Publications

Article

Unexpected Benefits of Deciding by Mind Wandering

By: Colleen Giblin, Carey K. Morewedge and Michael I. Norton

The mind wanders, even when people are attempting to make complex decisions. We suggest that such mind wandering—allowing one's thoughts to wander until the "correct" choice comes to mind—can positively impact people's feelings about their decisions. We compare... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Satisfaction; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cognition and Thinking

10 Jan 2023
News

How to Live Happier in 2023: Diversify Your Social Circle

May 2021
Article

Choice Architecture in Physician–patient Communication: A Mixed-methods Assessment of Physicians' Competency

By: J. Hart, K. Yadav, S. Szymanski, A. Summer, A. Tannenbaum, J. Zlatev, D. Daniels and S.D. Halpern

Background: Clinicians’ use of choice architecture, or how they present options, systematically influences the choices made by patients and their surrogate decision makers. However, clinicians may incompletely understand this influence.... View Details

Keywords: Choice Architecture; Health Care and Treatment; Interpersonal Communication; Decision Choices and Conditions; Competency and Skills

Find at Harvard

22 Jun 2022
Book

Four Elements for Finding the Right Career Path

When people contemplate a career change, astute thinking alone won’t necessarily take them in the right direction. Instead, when career changes and other huge life-changing experiences are at stake, people should tap into their “full self” to help them make the View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

October 2014 (Revised July 2015)
Case

Indus Towers: From Infancy to Maturity

By: Ranjay Gulati, Maxim Sytch and Rachna Tahilyani

Indus Towers, the world's largest telecom tower company, is a joint venture between three telecom rivals in India. These rivals—Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, and Idea Cellular—combined their telecom towers to provide "shared telecom infrastructure" to wireless telecom... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Judgments; Customer Focus and Relationships; Management; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Information Infrastructure; Telecommunications Industry; India

Educators

2012
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Shelly London and Ethics Education—'Strengthening Our Moral Compass'

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Anne Arlinghaus

Shelly London and Ethics Education — 'Strengthening Our Moral Compass' 2009 AL Fellow
Following a successful career as a Senior Vice President, Vice President, and Chief Communications Officer at two large corporate companies, Shelly London set out to promote... View Details

2021
Working Paper

Salience

By: Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer

We review the fast-growing work on salience and economic behavior. Psychological research shows that salient stimuli attract human attention “bottom up” due to their high contrast with surroundings, their surprising nature relative to recalled experiences, or their... View Details

Keywords: Salience; Economic Behavior; Bottom Up Attention; Microeconomics; Decision Making; Behavior

February 1985
Case

Business Research Corp. (B)

By: William A. Sahlman

Contains a description of a set of related decisions confronting the management and directors of Business Research Corp. (BRC) in April of 1984. BRC needs more capital to finance continued development of the market for a full-text database comprised of Wall Street... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Finance; Capital Structure; Capital; Goals and Objectives; Conflict of Interests; Business Plan; Financing and Loans; Ethics

Educators

Web

Video Clips - Creating Emerging Markets

Laura Catena Dr. Laura Catena Building Brands Dr. Laura Catena, Managing Director of Bodega Catena Zapata, traces the history of her family winery from humble beginnings to their decision in the 1990s to target the French wine industry... View Details

22 Nov 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Carbon Tariffs: Impacts on Technology Choice, Regional Competitiveness, and Global Emissions

Keywords: by David F. Drake; Manufacturing

2008
Book

Predictable Surprises

By: Max Bazerman and Michael D. Watkins

Most events that catch us by surprise are both predictable and preventable, but we consistently miss (or ignore) the warning signs. This book shows why such "predictable surprises" put us all at risk, and shows how we can understand, anticipate, and prevent them before... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Leadership; Risk and Uncertainty; Behavior

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Web

Technology & Innovation - Faculty & Research

(ICT) typically aggregate the "information" and "communication" components together. We show theoretically and empirically that this is problematic. Information and communication technologies have very different effects on the decisions... View Details

March 2012
Article

Does America Really Need Manufacturing?

By: Gary P. Pisano and Willy C. Shih

Too many U.S. companies base decisions about where to locate production largely on narrow financial criteria. They don't consider whether keeping manufacturing at home makes more sense strategically or take into account the impact it might have on their ability to... View Details

Keywords: Production; Geographic Location; Innovation and Invention; Competitive Advantage; Product Design; Risk Management; Manufacturing Industry; United States

Article

Pseudo-Set Framing

By: Kate Barasz, Leslie John, Elizabeth A. Keenan and Michael I. Norton

Pseudo-set framing—arbitrarily grouping items or tasks together as part of an apparent “set”—motivates people to reach perceived completion points. Pseudo-set framing changes gambling choices (Study 1), effort (Studies 2 and 3), giving behavior (Field Data and Study... View Details

Keywords: Framing Effects; Gestalt Psychology; Judgment; Judgments; Decision Making; Perception; Behavior

Find at Harvard

08 Dec 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Are There Too Many Safe Securities? Securitization and the Incentives for Information Production

Keywords: by Samuel G. Hanson & Adi Sunderam; Financial Services

May 1998
Teaching Note

Development Relationships TN

By: David A. Thomas and Emily Heaphy

The final class of the Career Development module of the Self-Assessment and Career Development course (SACD) uses the topic of mentoring and developmental relationships to encourage students to think beyond the point of finding and accepting a suitable job offer. The... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Curriculum and Courses; Job Offer; Personal Development and Career; Relationships; Strategy