Publications

SSRN

February 2013
Article

Commitment and Behavior Change: Evidence from the Field

By: Katie Baca-Motes, Amber Brown, Ayelet Gneezy, Elizabeth A. Keenan and Leif D. Nelson

Influencing behavior change is an ongoing challenge in psychology, economics, and consumer behavior research. Building on previous work on commitment, self-signaling, and the principle of consistency, a large, intensive field experiment (N = 2,416) examined the effect... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Marketing

August 2021
Article

Voter Mobilization and Trust in Electoral Institutions: Evidence from Kenya

By: Benjamin Marx, Vincent Pons and Tavneet Suri

Voter mobilization campaigns face trade-offs in young democracies. In a large-scale experiment implemented in 2013 with the Kenyan Electoral Commission (IEBC), text messages intended to mobilize voters boosted participation but also decreased trust in electoral... View Details

Keywords: Political Participation; Electoral Institutions; Field Experiment; Voting; Political Elections; Behavior; Trust

January 1991
Article

A Natural Experiment in the Organization of Entry Level Labor Markets: Regional Markets for New Physicians and Surgeons in the U.K.

By: A. E. Roth

Keywords: Labor; Markets; Health; United Kingdom

2020
Working Paper

Social Attachment to Place and Psychic Costs of Geographic Mobility: How Distance from Hometown and Vacation Flexibility Affect Job Performance

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Ohchan Kwon

Using a natural experiment and field interviews, this paper studies how social attachment to place imposes psychic costs on workers who experience geographic mobility. This is especially salient when workers are assigned to locations far from their hometown, which may... View Details

Keywords: Distance From Hometown; Social Attachment To Place; Psychic Costs; Worker Performance; Natural Experiment; Geographic Location; Familiarity; Employees; Performance; India

SSRN

26 May 2015
Research & Ideas

Corporate Field Researchers Share Tricks of the Trade

The term "academic research" can conjure images of scientists conducting experiments in a basement laboratory, or of tweed-clad professors poring through old theories to develop new ones. But let's not forget about View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

May 2017
Article

Behavioral Processes in Long-Lag Interventions

By: Dale T. Miller, Jennifer E. Dannals and Julian Zlatev

We argue that psychologists who conduct experiments with long lags between the manipulation and the outcome measure should pay more attention to behavioral processes that intervene between the manipulation and the outcome measure. Neglect of such processes, we contend,... View Details

Keywords: Field Experiments; Interventions; Behavioral Mediation; Theories Of Change; Longitudinal Studies; Behavior; Research; Change; Theory

June 2023
Article

The Salary Taboo: Privacy Norms and the Diffusion of Information

By: Zoë Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

The limited diffusion of salary information has implications for labor markets, such as wage discrimination policies and collective bargaining. Access to salary information is believed to be limited and unequal, but there is little direct evidence on the sources of... View Details

Keywords: Search Costs; Privacy; Norms; Compensation; Financial Industry; Field Experiment; Knowledge Dissemination; Equality and Inequality; Gender; Compensation and Benefits; Societal Protocols

Research Summary

The Unexpected Effects of Workplace Transparency

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

Workplace transparency provides a foundation for learning and control, and therefore for satisfaction and productivity. Yet my research shows that an obsession with transparency-enhancing tools and structures can backfire, producing the unintended consequences of... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Privacy; Productivity; Field Experiments; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Human Resources; Leadership; United States; Europe; China; Japan

02 Aug 2006
Research & Ideas

Investor Protection: The Czech Experience

think hard about partner selection, deal structuring, and operational decisions when expropriation is a key risk. Second, it's an instructive example for economics and legal scholars who have begun to emphasize the role of institutions in determining the View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Media & Broadcasting; Entertainment & Recreation

2016
Working Paper

Saving More in Groups: Field Experimental Evidence from Chile

By: Felipe Kast, Stephan Meier and Dina Pomeranz

We test the impact of a peer group savings program on precautionary savings through two randomized field experiments among 2,687 microcredit clients. The first experiment finds that the Peer Group Treatment, which combines public goal setting, monitoring in the group,... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Decision Making; Interest Rates; Planning; Performance Effectiveness; Economics; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development; Social Enterprise; Global Range; Chile

September 2016
Article

When 3+1>4: Gift Structure and Reciprocity in the Field

By: Duncan S. Gilchrist, Michael Luca and Deepak Malhotra

Do higher wages elicit reciprocity and lead to increased productivity? In a field experiment with 266 employees, we find that paying higher wages, per se, does not have a discernible effect on productivity (in a context with no future employment opportunities).... View Details

Keywords: Wages; Performance Productivity

Purchase

25 Jun 2014
Lessons from the Classroom

FIELD Trip: Conquering the Gap Between Knowing and Doing

years, MacCormack has led FIELD (Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development), a hands-on experiential learning program that has arguably revolutionized education at HBS more than any development... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Education

March 2019
Article

When Does Advice Impact Startup Performance?

By: Aaron Chatterji, Solène Delecourt, Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning

Why do some entrepreneurs thrive while others fail? We explore whether the advice entrepreneurs receive about managing their employees influences their startup's performance. We conducted a randomized field experiment in India with 100 high-growth technology firms... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Field Experiment; Peer Effects; Entrepreneurial Ecosystems; Advice; Management Style; Management Practices and Processes; Knowledge Dissemination; Entrepreneurship; Performance; India

Web

Field Course: Go to Market Sales Playbook Field Study - Course Catalog

HBS Course Catalog Field Course: Go to Market Sales Playbook Field Study Course Number 6665 Senior Lecturer Lou Shipley Spring; Q4; 1.5 credits Project/Paper Overview: This course is designed for students... View Details

2018
Article

Prior Ties and the Limits of Peer Effects on Startup Team Performance

By: Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning

We conduct a field experiment at an entrepreneurship bootcamp to investigate whether interaction with proximate peers shapes a nascent startup team's performance. We find that teams whose members lack prior ties to others at the bootcamp experience peer effects that... View Details

Keywords: Field Experiment; Peer Effects; Office Space; Knowledge Spillovers; Accelerators; Entrepreneurship; Knowledge Sharing; Performance; Technology Industry; India

The field of customer experience (CX) design — which aims to ensure that customers have positive touch points with companies while buying and consuming their products and services — has grown quickly in recent years. Research has shown that memorable experiences,... View Details

March 2015
Article

Institutional Theory and the Natural Environment: Research in (and on) the Anthropocene

By: Andrew J. Hoffman and P. Devereaux Jennings

This review article summarizes the main tenets of institutional theory as they apply to the topic of the Anthropocene in the domain of organization and the natural environment. But our review is distinctive for two reasons: First, it is focused on providing avenues... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Theory; Natural Environment; Society

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Article

Gathering Data for Archival, Field, Survey, and Experimental Accounting Research

By: Robert Bloomfield, Mark W. Nelson and Eugene F. Soltes

In the published proceedings of the ﬁrst Journal of Accounting Research Conference, Vatter (1966) lamented that “Gathering direct and original facts is a tedious and difﬁcult task, and it is not surprising that such work is avoided.” For the 50th JAR Conference,... View Details

Keywords: Archival; Data; Experiment; Empirical Methods; Field Study; Analytics and Data Science; Surveys; Financial Reporting