Publications

November 2007
Article

Measuring Consumer and Competitive Impact with Elasticity Decompositions

Marketing investments are designed to change consumer behavior in ways that help goods compete in the marketplace. Previous research has focused on using elasticity decompositions to measure how these investments affect either consumer decision making or competing... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment Return; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Measurement and Metrics; Mathematical Methods; Competitive Advantage

June 2016
Article

Social and Spatial Clustering of People at Humanity's Largest Gathering

By: Ian Barnett, Tarun Khanna and Jukka-Pekka Onnela

Macroscopic behavior of scientific and societal systems results from the aggregation of microscopic behaviors of their constituent elements, but connecting the macroscopic with the microscopic in human behavior has traditionally been difficult. Manifestations of... View Details

Keywords: Familiarity; Demographics; Behavior; India

Article

Beyond Good Intentions: Prompting People to Make Plans Improves Follow-through on Important Tasks

By: Todd Rogers, Katherine L Milkman, Leslie K. John and Michael I. Norton

Many intend to stay fit but fail to exercise or eat healthfully; students intend to earn good grades but study too little; citizens intend to vote but fail to turnout. How can policymakers help people follow through on intentions like these? Plan-making, a tool that... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Success; Planning

17 Jul 2023
News

How to Manage an Employee Who Always Makes Excuses

17 Dec 2020
News

Making Club History in Japan; Startup Accelerator Case Goes Virtual in Atlanta

making the HBS Club of Japan a source of inspiration and connection for alumni.” According to Tanaka, Japan ranks the lowest among developed countries in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index. “Female... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

Research Summary

Consumer Response to Online Ratings and Recommendations

Jolie is currently conducting several laboratory and field experiments to assess the tendency of individuals to employ predictable heuristics in complex information aggregation tasks, thus leading to search and choice behavior that is suboptimal relative to the fully... View Details

2014
Article

Unequality: Who Gets What and Why It Matters

By: Michael I. Norton

Who should get what, and what are the consequences? Economic inequality in the United States has been rising for decades, yet only recently have behavioral scientists explored two central questions surrounding the optimal level of inequality. First, what are the... View Details

Keywords: Inequality; Ethics; Productivity; Gambling; Equality and Inequality; Fairness; Income; Performance Productivity; United States

2024
Working Paper

What Makes Players Pay? An Empirical Investigation of In-Game Lotteries

By: Tomomichi Amano and Andrey Simonov

In 2020, gamers spent more than $15 billion on loot boxes, lotteries of virtual items in video games. Paid loot boxes are contentious. Game producers argue that loot boxes complement the gameplay and expenditures on loot boxes reflect players’ enjoyment of the game.... View Details

Keywords: Product Design; Consumer Behavior; Ethics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Video Game Industry

2013
Working Paper

Managers and Market Capitalism

By: Rebecca Henderson and Karthik Ramanna

In a capitalist system based on free markets, do managers have responsibilities to the system itself? If they do, should these responsibilities shape their behavior when they are engaging in the political process in an attempt to structure the institutions of... View Details

Keywords: Market Design; Economic Systems; Managerial Roles; Government and Politics

2007
Working Paper

Mental Accounting and Small Windfalls: Evidence from an Online Grocer

By: Katherine L. Milkman, John Beshears, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman

We study the effect of small windfalls on consumer spending decisions by examining the purchasing behavior of a sample of online grocery shoppers over the course of a year. We compare the purchases customers make when redeeming a $10-off coupon they received from their... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Consumer Behavior; Mathematical Methods; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

10 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

The COVID Two-Step for Leaders: Protect and Pivot

submitted, from managing a remote workforce to making decisions in the face of vast uncertainty. Not surprisingly, one significant challenge reported by many CEOs was how to position their company to... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden

Forthcoming
Article

On the Representativeness of Voter Turnout

By: Louis Kaplow and Scott Duke Kominers

Prominent theory research on voting analyzes a variety of models in which expected pivotality drives voters' turnout decisions and hence determines voting outcomes. It is recognized, however, that such work is at odds with Downs's paradox: in practice, many... View Details

Keywords: Voting Behavior; Voting Turnout; Paradox Of Voting; Pivotality; Elections; Model; Theory; Governance Transparency; Government; Democracy; Turnout; Voting; Governance; Government and Politics; Public Sector; Political Elections

05 Feb 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Stereotypes and Belief Updating

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

16 Feb 2021
News

To Reduce Gender Bias in Hiring, Make Your Shortlist Longer

2012
Book

Restoring Trust in Organizations and Leaders: Enduring Challenges and Emerging Answers

By: Roderick Kramer and Todd Lowell Pittinsky

Recent events around the world, especially in the financial sector and with respect to government performance, have severely undermined people’s trust in both private organizations and public institutions. In no small measure, these substantial and enduring declines in... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Leadership; Public Opinion; Social Psychology; Financial Services Industry; Public Administration Industry

Purchase

Article

Robust and Stable Black Box Explanations

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju, Nino Arsov and Osbert Bastani

As machine learning black boxes are increasingly being deployed in real-world applications, there has been a growing interest in developing post hoc explanations that summarize the behaviors of these black boxes. However, existing algorithms for generating such... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Black Box Models; Framework

05 Nov 2024
Research & Ideas

AI Can Help Leaders Communicate, But Can't Make Employees Listen

and mistakes and abbreviations the CEO uses,” Choudhury says. “What that tells us, generally, is that at least technologically, we can create a writing bot for any one of us.” Illustrations by Ariana... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Information Technology; Technology

October 2010
Article

Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance

By: Dana R. Carney, Amy J.C. Cuddy and Andy J. Yap

Humans and other animals express power through open, expansive postures and powerlessness through closed, constrictive postures. But can these postures actually cause power? As predicted, results revealed that posing in high-power (vs. low-power) nonverbal displays... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Nonverbal Communication; Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions; Gender; Power and Influence

2014
Article

Time, Money, and Morality

By: F. Gino and C. Mogilner

Money, a resource that absorbs much daily attention, seems to be present in much unethical behavior thereby suggesting that money itself may corrupt. This research examines a way to offset such potentially deleterious effects—by focusing on time, a resource that tends... View Details

Keywords: Money; Ethics