Publications

Educators

John Beshears is the Albert J. Weatherhead Jr. Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit, teaching the second-year MBA course "Negotiation." He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.... View Details

September 2017
Article

It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Question-asking Increases Liking

By: K. Huang, M. Yeomans, A.W. Brooks, J. Minson and F. Gino

Conversation is a fundamental human experience, one that is necessary to pursue intrapersonal and interpersonal goals across myriad contexts, relationships, and modes of communication. In the current research, we isolate the role of an understudied conversational... View Details

Keywords: Question-asking; Liking; Responsiveness; Conversation; Natural Language Processing; Interpersonal Communication; Behavior

Jaylon Sherrell is a doctoral student in the Micro Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School.

Leveraging qualitative and quantitative approaches, Jaylon has gained experience working on multiple research projects, as well as... View Details

03 Nov 2011
News

Harvard Business School Professor Paul. R. Lawrence Dies at 89

May 2014
Article

Cynicism in Negotiation: When Communication Increases Buyers' Skepticism

By: Eyal Ert, Stephanie J. Creary and Max H. Bazerman

The economic literature on negotiation shows that strategic concerns can be a barrier to agreement, even when the buyer values the good more than the seller. Yet behavioral research demonstrates that human interaction can overcome these strategic concerns through... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Information Asymmetry; Perspective Taking; Reactive Devaluation

March 1996
Case

Erox Corporation: Leverage Marketing

Erox Corp. is a biotechnology start-up that creates products containing synthetic human pheromones. It was founded in 1989, went public in 1993, and brought in a turnaround team in 1994. Sales ramped from $110,000 in 1993 to over $1 million in 1994, with prospects for... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communications; Entrepreneurship; Biotechnology Industry

Educators

October 2022
Article

When Listening Is Spoken

By: Hanne Collins

Feeling heard is critical to human flourishing—across domains, relationships are strengthened and individual well-being is enhanced when people feel listened to. High-quality conversational listening not only requires the cognitive processes of attention and... View Details

Keywords: Listening; Interpersonal Communication; Perception; Behavior

2005
Chapter

Fundamentals for a World-Class Leadership Programme

Meaningful leadership development needs to incorporate emotional and often unconscious aspects of human behavior. This chapter describes a leadership program designed to provide opportunities to learn, in-depth and through personal experience, about the exercise of... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Leadership Development; Personal Development and Career; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Emotions

2021
Article

Helping and Happiness: A Review and Guide for Public Policy

By: Lara B. Aknin and Ashley V. Whillans

Perhaps one of the most reaffirming findings to emerge over the past several decades is that humans not only engage in generous behavior, they also appear to experience pleasure from doing so. Yet not all acts of helping lead to greater happiness. Here, we review the... View Details

Keywords: Generosity; Helping; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Happiness; Policy

05 Jul 2016
First Look

July 5, 2016

Influencing Human Behavior By: Reddy, Sheila M., Jensen Montambault, Yuta J. Masuda, Ayelet Gneezy, Elizabeth Keenan, William Butler, Jonathan R. Fisher, and Stanley T. Asah Abstract—Behavioral sciences can... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2024
Book

The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions

By: Michael Norton

Our lives are filled with repetitive tasks meant to keep us on track—what we come to know as habits. Over time, these routines (for example, brushing your teeth or putting on your right sock first) tend to be performed automatically. But when we’re more mindful about... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Happiness; Performance Productivity; Attitudes

09 May 2008
News

New Book Looks at Deep Metaphors and the Minds of Consumers

02 Mar 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Extrapolation and Bubbles

Keywords: by Nicholas Barberis, Robin Greenwood, Lawrence Jin, and Andrei Shleifer

Ethan S. Bernstein

Ethan Bernstein (@ethanbernstein) is an associate professor in the Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches the second-year MBA course Managing Human Capital, the... View Details

February 2024
Article

Conveying and Detecting Listening in Live Conversation

By: Hanne Collins, Julia A. Minson, Ariella S. Kristal and Alison Wood Brooks

Across all domains of human social life, positive perceptions of conversational listening (i.e., feeling heard) predict well-being, professional success, and interpersonal flourishing. But a fundamental question remains: Are perceptions of listening accurate? Prior... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Behavior; Perception

13 Nov 2019
Research & Ideas

Don't Turn Your Marketing Function Over to AI Just Yet

envisioned “virtual market” machine could become a reality but would still require one missing ingredient: a soul. The “soul” is our human intuition, scientific expertise, awareness of customer preferences, and industry knowledge—all... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

2021
Book

The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

Trust is the most powerful force underlying the success of every business. Yet it can be shattered in an instant, with a devastating impact on a company’s market cap and reputation. How to build and sustain trust requires fresh insight into why customers, employees,... View Details