Publications

2008
Chapter

I Read Playboy for the Articles: Justifying and Rationalizing Questionable Preferences

By: Zoe Chance and Michael I. Norton

When people behave in ways that might appear selfish, prejudiced or perverted, they engage in a host of strategies designed to justify questionable behavior with rational excuses: “I hired my son because he's more qualified”; “I promoted Ashley because she does a... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Ethics; Behavior; Strategy

January 2015
Article

Costly Third-party Punishment in Young Children

By: Katherine McAuliffe, Jillian J. Jordan and Felix Warneken

Human adults engage in costly third-party punishment of unfair behavior, but the developmental origins of this behavior are unknown. Here we investigate costly third-partypunishment in 5- and 6-year-old children. Participants were asked to accept (enact) or reject... View Details

Keywords: Third-party Punishment; Inequity Aversion; Social Cognition; Cooperation; Fairness; Behavior

Christina Wing is a Senior Lecturer in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at the Harvard Business School. Her research focuses primarily on topics surrounding families in business, and the course she created, titled Demystifying the Family Enterprise,... View Details

05 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 5, 2007

critical action phase. We draw on the research on behavioral forecasting, ethical fading, and cognitive distortions to gain insight into the forces driving these faulty perceptions and, noting how these... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

August 2017
Case

Wake Up Call

By: David G. Fubini and Christine Snively

In 1993, three consultants at different stages in their careers must decide how to respond to what they considered to be unethical behavior from a partner at their firm. They each considered the potential consequences of reporting a senior colleague and the impact it... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Judgments; Leadership Style; Ethics; Consulting Industry; United States

Educators

July–August 2019
Article

Where Is Your Company Most Prone to Lapses in Integrity?

By: Eugene F. Soltes

Every sizable organization has integrity gaps—areas where what’s considered appropriate behavior diverges from the norms set by its leaders. Within these pockets, things like offensive language, overly aggressive sales practices, or conflicts of interest may be... View Details

Keywords: Integrity; Organizational Culture; Ethics

Register to Read

24 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 24

definition of profit by changing accounting rules. On one level, this corporate behavior embodies the capitalist spirit articulated by Milton Friedman: "The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits." But the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

18 Jun 2019
News

Where Is Your Company Most Prone to Lapses in Integrity?

23 Jun 2019
News

5 Lessons From Microsoft’s Antitrust Woes, by People Who Lived It

26 Sep 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Dangerous Expectations: Breaking Rules to Resolve Cognitive Dissonance

Keywords: by Celia Moore, S. Wiley Wakeman & Francesca Gino

2011
Working Paper

The Dark Side of Creativity: Original Thinkers Can Be More Dishonest

By: Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely

Creativity is a common aspiration for individuals, organizations, and societies. Here, however, we test whether creativity increases dishonesty. We propose that a creative personality and creativity primes promote individuals' motivation to think outside the box and... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Behavior; Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Personal Characteristics

Web

Curriculum - MBA

semester (e.g., additions, deletions, substitutions) and several of the courses overlap, so students should discuss their exact plan of study with their academic advisor. Bioethics Neuroethics This seminar undertakes a survey of the View Details

June 2020
Article

Air Pollution, State Anxiety, and Unethical Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review

By: J Lu, J. Lee, F. Gino and A. Galinsky

Lu, Lee, Gino, and Galinsky (2018) reported four studies demonstrating that air pollution predicted unethical behavior and that one mediating mechanism was state anxiety. In contrast, Heck and colleagues reported two null-effect studies on air pollution, trait... View Details

Keywords: State Anxiety; Pollution; Behavior; Moral Sensibility; Analysis

November 2016
Case

Pete & Gerry's

By: Jose Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Educators

Article

Signing at the Beginning vs at the End Does Not Decrease Dishonesty

By: Ariella S. Kristal, A.V. Whillans, Max Bazerman, Francesca Gino, Lisa Shu, Nina Mazar and Dan Ariely

Honest reporting is essential for society to function well. However, people frequently lie when asked to provide information, such as misrepresenting their income to save money on taxes. A landmark finding published in PNAS (Shu, Mazar, Gino, Ariely, and Bazerman,... View Details

Keywords: Morality; Nudge; Policy-making; Replication; Honesty; Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Policy

2019
Book

Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

By: Arthur C. Brooks

To get ahead today, you have to be a jerk, right?

Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America, there is an “outrage industrial complex” that prospers by setting American against... View Details

Keywords: Political Participation; Political Culture; Moral Sensibility; Government and Politics; Society; United States

September 1986 (Revised March 1987)
Case

Graves Industries, Inc. (B): Lohnes Marine Hardware Division

Describes events occurring over a four-year period in one division of Graves Industries. The division goes through a business cycle and uses several methods of managing earnings to meet its budget targets. The purpose of the case is to allow the exploration of the... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Crime and Corruption; Ethics

Educators

September 2004
Article

Trust in Agency

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Existing models of the principal-agent relationship assume the agent works only under extrinsic incentives. However, many observed agency contracts take the form of a fixed payment. For such contracts to succeed, the principal must trust the agent to work in the... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Agency Theory; Relationships; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Contracts; Business Model; Emotions; Forecasting and Prediction; Ethics; Standards; Risk and Uncertainty