Publications

01 Dec 2022
News

Elevator Pitch: Common Knowledge

Illustration by Drue Wagner Illustration by Drue Wagner Matthew Ross (MBA 2022) Cofounder and CEO, Trove Health 2022–2023 Blavatnik Fellow Concept: Trove is building the world’s largest longitudinal database of patients and their health information across geographies... View Details

Keywords: entrepreneurship; healthcare; data; technology; Blavatnik Fellowship

Article

Maimonides' Ladder: States of Mutual Knowledge and the Perception of Charitability

By: Julian De Freitas, Peter DiScioli, Kyle A. Thomas and Steven Pinker

Why do people esteem anonymous charitable giving? We connect normative theories of charitability (captured in Maimonides’ Ladder of Charity) with evolutionary theories of partner choice to test predictions on how attributions of charitability are affected by states of... View Details

Keywords: Charity; Reciprocity; Partner Choice; Common Knowledge; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Knowledge; Perception

July 9, 2019
Article

Common Knowledge, Coordination, and Strategic Mentalizing in Human Social Life

By: Julian De Freitas, Kyle A. Thomas, Peter DiScioli and Steven Pinker

People often coordinate for mutual gain, such as keeping to opposite sides of a stairway, dubbing an object or place with a name, or assembling en masse to protest a regime. Because successful coordination requires complementary choices, these opportunities raise the... View Details

Keywords: Coordination; Common Knowledge; Theory Of Mind; Bystander Effect; Knowledge; Cooperation

2018
Conference Presentation

Strategic Mentalizing and Common Knowledge in Social Life

By: Julian De Freitas

2015
Conference Presentation

The Strategic Bystander: Recursive Theory of Mind and Common Knowledge in Decisions to Help

By: J. De Freitas, K. A. Thomas, P. DeScioli and S. Pinker

03 Apr 2019
News

Finding Common Ground

nights in a shelter during a three-year period), Cicero data indicates that more than 70 percent of homeless people have spent fewer than 90 nights in a shelter over the last three years. That knowledge sheds light on the need to... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg

Research Summary

Competing on a Common Platform

Why have over 100 firms joined the Eclipse Foundation to collectively produce an open source platform and tools for software application development? What are they trying to accomplish? This research analyzes IBMs divestment of the Eclipse Java Integrated Development... View Details

04 Aug 2011
What Do You Think?

How Dangerous Is Common Sense to Managers?

Tharian, for example, said "common sense is quite often related to wisdom (from accumulated experience vs. the knowledge that the younger generation acquires so rapidly through social networks)." Noting that Webster's Dictionary... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

04 Jan 2010
Research & Ideas

Best of HBS Working Knowledge 2009

What were the management trends in 2009? Fascination with social networking and rethinking common wisdom about goal setting. Here are the Top 10 articles and Top 5 working papers that appeared in HBS Working View Details

Keywords: by Staff

06 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Motivate Your High Performers to Share Their Knowledge

barriers tend to get in the way: lower-performing employees are too reticent to ask for help, or higher-performing employees are reluctant to give it. “This suggests that performance is more malleable and can be changed if you give people the right environment to gain... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

09 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Accounting Scholarship That Advances Professional Knowledge and Practice

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan; Education

2009
Working Paper

Specific Knowledge and Divisional Performance Measurement

By: Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling

This paper discusses five common divisional performance measurement methods—cost centers, revenue centers, profit centers, investment centers, and expense centers—providing a theory that explains when each of these methods is likely to be the most efficient. The... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Business Headquarters; Decisions; Cost; Investment; Investment Return; Profit; Revenue; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Managerial Roles; Performance Efficiency; Strategy

SSRN

08 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Knowledge Transfer: You Can't Learn Surgery By Watching

prepare content that will suit everyone and cover every situation, the authors necessarily strip out the nuance of how things really work in a corporate context. “What we often get in a knowledge management system is the least View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health

07 Oct 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Specific Knowledge and Divisional Performance Measurement

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen & William H. Meckling

2011
Chapter

Knowledge Structures and Innovation: Useful Abstractions and Unanswered Questions

By: Gautam Ahuja and Elena Novelli

We examine the received research on organizational knowledge structures with a special focus on their link to innovation. We note that the literature has used the term knowledge structure to represent three quite distinct components of organizational knowledge: the... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Management; Innovation and Invention

Purchase

31 Jul 2014
News

Making Private Equity Public Knowledge

needed to know," says Sheyner, who went on to work in private equity at Fidelity Equity Partners and Bain Capital Partners before coming to HBS. PE PREP The most common question in private equity interviews? "Walk me through your past... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell

Web

HBS Working Knowledge – Harvard Business School Faculty Research

could other businesses learn from his ascent? What Will It Take to Confront the Invisible Mental Health Crisis in Business? by Kara Baskin 09 NOV 2023 | HBS Case The pressure to do more, to be more, is fueling its own silent epidemic. Lauren Cohen discusses the View Details

Article

The Feeling of Not Knowing It All

By: Haiyang Yang, Ziv Carmon, Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton

How do consumers assess their mastery of knowledge they have learned? We explore this question by investigating a common knowledge consumption situation: encountering opportunities for further learning. We argue and show that such opportunities can trigger a... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Consumption; Consumption Of Learning; Judgment Of Knowledge; Feeling Ofknowing; Confidence In Knowledge; WYSIATI; FONKIA; Knowledge Acquisition; Learning; Perception

Article

Common Variants of the Oxytocin Receptor Gene Do Not Predict the Positive Mood Benefits of Prosocial Spending

By: Ashley V. Whillans, Lara B. Aknin, Colin Ross, Lihan Chen and Frances S. Chen

Who benefits most from helping others? Previous research suggests that common polymorphisms of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) predict whether people behave generously and experience increases in positive mood in response to socially-focused experiences in daily... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Behavior; Positivity; Behavior Genetics; Individual Differences; Behavior; Emotions; Genetics; Spending