Rationalization - Publications - Faculty & Research

05 May 2011
What Do You Think?

How Ethical Can We Be?

with whom we interact judge us differently than we judge ourselves? Phil Clark commented that "Ethics is in the 'eye of the beholder,' not the person carrying out the action." We may rationalize our behaviors depending on, as R.... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

20 Oct 2010
Op-Ed

Export Competitiveness: Reversing the Logic

to foreign competition and ideas which in turn will improve your capabilities and push you to make better use of the capabilities you already have. The observation that exports contribute to competitiveness even though they are not a fundamental driver provides a View Details

Keywords: by Christian Ketels

07 May 2007
Research & Ideas

Rediscovering Schumpeter: The Power of Capitalism

he wasn't living up to them. There was extraordinary tension between his devotion to rationality ("I have given my life to reason," he once wrote in his diary), and the overwhelming power of his emotions. He was an intellectual... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Education

Research Summary

Self-environment relationship and its effect on decisions under risk and uncertainty

My research seek to better understand the main cognitive and social abilities that guide our judgments, and the ways they interact with aspects of the situation to shape humans' decisions. It is currently comprised of three related... View Details

21 Nov 2015
HBS Case

HBS Cases: Stella McCartney Combines High Fashion with Environmental Values

exactly the image we have when we think about sustainability. We think about much more rational and thoughtful consumption. So you could see why these two concepts would seem contradictory. And people would ask me: why are you making such... View Details

Keywords: by Brian Kenny; Fashion

22 May 2017
Lessons from the Classroom

A Luxury Industry Veteran Teaches the Importance of Aesthetics to Budding Business Leaders

prices. Promote periodic price mark-up events. And, eventually, start a conversation about truly rationalized pricing, tied to the actual cost of input for the producers, including the labor of impoverished women in developing countries.... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Beauty & Cosmetics; Apparel & Accessories; Auto; Tourism

04 Aug 2011
What Do You Think?

How Dangerous Is Common Sense to Managers?

ability to determine what is important, and history itself—mainly because complex phenomena are based on events that never repeat themselves and can't be examined scientifically. Once we know the outcome of a situation, we rationalize the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

04 Feb 2010
What Do You Think?

What’s the Best Way to Make Careful Decisions?

it, " the question should not be rational decision making OR intuition, but rather how to combine both." David Kendall said, "In the most difficult case of no-time and high-risk, reliance on 'rational intuition' may be a... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

22 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

The Hard Work of Failure Analysis

rationalizations for the failures. Specifically, managers attributed large failures to uncontrollable events outside the organization (e.g., the economy) and to the intervention of outsiders. Small failures were interpreted as flukes, the... View Details

Keywords: by Amy Edmondson & Mark D. Cannon

Research Summary

Supply Chain Inventory Planning

My work studies management decision-making in demand and supply planning contexts with a focus on forecasting and inventory planning decisions. I examine these decision-making processes from both a supply chain (i.e. across firm) and an... View Details

10 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Rethink the Value of Joint Ventures

partners. Q: What changes in the expansion tactics of multinationals do you foresee in the next three to five years? A: The increased pressure on existing joint ventures within these networks reflects a greater pressure to rationalize... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell

12 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 12, 2006

individual's behavior across different situations and over time (in the language of rational choice, character can be thought of as a stable system of preferences that informs the tradeoffs and choices an individual is likely to make in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at Research and Ideas, October 3, 2017

marriage market, this study provides timely and compelling empirical evidence of the unintended consequences on later life outcomes of sex selection in India. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53295 Habit Formation and View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

07 Aug 2009
What Do You Think?

Why Can’t Americans Get Health Care Right?

provided excellent comparative data of the kind that we have seen all too little in the public debate on the matter. And nearly everyone admirably avoided the political rhetoric that has clouded rational thought about a truly complex... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Health

09 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

The Challenge of the Multi-site Nonprofit

rational decision making. Nonprofits often have a cultural opposition to structure. A lack of theory of management practice exists for nonprofits. These characteristics lead to a number of disputes between headquarters and affiliates,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

31 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

When Not to Trust Your Gut

article explores why we often think irrationally—and why, even when the stakes are high and mistakes are costly, we sometimes are unable to overcome our psychological biases. We begin with an overview of intuition and rationality in... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman & Deepak Malhotra

24 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Behavioral Economists Can Make You a Healthier Consumer and Smarter Marketer

Click Here If people made purely rational decisions, life might be much easier for marketers in selling products and services. But few of us are that rational. Instead, our decisions are based on illogical biases such as loss aversion and... View Details

Keywords: by Amelia Kunhardt

09 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Incentives and Operational Excellence

services and charging separately. Rather than recoiling, hospitals were more than happy to pay for services if it meant they would actually receive them without haggling. According to Narayanan, the ABP solution worked because hospitals had to View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

17 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Is There Help for the Big Ticket Buyer?

territory, all of them are looking for guidance on how to make more rational consumption decisions. Those who know me will not be surprised to learn that I have strong opinions on these issues, many of them informed by research on... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman

19 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

How Charitable Organizations Can Thwart Excuses for Not Giving

describes in a new working paper, The Better Is the Enemy of the Good. In fact, Exley argues that based on her research, people look for any excuse to avoid giving a donation and then rationalize their skinflint behavior to avoid feeling... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Publications