Publications

Article

From Thinking Too Little to Thinking Too Much: A Continuum of Decision Making.

By: Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton

Due to the sheer number and variety of decisions that people make in their everyday lives-from choosing yogurts to choosing religions to choosing spouses-research in judgment and decision making has taken many forms. We suggest, however, that much of this research has... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Cognition and Thinking; Judgments; Research; Problems and Challenges

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January 2025
Case

AI Meets VC: The Data-Driven Revolution at Quantum Light Capital

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Sophia Pan

Ilya Kondrashov, CEO of Quantum Light Capital, was driven to harness AI for identifying high-potential scale-ups. Collaborating with Nik Storonsky, founder of Revolut, the duo observed that most venture capital (VC) decisions were heavily influenced by emotion, with... View Details

June 2010 (Revised December 2013)
Case

Hang Lung Properties and the Chengdu Decision (A)

By: John D. Macomber, Michael Shih-Ta Chen and Keith Chi-Ho Wong

A residential real estate developer competes in a heated auction for a prime retail development site in the interior of China during the 2009 boom. Total project cost might be in excess of $1 billion U.S. for over 4,000,000 square feet of building. Hang Lung Properties... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment Return; Geographic Location; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Infrastructure; Valuation; Real Estate Industry; Chengdu

Research Summary

Overview

Social psychologist Amy Cuddy, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, uses experimental methods to investigate how people judge each other and themselves. Her research suggests that judgments along two critical trait dimensions – warmth/trustworthiness and... View Details

The Transparency Trap

To get people to be more creative and productive, managers increase transparency with open workspaces and access to real-time data. But my research shows that less-transparent work environments can actually yield more-transparent employees who solve problems more... View Details

January 2025
Technical Note

AI vs Human: Analyzing Acceptable Error Rates Using the Confusion Matrix

By: Tsedal Neeley and Tim Englehart

This technical note introduces the confusion matrix as a foundational tool in artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) for assessing the performance of classification models, focusing on their reliability for decision-making. A confusion matrix... View Details

Keywords: Reliability; Confusion Matrix; AI and Machine Learning; Decision Making; Measurement and Metrics; Performance

April 2012
Article

The Impact of Relative Standards on the Propensity to Disclose

By: Alessandro Acquisti, Leslie John and George Loewenstein

Two sets of studies illustrate the comparative nature of disclosure behavior. The first set investigates how divulgence is affected by signals about others' readiness to divulge. Study 1A shows a "herding" effect, such that survey respondents are more willing to... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Surveys; Management Practices and Processes; Ethics; Corporate Disclosure; Judgments; Consumer Behavior; Standards

Article

Ownership Dilemmas: The Case of Finders Versus Landowners

By: Peter DiScioli, Rachel Karpoff and Julian De Freitas

People sometimes disagree about who owns which objects, and these ownership dilemmas can lead to costly disputes. We investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying people’s judgments about finder versus landowner cases, in which a person finds an object on someone... View Details

Keywords: Ownership Dilemma; Finders; Psychology And Law; Ownership; Property; Law; Social Psychology

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January 2013 (Revised April 2017)
Supplement

Maxum Petroleum, Inc.

By: W. Carl Kester

Maxum seeks an oil-price hedging strategy that yields substantial cash during oil price spikes, is affordable under ordinary circumstances, and is easily managed. It is striving to avoid a repeat of the challenging situation encountered in 2008 when spiking oil prices... View Details

Keywords: Hedging; Options; Commodities; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Risk Management; Futures and Commodity Futures; Financial Strategy; Volatility

25 Oct 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Management: Theory and Practice, and Cases

Keywords: by Richard L. Nolan; Education

Reza R. Satchu

Reza Satchu is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurship Management Unit at the Harvard Business School where he teaches The Entrepreneurial Manager, The Founder Mindset and Founder Launch. He is also the Founder, Managing Partner and majority shareholder of... View Details

12 Jul 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Toward a Theory of Behavioral Operations

Keywords: by Francesca Gino & Gary Pisano

September 2012
Article

Vicarious Dishonesty: When Psychological Closeness Creates Distance from One's Moral Compass

By: F. Gino and A. Galinsky

In four studies employing multiple manipulations of psychological closeness, we found that feeling connected to another individual who engages in selfish or dishonest behavior leads people to vicariously justify the actions of this individual and to behave more... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Relationships; Ethics; Research

20 May 2009
Working Paper Summaries

On Good Scholarship, Goal Setting, and Scholars Gone Wild

Keywords: by Lisa D. Ordóñez, Maurice E. Schweitzer, Adam D. Galinsky & Max H. Bazerman

June 2006 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Creditor Activism in Sovereign Debt: 'Vulture' Tactics or Market Backbone

By: Laura Alfaro and Ingrid Vogel

The role of distressed debt funds, also known as "vulture funds," in sovereign debt restructuring was a hotly debated topic, especially after the success of Elliot Associates in converting an $11 million investment in Peruvian bonds worth $21 million into a $58 million... View Details

Keywords: Vulture Funds; Borrowing and Debt; Bonds; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Sovereign Finance; Government and Politics; Contracts; Business and Government Relations; Peru

Research Summary

Rethinking Brand Contamination: How Consumers Maintain Distinction When Symbolic Boundaries Are Breached"

If consumers view their brands as extensions of themselves, what happens when undesirable consumers adopt these same brands? I address this question by examining an issue that is of great concern to managers of high-status brands: the rampant spread... View Details

18 Mar 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Modeling Expert Opinions on Food Healthiness: A Nutrition Metric

Keywords: by Jolie Mae Martin, John Leonard Beshears, Katherine Lyford Milkman, Max H. Bazerman & Lisa Sutherland; Retail

Teaching Interest

Strategies for Value Creation (MBA Course)

By: Benjamin C. Esty

SVC is a capstone course that integrates topics from finance, strategy, and leadership. It is intentionally cross-functional and designed to force integration at the end of the MBA program. Students develop a value creation mindset and learn that value creation is an... View Details

Article

The Similarity Heuristic

By: Daniel Read and Yael Grushka-Cockayne

Decision makers often make snap judgments using fast‐and‐frugal decision rules called cognitive heuristics. Research into cognitive heuristics has been divided into two camps. One camp has emphasized the limitations and biases produced by the heuristics; another has... View Details

Keywords: Heuristics And Biases; Fast-and-frugal Heuristics; Similarity; Representative Design