Publications

23 Sep 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Applying Random Coefficient Models to Strategy Research: Testing for Firm Heterogeneity, Predicting Firm-Specific Coefficients, and Estimating Strategy Trade-Offs

Keywords: by Juan Alcácer, Wilbur Chung, Ashton Hawk & Gonçalo Pacheco-de-Almeida

February 2009 (Revised August 2021)
Supplement

Jieliang Phone Home! (B)

By: Willy Shih, Ethan Bernstein and Nina Bilimoria

At Precision Electro-Tek's mobile phone manufacturing facility in southern China, thousands of operators—bright and capable young men and (mostly) women like Jieliang Hao—are motivated to improve line productivity through small innovations for faster assembly and have... View Details

Keywords: Managing People; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Production; Innovation and Invention; Performance Productivity; Groups and Teams; Management Practices and Processes; Compensation and Benefits; Labor; Surveys; Decisions; Manufacturing Industry; China

Purchase

2006
Working Paper

The Limits of Authority: Motivation versus Coordination

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

This paper studies the effects of open disagreement on motivation and coordination. It shows how, in the presence of differing priors, motivation and coordination impose conflicting demands on the allocation of authority, leading to a trade-off between the... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Governance Controls; Organizational Culture; Agency Theory; Conflict and Resolution; Motivation and Incentives

17 Oct 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Sharing Design Rights: A Commons Approach for Developing Infrastructure

Keywords: by Nuno Gil & Carliss Y. Baldwin

2015
Working Paper

Blinded by Experience: Prior Experience, Negative News and Belief Updating

By: Bradley R. Staats, Diwas S. KC and Francesca Gino

Traditional models of operations management involve dynamic decision-making assuming optimal (Bayesian) updating. However, behavioral theory suggests that individuals exhibit bias in their beliefs and decisions. We conduct both a field study and two laboratory studies... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Operations; Egocentric Bias; Experience; Healthcare Operations; Prejudice and Bias; Behavior; Operations; Decision Making; Health Care and Treatment

September 2024
Article

Political Elite Cues and Attitude Formation in Post-Conflict Contexts

By: Natalia Garbiras-Díaz, Miguel Garcia-Sanchez and Aila M. Matanock

Civil conflicts typically end with negotiated settlements, but many settlements fail, often during the implementation stage when average citizens have increasing influence. Citizens sometimes evaluate peace agreements by voting on referendums or the negotiating... View Details

Keywords: Civil Unrest; Peace Process; Political Leadership; Peace; Politics; Policy Change; Policy; Government and Politics; Government Administration; Governance; Political Elections; Civil Society or Community; Negotiation; Negotiation Participants; Public Relations Industry; Colombia; Latin America; South America

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Purchase

2007
Working Paper

Recognizing the New: A Multi-Agent Model of Analogy in Strategic Decision-Making

By: Giovanni Gavetti and Massimo Warglien

In novel environments, strategic decision-making is often premised on analogy, and recognition lies at its heart. Recognition refers to a class of cognitive processes through which a problem is interpreted associatively in terms of something that has been experienced... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Decision Choices and Conditions; Mathematical Methods; Cognition and Thinking; Power and Influence

12 Dec 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 12, 2017

Organizational Behavior The Energizing Nature of Work Engagement: Toward a New Need-Based Theory of Work Motivation By: Green, Paul, Eli Finkel, Grainne Fitzsimons, and Francesca Gino Abstract—We present View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2007
Article

Cooperation between Corporations and Environmental Groups: A Transaction Cost Perspective

Theory suggests that when transaction costs are low, corporations and stakeholders can minimize social costs by transacting to their mutual advantage, but when transaction costs are high, reducing social costs requires the intervention of a centralized institution.... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Cost; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Competitive Advantage; Cooperation

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20 Dec 2011
First Look

First Look: December 20

Thought Theory (UTT); namely, that unconscious thought is a bottom-up process, whereas conscious thought is a top-down process. In two experiments on impression formation, participants read behavioral information about a fictitious person... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

04 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America

Keywords: by Marion Fourcade & Rakesh Khurana; Education

October 1, 2021
Article

An Evaluation of Cross-efficiency Methods: With an Application to Warehouse Performance.

By: B.M. Balk, M.R. De Koster, Christian Kaps and J.L. Zofio

Cross-efficiency measurement is an extension of Data Envelopment Analysis that allows for tie-breaking ranking of the Decision Making Units (DMUs) using all the peer evaluations. In this article we examine the theory of cross-efficiency measurement by comparing a... View Details

Keywords: Efficiency Analysis; Performance Benchmarking; Warehousing; Analytics and Data Science; Performance Evaluation; Measurement and Metrics; Mathematical Methods

Article

Mission-Driven Governance

By: Raymond Fisman, Rakesh Khurana and Edward Martenson

The purpose of this paper is to provide a useful, easily applied theory of governance performance. The existing model is fundamentally adversarial, rooted in the paradigm of principal-agent conflict. At its base is an image of governance as a never-ending struggle... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Knowledge Management; Standards; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Evaluation

Find at Harvard

08 Jan 2007
What Do You Think?

Neuro Economics: Science or Science Fiction?

risk and return are assessed in different parts of the brain, thereby questioning theories regarding expected utility on which a great deal of decision theory has been based up... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

Forthcoming
Article

People Overestimate How Harshly They Are Evaluated for Disengaging from Passion Pursuit

By: Zachariah Berry, Brian J. Lucas and Jon M. Jachimowicz

The call to pursue one’s passion is ubiquitous advice, and prior research highlights the many upsides to doing so. To pursue one’s passion sustainably, people need to try different pursuits— and critically, drop those that are not tenable for them. However,... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Attitudes; Perception; Judgments; Behavior; Goals and Objectives

03 Dec 2008
What Do You Think?

Can Housing and Credit be “Nudged” Back to Health?

one might conclude that efforts to influence human decisions through "nudging" might be effective. However, respondents were far from unanimous in drawing this conclusion. Adnan Younis Lodhi initiated the debate by saying... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

February 2005 (Revised November 2016)
Background Note

Forecasting the Adoption of a New Product

By: Elie Ofek

Provides tools and methodologies that allow forecasting demand for innovative new products. Highlights the Bass model—the theory behind it and ways to determine its parameters. Provides a detailed example of how to use the Bass model to forecast demand for satellite... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Mathematical Methods; Competition

Educators

Purchase

19 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Inexperienced Investors and Market Bubbles

"sticky"—funds that perform well attract considerable inflows, but funds that underperform receive only modest outflows. Thus, it's not clear that inexperienced managers were punished for the decisions they made during the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

2014
Working Paper

Speaking of Corporate Social Responsibility

By: Hao Liang, Christopher Marquis, Luc Renneboog and Sunny Li Sun

We argue that the language spoken by corporate decision makers influences their firms' social responsibility and sustainability practices. Linguists suggest that obligatory future-time-reference (FTR) in a language reduces the psychological importance of the future.... View Details

Keywords: Language; Future-Time-Reference; Categories; Culture; Corporate Social Responsibility; Sustainability; Communication; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact