is being a leader. It also opens up and reveals the source of one's actions when exercising leadership. Ontology's associated phenomenological methodology provides actionable access to what has been opened up. Students do not need to study ontology or phenomenology. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
Signing at the Top: The Key to Preventing Tax Fraud?
In filling out self-reported documents such as tax forms, we declare the information truthful with our signature, but usually we sign at the end of the form. Researchers Francesca Gino and Lisa Shu discuss whether governments and companies can bolster honesty simply by moving the honesty pledge and signature line to the top of the form, before people encounter the opportunity to cheat. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.