Publications

14 Jul 2009
First Look

First Look: July 14

innovation in which an innovator uses several research inputs to invent a new good. These inputs, in turn, must be invented before they can be used by the final innovator. As a consequence, the degree of patent protection affects the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Article

Why Grit Requires Perseverance and Passion to Positively Predict Performance

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Andreas Wihler, Erica R. Bailey and Adam D. Galinsky

Prior studies linking grit—defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals—to performance are beset by contradictory evidence. As a result, commentators have increasingly declared that grit has limited effects. We propose that this inconsistent evidence has... View Details

Keywords: Grit; Perseverance; Passion; Motivation; Personal Characteristics; Emotions; Performance; Motivation and Incentives

15 Feb 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Expectations of Returns and Expected Returns

Keywords: by Robin Greenwood & Andrei Shleifer; Financial Services

20 Dec 2021
News

Social Studies: Partisan Mistrust; Taking Chances in Soccer; The Legacy of Malaria in America

Article

Friends or Foes? Examining Platform Owners' Entry into Complementors' Spaces

By: Feng Zhu

As platform owners continue to expand their ecosystems, many of them have started to provide consumers with their own complementary applications. These moves position the platform owners as direct competitors to their complementors. This paper surveys empirical studies... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Complementors; Digital Platforms; Market Entry and Exit; Competition

2022
Working Paper

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Satisfaction of Workers in Low-Wage Jobs

By: Elizabeth R. Johnson and Ashley V. Whillans

How did job satisfaction change during the pandemic for workers in low-wage jobs, and how did workers’ experiences compare to those in professional jobs? Using nationally representative survey data, we show that the pandemic increased the dissatisfaction of workers in... View Details

Keywords: Low-Wage Jobs; COVID-19 Pandemic; Pay; Job Satisfaction; Income Inequality; Stereotypes; Satisfaction; Compensation and Benefits; Working Conditions

May–June 2021
Article

Why Start-ups Fail

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

If you’re launching a business, the odds are against you: Two-thirds of start-ups never show a positive return. Unnerved by that statistic, a professor of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School set out to discover why. Based on interviews and surveys with hundreds... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Problems and Challenges; Failure

18 Dec 2019
News

U.S. Competitiveness Report: Business Leaders Pessimistic, Political Gridlock Biggest Obstacle to Strengthening America’s Competitiveness

26 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

Lipstick Tips: How Influencers Are Making Over Beauty Marketing

that has lost its traction, especially among younger consumers,” says Vettese, who surveyed consumers and interviewed Hughes for the research project. “Now, people want to go online and get an... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products; Beauty & Cosmetics

06 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

Skills and Behaviors that Make Entrepreneurs Successful

Owners & Entrepreneurs. The answers are already starting to come in, thanks to initial results from a pilot test of “The Entrepreneurial Leader: Self Assessment” survey taken by 1,300 HBS alumni. Results allowed the View Details

Keywords: by HBS Working Knowledge

2008
Chapter

Management Accounting in India

This chapter surveys the history, evolution, and current status of accounting systems and practices in India. Tracing the roots of Indian accounting systems to the ancient civilization of the Indus Valley, we discuss the accounting contributions of historical writings... View Details

Keywords: History; Accounting; India

2021
Working Paper

How Much Should We Trust Staggered Difference-In-Differences Estimates?

By: Andrew C. Baker, David F. Larcker and Charles C.Y. Wang

Difference-in-differences analysis with staggered treatment timing is frequently used to assess the impact of policy changes on corporate outcomes in academic research. However, recent advances in econometric theory show that such designs are likely to be biased in the... View Details

Keywords: Difference In Differences; Staggered Difference-in-differences Designs; Generalized Difference-in-differences; Dynamic Treatment Effects; Mathematical Methods

SSRN

2010
Working Paper

Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal

By: Lara B. Aknin, Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh, Elizabeth W. Dunn, John F. Helliwell, Robert Biswas-Diener, Imelda Kemeza, Paul Nyende, Claire Ashton-James and Michael I. Norton

This research provides the first support for a possible psychological universal: human beings around the world derive emotional benefits from using their financial resources to help others (prosocial spending). Analyzing survey data from 136 countries, we show that... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Happiness; Motivation and Incentives; Welfare; Uganda; Canada

June 2013
Article

Opting-in: Participation Bias in Economic Experiments

By: Robert Slonim, Carmen Wang, Ellen Garbarino and Danielle Merrett

Assuming individuals rationally decide whether to participate or not to participate in lab experiments, we hypothesize several non-representative biases in the characteristics of lab participants. We test the hypotheses by first collecting survey and experimental data... View Details

Keywords: Participation Bias; Laboratory Experiments; Prejudice and Bias; Research

2019
Book

Problem Solving: HBS Alumni Making a Difference in the World

By: Howard H. Stevenson, Russ Banham and Shirley Spence

Problem Solving is the culmination of four years of research conducted by a small project team from 2015 through 2018 in collaboration with HBS alumni, students, faculty, and staff. Its broad and deep knowledge base is derived from a survey of 13 MBA classes... View Details

Keywords: Harvard Business School; Alumni; Influence; Social Responsibility; Humanitarianism

Purchase

23 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Men Want Powerful Jobs More Than Women Do

New research from Harvard Business School reveals a stark gap in the professional ambitions of men and women. Having surveyed a diverse sample of more than 4,000 men and women, a team of social scientists... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

21 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Buy Now, Pay Later: How Retail's Hot Feature Hurts Low-Income Shoppers

citing a December 2020 survey from data firm Cardify. [div class=infogram-embed data-id=_/jDkUSqXh5u6Gl9G77NLQ][/div] Detailed consumer data for BNPL hasn’t been easy to analyze previously because transactions aren’t reported publicly or... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Retail; Financial Services; Technology

February 2018
Case

Qualtrics (A)

By: Doug J. Chung and James M. Lattin

Qualtrics was an online survey research platform and since the beginning, the company had relied entirely on an inside sales model—sales done remotely without face-to-face contact with clients. The low-cost inside sales model, along with an emphasis on a strong sales... View Details

Keywords: Sales Strategy; Inside Sales Model; Sales; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation