Publications

September 2017
Article

The Belief in a Favorable Future

By: Todd Rogers, Don A. Moore and Michael I. Norton

People believe that future others’ preferences and beliefs will change to align with their own. People holding a particular view (e.g., support of President Trump) are more likely to believe that future others will share their view than to believe that future others... View Details

Keywords: Social Cognition; Judgment; Prediction; Forecasting; False Consensus; Donation; Open Data; Open Materials; Preregistered; Forecasting and Prediction; Perception; Values and Beliefs; Behavior

26 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

How Humans Outshine AI in Adapting to Change

concretely show what this buys humans over AI.” With many companies looking to AI to streamline processes and increase productivity, the research shines a light on the limitations of the technology, says De Freitas, who is also director of the View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology; Information Technology

05 Dec 2016
Research & Ideas

How To Deceive Others With Truthful Statements (It's Called 'Paltering,' And It's Risky)

paltered in some or most of their negotiations, whereas a smaller number, 21 percent, said that they lied by commission. Perhaps they palter more often because it doesn’t make them feel as badly as outright lying. The researchers found that negotiators consider... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

06 Jun 2011
Research & Ideas

Why Leaders Lose Their Way

highly successful in their respective fields and at the peak of their careers. This makes their behavior especially perplexing, raising questions about what caused them to lose their way: Why do leaders known for integrity and leadership... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

November 2020 (Revised March 2022)
Teaching Note

Social Salary Setting at Spiber

By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 920-050. The case tells the story of Spiber, a Japanese technology start-up company. To reflect the company’s values, the leadership team implemented a new and unique salary-setting process: each employee had the authority to choose their... View Details

Keywords: Compensation; General Management; Employee Benefits; Incentives; Motivation; Compensation and Benefits; Fairness; Motivation and Incentives; Management; Happiness; Negotiation; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan

Purchase

June 2012
Article

Pricing to Create Shared Value

By: Marco Bertini and John T. Gourville

Many companies are in competition with their customers to extract as much value as possible from every transaction. Pricing is their weapon of choice, and consumers fight back by rooting out and disseminating pricing policies that seem unfair. The problem is that... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Marketing Strategy; Price; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Relationship Management; Value Creation; Fairness

11 Feb 2014
First Look

First Look: February 11

http://people.hbs.edu/mluca/Papers%20on%20RIS/Land%20Reform.pdf August 2013 Psychological Science Evil Genius? How Dishonesty Can Lead to Greater Creativity By: Gino, F., and S. Wiltermuth Abstract—We propose that dishonest and creative View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

09 Apr 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

The Dark Side of Performance Bonuses

several years ago, is that those bank bonuses also caused loan officers to perceive reality differently—they believed those loans would succeed. It’s not just financial incentives that are under study. Employers seek to change the View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

28 Apr 2015
First Look

First Look: April 28

literature in behavioral ethics and moral psychology on ordinary unethical behavior. Publisher's link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352154615000443 April 2015 Academy of Management... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 15, 2008

the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/08-044.pdf See No Evil: When We Overlook Other People's Unethical Behavior Authors:Francesca Gino, Don A. Moore, and Max H. Bazerman Abstract It is common for people to be more critical of... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

24 Oct 2016
Research & Ideas

Bernie Madoff Explains Himself

between right and wrong is not sufficient to avoid falling into the behavioral traps people can face when under pressure to succeed. Answering a single question, Madoff exhibits several all-too-familiar cognitive biases, psychological... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

December 2019
Article

Brokers and Order Flow Leakage: Evidence from Fire Sales

By: Andrea Barbon, Marco Di Maggio, Francesco Franzoni and Augustin Landier

Using trade-level data, we study whether brokers play a role in spreading order flow information. We focus on large portfolio liquidations, which result in temporary drops in stock prices, and identify the brokers that intermediate these trades. We show that these... View Details

Keywords: Predatory Trading; Back Running; Fire Sales; Brokers; Stocks; Price; Information; Knowledge Dissemination; Ethics

October 2017 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Medicetra Medtech Company, Inc.

By: Doug J. Chung

Medicetra MedTech Company is a dental equipment distributor, and senior management is deciding whether to implement a new incentive compensation program for the sales force. For many years, Medicetra had paid salespeople only a fixed salary. Although the current plan... View Details

Keywords: Sales Compensation; Sales Force Retention; Employee Fairness; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Retention; Fairness; Performance Improvement

Educators

Purchase

January 2023
Article

The Dark Side of Machiavellian Rhetoric: Signaling in Reward-Based Crowdfunding Performance

By: Goran Calic, Rene Arseneault and Maryam Ghasemaghaei

In this study, we explore the impact of Machiavellian rhetoric on fundraising within the increasingly important context of online crowdfunding. The “all-or-nothing” funding model used by the world’s largest crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, may be an attractive... View Details

Keywords: Crowdfunding; Communication Strategy; Entrepreneurial Finance; Behavior

Register to Read

October 2012
Article

Honesty Requires Time (and Lack of Justifications)

By: Shaul Shalvi, Ori Eldar and Yoella Bereby-Meyer

Recent research suggests that refraining from cheating in tempting situations requires self-control, which indicates that serving self-interest is an automatic tendency. However, evidence also suggests that people cheat to the extent that they can justify their... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Cognition and Thinking