Publications

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2008
Working Paper

Resolving Information Asymmetries in Markets: The Role of Certified Management Programs

By: Michael W. Toffel

Firms and regulators are increasingly relying on voluntary mechanisms to signal and infer quality of difficult-to-observe management practices. Prior evaluations of voluntary management programs have focused on those that lack verification mechanisms and have found... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Information; Standards; Performance Improvement; Programs; Environmental Sustainability; Manufacturing Industry; United States

SSRN

April 2012
Article

The Impact of Relative Standards on the Propensity to Disclose

By: Alessandro Acquisti, Leslie John and George Loewenstein

Two sets of studies illustrate the comparative nature of disclosure behavior. The first set investigates how divulgence is affected by signals about others' readiness to divulge. Study 1A shows a "herding" effect, such that survey respondents are more willing to... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Surveys; Management Practices and Processes; Ethics; Corporate Disclosure; Judgments; Consumer Behavior; Standards

May 2015
Article

Admitting Mistakes: Home Country Effect on the Reliability of Restatement Reporting

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Aida Sijamic Wahid and Gwen Yu

We study the frequency of restatements by foreign firms listed on U.S. exchanges. We find that the restatement rate of U.S. listed foreign firms is significantly lower than that of comparable U.S. firms and that the difference depends on the firm's home country... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Restatements; Home Country Enforcement; Earnings Management; Globalized Firms and Management; Law; Financial Reporting; Financial Markets; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues

SSRN

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

09 Jan 2007
First Look

First Look: January 9, 2007

is well documented that the venture capital industry is highly volatile and that much of this volatility is associated with shifting valuations and activity in public equity markets. This paper examines how changes in public market View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

30 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

Why Anger Makes a Wrongly Accused Person Look Guilty

accuses you of padding your resume or switching your sales numbers, although it’s totally valid to feel anger, it’s not a good idea to express it.” DeCelles adds, “When being accused, we know from other research that it is good to indicate a willingness to be... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

30 Jun 2015
First Look

First Look: June 30, 2015

larger sample over multiple years. Given this evidence, we conclude that, on average, firms' self-reported anticorruption efforts signal real efforts to combat corruption and are not merely cheap talk. Publisher's link:... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

2024
Working Paper

Categorical Processing in a Complex World

By: Marco Sammon, Thomas Graeber and Christopher Roth

In real-world news environments, quantitative information is rarely presented in isolation; it is characterized through qualitative comparisons with various reference levels. Company earnings, for example, are commonly compared to analyst forecasts, previous earnings,... View Details

Keywords: Announcements; Cognition and Thinking; Communication Strategy

August 2022
Article

The Bulletproof Glass Effect: Unintended Consequences of Privacy Notices

By: Aaron R. Brough, David A. Norton, Shannon L. Sciarappa and Leslie K. John

Drawing from a content analysis of publicly traded companies’ privacy notices, a survey of managers, a field study, and five online experiments, this research investigates how consumers respond to privacy notices. A privacy notice, by placing legally enforceable limits... View Details

Keywords: Choice; Purchase Intent; Privacy; Privacy Notices; Warnings; Assurances; Information Disclosure; Trust; Consumer Behavior; Spending; Decisions; Information; Communication

June 2011
Article

Truth in Giving: Experimental Evidence on the Welfare Effects of Informed Giving to the Poor

By: Christina Fong and Felix Oberholzer-Gee

It is often difficult for donors to predict the value of charitable giving because they know little about the persons who receive their help. This concern is particularly acute when making contributions to organizations that serve heterogeneous populations. While we... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Policy; Information; Knowledge Acquisition; Game Theory; Prejudice and Bias; Poverty; Welfare

2010
Chapter

Backlash to Arbitration: Three Causes

By: Louis T. Wells

There are at least three reasons for the current backlash among developing countries against the international regime that governs disputes between foreign investors and host governments. First is the inconsistency of the decisions rendered by arbitration panels... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Agreements and Arrangements; Business and Government Relations; Conflict Management

August 2024
Article

Partisans neither Expect nor Receive Reputational Rewards for Sharing Falsehoods over Truth Online.

By: Isaias Ghezae, Jillian J. Jordan, Izzy Gainsburg, Mohsen Mosleh, Gordon Pennycook, Robb Willer and David Rand

A frequently invoked explanation for the sharing of false over true political information is that partisans are motivated by their reputations. In particular, it is often argued that by indiscriminately sharing news that is favorable to one’s political party,... View Details

Keywords: Political Ideology; Reputation; Communication Intention and Meaning; Social Media; News

02 Apr 2024
What Do You Think?

What's Enough to Make Us Happy?

meeting them brings a sense of wellbeing that contributes to one’s happiness. It’s not necessarily a signal that it’s time to retire; it’s a self-generated milestone that may enable us to branch off into new, interesting directions with... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

26 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

STEM Needs More Women. Recruiters Often Keep Them Out

are unscripted and can last from about a minute to more than an hour, the researchers note. “If your experience suggests that male prospects are more likely to be a positive signal compared to your female prospects, then you may try and... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

December 2019
Article

It Helps to Ask: The Cumulative Benefits of Asking Follow-up Questions

By: Michael Yeomans, Alison Wood Brooks, Karen Huang, Julia A. Minson and Francesca Gino

In a recent article published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP; Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson, & Gino, 2017), we reported the results of 2 experiments involving “getting acquainted” conversations among strangers and an observational field... View Details

Keywords: Question-asking; Conversation; Communication; Relationships; Interpersonal Communication

December 2007 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Montague Corporation: Unfolding the Future in Cycling

Montague has developed a major innovation that creates a new sub-category in the bicycle industry: a full-sized, high-quality bicycle that folds. In contrast to existing small-wheeled folding bicycles that are portable, but with inferior performance characteristics,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Product Positioning; Demand and Consumers; Adoption; Bicycle Industry