Publications

2023
Working Paper

The Complexity of Economic Decisions

By: Xavier Gabaix and Thomas Graeber

We propose a theory of the complexity of economic decisions. Leveraging a macroeconomic framework of production functions, we conceptualize the mind as a cognitive economy, where a task’s complexity is determined by its composition of cognitive operations. Complexity... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Complexity; Perception; Consumer Behavior; Production

2015
Chapter

The Fourth Wave: Business Management and Business Education in the Age of the Anthropocene

By: Andrew J. Hoffman and John Ehrenfeld

Sustainability has become mainstream in both management practice and management research. Firms incorporate sustainability strategies into their core mission. University administrators promote sustainability as central to their curricula. Scholars pursue sustainability... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Natural Environment; Leading Change; Management Systems

January 2024
Article

Investing with the Government: A Field Experiment in China

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Bo Li and Ernest Liu

We study the demand for government participation in China’s venture capital and private equity market. We conduct a large-scale, non-deceptive field experiment in collaboration with the leading industry service provider, through which we survey both capital investors... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Private Equity; Business and Government Relations; Entrepreneurship; China

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

August 2018
Article

Deep Help in Complex Project Work: Guiding and Path-Clearing Across Difficult Terrain

By: Colin M. Fisher, Julianna Pillemer and Teresa M. Amabile

How do teams working on complex projects get the help they need? Our qualitative investigation of the help provided to project teams at a prominent design firm revealed two distinct helping processes, both characterized by deep, sustained engagement that far exceeds... View Details

Keywords: Helping; Rhythm; Prosocial Behavior; External Team Leadership; Social Construction; Time; Qualitative Methods; Field Research; Groups and Teams; Projects; Behavior; Leadership; Social and Collaborative Networks

April 2018
Article

Compromised Ethics in Hiring Processes? How Referrers' Power Affects Employees' Reactions to Referral Practices

By: Rellie Derfler-Rozin, Bradford Baker and F. Gino

In this paper, we explore referral-based hiring practices and show how a referrer’s power (relative to the hiring manager) influences other organizational members’ support (or lack thereof) for who is hired through perceptions of the hiring manager’s motives and... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Ethics; Perception

2016
Article

Organizational Decision-Making and Information: Angel Investments by Venture Capital Partners

By: Andy Wu

We study information aggregation in organizational decision-making for the financing of entrepreneurial ventures. We introduce a formal model of voting where agents face costly tacit information to improve their decision quality. Equilibrium outcomes suggest a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Angel Investors; Organization Design; Voting; Group Decision-making; Information; Strategy; Organizations; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Financing and Loans

November – December 2011
Article

Competitive Strategy for Open Source Software

By: Vineet Kumar, Brett Gordon and Kannan Srinivasan

Commercial open source software (COSS) products-privately developed software based on publicly available source code-represent a rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar market. A unique aspect of competition in the COSS market is that many open source licenses require... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Product Development; Growth and Development; Markets; Motivation and Incentives; Quality; Policy; Perspective; Profit; Open Source Distribution; Emerging Markets

March 2008 (Revised November 2008)
Case

Sony Digital Entertainment, Japan

By: Anita Elberse

It is late 2007. So-called cell phone ("keitai") novels have turned into an extremely popular form of entertainment-on-the- go in Japan, in particular among young, female readers. In fact, consisting mostly of love stories written by amateurs in short sentences and... View Details

Keywords: Books; Marketing Strategy; Open Source Distribution; Competition; Mobile Technology; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Publishing Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Japan

Educators

December 1998
Article

Entrepreneurs and Business Performance in Nineteenth Century France

By: Tom Nicholas, Elisa Boccaletti and James Foreman-Peck

A popular explanation for the supposed "delayed industrialisation" of the nineteenth century French economy has been the inappropriate attitudes and actions of the managerial classes and family firms. To address these claims we model the supply and demand for... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Performance; Economy; Management; Success; Opportunities; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Saving; Higher Education; Training; Demand and Consumers; France

2022
Working Paper

The Disagreement Problem in Explainable Machine Learning: A Practitioner's Perspective

By: Satyapriya Krishna, Tessa Han, Alex Gu, Javin Pombra, Shahin Jabbari, Steven Wu and Himabindu Lakkaraju

As various post hoc explanation methods are increasingly being leveraged to explain complex models in high-stakes settings, it becomes critical to develop a deeper understanding of if and when the explanations output by these methods disagree with each other, and how... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Mathematical Methods

Article

Third-Party Punishment as a Costly Signal of High Continuation Probabilities in Repeated Games

By: Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand

Why do individuals pay costs to punish selfish behavior, even as third-party observers? A large body of research suggests that reputation plays an important role in motivating such third-party punishment (TPP). Here we focus on a recently proposed reputation-based... View Details

Keywords: Direct Reciprocity; Evolution; Dispersal; Cooperation; Trust; Reputation; Game Theory

25 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The Importance of Teaming

will take care of itself. This model focused on the team as an entity, looking largely within the well-defined bounds of a team to explain its performance. Other research, notably conducted by MIT Professor Deborah Ancona, showed that how... View Details

Keywords: Re: Amy C. Edmondson

October 2008 (Revised October 2009)
Case

New Century Financial Corporation

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Suraj Srinivasan and Aldo Sesia

After years of rapid growth and stock price appreciation, New Century Financial Corporation, one of the largest subprime loan originators in the U.S., reported accounting problems in early 2007. The resulting liquidity crisis forced the company to file for Chapter 11... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Financial Reporting; Business Model; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Mortgages; Financial Services Industry; United States

Educators