Publications

2016
Working Paper

Through the Grapevine: Network Effects on the Design of Executive Compensation Contracts

By: Susanna Gallani

Effective design of executive compensation contracts involves choosing and weighting performance measures, as well as defining the mix between fixed and incentive-based pay components, with a view to fostering talent retention and goal congruence. The variability in... View Details

Keywords: Compensation Design; Board Interlocks; Compensation Consultants; Network Centrality; Homophily; Quadratic Assignment Procedure; Blockholders; Executive Compensation

SSRN

2022
Article

Efficiently Training Low-Curvature Neural Networks

By: Suraj Srinivas, Kyle Matoba, Himabindu Lakkaraju and Francois Fleuret

Standard deep neural networks often have excess non-linearity, making them susceptible to issues such as low adversarial robustness and gradient instability. Common methods to address these downstream issues, such as adversarial training, are expensive and often... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning

December 2012
Article

Behavioral Ethics: Toward a Deeper Understanding of Moral Judgment and Dishonesty

By: Max Bazerman and Francesca Gino

Early research and teaching on ethics focused on either a moral development perspective or philosophical approaches, and used a normative approach by focusing on the question of how people should act when resolving ethical dilemmas. In this paper, we briefly describe... View Details

Keywords: Ethical Decision Making; Corruption; Unethical Behavior; Behavioral Decision Research; Behavior; Ethics

2024
Working Paper

Incrementality Representation Learning: Synergizing Past Experiments for Intervention Personalization

By: Ta-Wei Huang, Eva Ascarza and Ayelet Israeli

This paper introduces Incrementality Representation Learning (IRL), a novel multitask representation learning framework that predicts heterogeneous causal effects of marketing interventions. By leveraging past experiments, IRL efficiently designs and targets... View Details

Keywords: Heterogeneous Treatment Effect; Multi-task Learning; Representation Learning; Personalization; Promotion; Deep Learning; Field Experiments; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customization and Personalization

SSRN

11 Jul 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Channeled Attention and Stable Errors

Keywords: by Tristan Gagnon-Bartsch, Matthew Rabin, and Joshua Schwartzstein

05 Jun 2018
News

HBS Scaling Expert On Finding The Next Bezos, Zuckerberg

July 2019
Article

Using Behavioral Science to Inform the Design of Sugary Drink Portion Limit Policies: Reply to Wilson and Stolarz-Fantino (2018)

By: Leslie John, Grant E. Donnelly and Christina A. Roberto

In their commentary, Wilson & Stolarz-Fantino argue that specific design features of our research mean that it cannot have policy implications and that researchers “need to consider profit maximization in menu design or studies are likely to suggest ill-informed... View Details

Keywords: Policy Implementation; Food; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy

09 Nov 2016
News

Blindsided by Trump’s Victory? Behavioral Science Explains

November 2000 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Airbus A3XX: Developing the World's Largest Commercial Jet (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

In July 2000, Airbus Industries' supervisory board is on the verge of approving a $13 billion investment for the development of a new super jumbo jet known as the A3XX that would seat from 550 to 1,000 passengers. Having secured approximately 20 orders for the new jet,... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Investment; Forecasting and Prediction; Capital Budgeting; Valuation; Government and Politics; Demand and Consumers; Product Development; Product Positioning; Air Transportation Industry; Manufacturing Industry

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2019
Article

Does Big Data Enhance Firm Innovation Competency? The Mediating Role of Data-driven Insights

By: Maryam Ghasemaghaei and Goran Calic

Grounded in gestalt insight learning theory and organizational learning theory, we collected data from 280 middle and top-level managers to investigate the impact of each big data characteristic (i.e., data volume, data velocity, data variety, and data veracity) on... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Innovation and Invention; Learning

Register to Read

2009
Working Paper

Stock Price Fragility

By: Robin Greenwood and David Thesmar

We investigate the relationship between ownership structure of financial assets and non-fundamental risk. An asset is fragile if its owners collectively have to buy or sell. Such assets are susceptible to non-fundamental price movements. An asset can be fragile because... View Details

Keywords: Financial Liquidity; Stocks; Price; Market Transactions; Ownership; Risk and Uncertainty; United States

SSRN

04 Oct 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Soul and Machine (Learning)

Keywords: by Davide Proserpio, John R. Hauser, Xiao Liu, Tomomichi Amano et al.

June 2010
Article

Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers

By: David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel

Several studies have examined how the ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard predicts changes in organizational outcomes such as profits. This is the first large-scale study to explore how employee outcomes such as employment, earnings, and health and safety... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Management; Standards; Employees; Wages; Organizations; Profit; Safety; Health; Policy

2021
Book

Why Startups Fail: A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Why Startups Fail explores entrepreneurial failure, examining its predictable patterns, how to avoid them, and how to cope when failure does occur. Part I looks at three common failure patterns for early-stage startups, illustrating each with an anchor case... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Failure; Success; Framework

Purchase

2009
Working Paper

Culture Clash: The Costs and Benefits of Homogeneity

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

This paper develops an economic theory of the costs and benefits of corporate culture—in the sense of shared beliefs and values—in order to study the effects of "culture clash" in mergers and acquisitions. I first use a simple analytical framework to show that shared... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Cost vs Benefits; Values and Beliefs; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Motivation and Incentives; Theory

Article

The Effect of Dividends on Consumption

By: Malcolm Baker, Stefan Nagel and Jeffrey Wurgler

Classical models predict that the division of stock returns into dividends and capital appreciation does not affect investor consumption patterns, while mental accounting and other economic frictions predict that investors have a higher propensity to consume from... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Investment Return; Economics; Stocks; Capital; Business Earnings; Investment Portfolio; Investment Funds; Cost; Saving

May 1987 (Revised October 1996)
Case

Murray Ohio Manufacturing Co.

By: Krishna G. Palepu

After a record year in 1983, Murray Ohio's earnings declined in 1984. The company was faced with competition from cheap imports and was experiencing declining margins. Students are asked to analyze the company's 1984 financial statements and predict whether there is... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Financial Reporting; Business Divisions; Cost Management; Spending; Decision Making; Change Management; Problems and Challenges; Management Systems; Manufacturing Industry