Publications

23 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Face Value: Do Certain Physical Features Help People Get Ahead?

employees, and did the same for Instagram, comparing influencers to everyday users. “The results showed that our model-predicted CVP is indeed consistent with human perception of celebrity potential,” Feng says. In the analysis, charisma... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

2017
Article

True Happiness: The Role of Morality in the Concept of Happiness

By: Jonathan Phillips, Julian De Freitas, Christian Mott, June Gruber and Joshua Knobe

Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents' psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has... View Details

Keywords: Moral Cognition; Happiness; Moral Sensibility; Emotions; Well-being

24 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

Passion at Work Is a Good Thing—But Only If Bosses Know How to Manage It

Who wouldn't want to work for a company that values passion? And what employer wouldn't seek an employee who’s deeply passionate about their work? But, here's the rub, according to recent research from Harvard Business School: Employees and employers can have... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Article

Political Skill: Explaining the Effects of Nonnative Accent on Managerial Hiring and Entrepreneurial Investment Decisions

By: Laura Huang, Marcia Frideger and Jone L. Pearce

We propose and test a new theory explaining glass-ceiling bias against nonnative speakers as driven by perceptions that nonnative speakers have weak political skill. Although nonnative accent is a complex signal, its effects on assessments of the speakers' political... View Details

Keywords: Spoken Communication; Prejudice and Bias; Competency and Skills; Selection and Staffing; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Decisions

26 Jul 2016
First Look

July 26, 2016

less competent than employees who do not. Across five experiments, we explore how reframing a socially inappropriate emotional expression (distress) by publicly attributing it to an appropriate source (passion) can shape View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2024
Article

The Political Effects of Immigration: Culture or Economics?

By: Alberto Alesina and Marco Tabellini

We review the growing literature on the political economy of immigration. First, we discuss the effects of immigration on a wide range of political and social outcomes. The existing evidence suggests that immigrants often, but not always, trigger backlash, increasing... View Details

Keywords: Political Backlash; Cultural Beliefs; Immigration; Political Elections; Outcome or Result; Social Issues; Perception

February 2025
Article

Seeing the Whole: Configurational Cognition and New Venture Resource Mobilization

By: Goran Calic, François Neville, Santi Furnari and C. S. Richard Chan

Research is scant on how multiple venture attributes combine as “whole packages” of signals (or cognitive configurations) in resource holders’ eyes, shaping a venture’s ability to mobilize resources. Drawing on a Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 1,395 crowdfunding... View Details

Keywords: Crowdfunding; Mission and Purpose; Entrepreneurship; Communication; Perception

14 May 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Humblebragging: A Distinct-and Ineffective-Self-Presentation Strategy

Keywords: by Ovul Sezer, Francesca Gino & Michael I. Norton

2008
Working Paper

The Artful Dodger: Answering the Wrong Question the Right Way

By: Todd Rogers and Michael I. Norton

What happens when people try to "dodge" a question they would rather not answer by answering a different question? In four online studies using paid participants, we show that listeners can fail to detect dodges when speakers answer similar—but objectively... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Interpersonal Communication; Judgments; Perception

April 2021 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Project Restart: Deciding the Future of English Football

By: Nour Kteily and Deepak Malhotra

In March 2020, the English Premier League football (soccer) season was suspended partway through due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Two months later the season remained in limbo, with a looming deadline to decide whether to attempt to complete the season or curtail it—and... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Sports; Health Pandemics; Decision Making; Fairness; Values and Beliefs; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Motivation and Incentives; Outcome or Result; Perception; Negotiation; Sports Industry; United Kingdom

Educators

03 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

HBS Faculty on Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa

members—Deepak Malhotra, an authority on negotiation strategy; Noel Maurer, an expert on the politics and economics of the energy business; and Magnus Thor Torfason, an authority on how behavior is influenced by the social structures of... View Details

Keywords: Re: Deepak Malhotra; Energy; Utilities

11 Oct 2016
First Look

October 11, 2016

social sector, and it can guide businesses in bringing together the various actors in their ecosystems to help remedy some of the world's most urgent problems. In the process, companies will find economic opportunities that their... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2004
Article

Inequality and Happiness: Are Europeans and Americans Different?

By: Rafael Di Tella, Alberto Alesina and Robert MacCulloch

We study the effect of the level of inequality in society on individual well-being using a total of 123,668 answers to a survey question about “happiness”. We find that individuals have a lower tendency to report themselves happy when inequality is high, even after... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Happiness; Global Range; Local Range; United States; Europe

May 2022
Case

Thinking Outside the Wine Box (A): Mekanism and the Franz for Life Campaign

By: Tomomichi Amano, Elie Ofek, Mengjie Cheng and Amy Klopfenstein

This case provides an overview of “Franz for Life,” an advertising campaign that independent advertising agency Mekanism created and executed to revitalize the brand image of Franzia, a low-cost boxed wine. For several years, Franzia’s popularity declined among... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Digital Marketing; Social Marketing; Marketing Communications; Product Positioning; Food and Beverage Industry; Advertising Industry; United States

Educators

10 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Too Nice to Lead? Unpacking the Gender Stereotype That Holds Women Back

If you’re a woman in the workplace, chances are your boss and colleagues expect you to be nicer than your male peers, new research suggests. And that perception could contribute to differences in which jobs you are hired for, which tasks... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta

17 Jan 2023
In Practice

8 Trends to Watch in 2023

As 2023 begins, businesses and employees face an uncertain economy and labor market, as the twin dilemmas of inflation and interest rates weigh on forecasts. Harvard Business School faculty share the top trends that they believe will shape the workplace and markets... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

17 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 17, 2007

confers a significant first-mover advantage. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-063.pdf A Perceptions Framework for Categorizing Inventory Policies in Single-stage Inventory Systems Author:Noel Watson Abstract In this... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

May 2024
Article

The Effect of Configural Processing on Mentalization

By: Katrina Fincher, Ting Zhang, Asteya Percaya, Adam Galinsky and Michael W. Morris

Eight studies (N = 2,561) reveal that how we perceptually process a person’s face affects our capacity to understand their mind. Studies 1A and B indicate this relationship functions via two separate pathways: (a) indirectly by increasing our sensitivity to the... View Details

Keywords: Perception; Cognition and Thinking