Publications

2024
Working Paper

Why Most Resist AI Companions

By: Julian De Freitas, Zeliha Oğuz-Uğuralp, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp and Stefano Puntoni

Chatbots are now able to form emotional relationships with people and alleviate loneliness—a growing public health concern. Behavioral research provides little insight into whether everyday people are likely to use these applications and why. We address this question... View Details

Keywords: Generative Ai; Chatbots; Artificial Intelligence; Algorithmic Aversion; Lonelines; Technology Adoption; AI and Machine Learning; Well-being; Emotions

SSRN

2024
Working Paper

Warnings and Endorsements: Improving Human-AI Collaboration Under Covariate Shift

By: Matthew DosSantos DiSorbo and Kris Ferreira

Problem definition: While artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms may perform well on data that are representative of the training set (inliers), they may err when extrapolating on non-representative data (outliers). These outliers often originate from covariate shift,... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Decision Choices and Conditions

May 2016
Article

When Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint Versus Separate Evaluation

By: Iris Bohnet, Alexandra van Geen and Max Bazerman

We examine a new intervention to overcome gender biases in hiring, promotion, and job assignments: an "evaluation nudge," in which people are evaluated jointly rather than separately regarding their future performance. Evaluators are more likely to focus on individual... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Selection and Staffing; Decision Choices and Conditions; Performance; Gender

March 7, 2024
Article

Integrating Digital Tools into Every Stage of Your Sales Strategy

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Georg Krentzel

In their growth and customer-acquisition activities, most companies now face twin challenges: understanding and responding to omni-channel buying behavior and doing that without inadvertently decreasing sales productivity. Thirty years ago, Peter Drucker noted that... View Details

Keywords: Sales Management; Digital Tools; Sales; Marketing Channels; Technology Adoption; Brands and Branding

March 16, 2021
Article

From Driverless Dilemmas to More Practical Commonsense Tests for Automated Vehicles

By: Julian De Freitas, Andrea Censi, Bryant Walker Smith, Luigi Di Lillo, Sam E. Anthony and Emilio Frazzoli

For the first time in history, automated vehicles (AVs) are being deployed in populated environments. This unprecedented transformation of our everyday lives demands a significant undertaking: endowing complex autonomous systems with ethically acceptable behavior. We... View Details

Keywords: Automated Driving; Public Health; Artificial Intelligence; Transportation; Health; Ethics; Policy; AI and Machine Learning

January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Teaching Note

Maritz Automotive

By: Ashley V. Whillans and Lamar Pierce

This case focuses on Charlotte Blank, the Chief Behavioral Officer at Maritz, as she tries to assist a major automotive manufacturer (CarCo) with increasing their sales by prepaying monthly bonuses to independently franchised car dealers and clawing them back if the... View Details

Keywords: Loss-framing; Sales; Performance Improvement; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Theory; Auto Industry

26 Jul 2016
First Look

July 26, 2016

connecting the macroscopic with the microscopic in human behavior has traditionally been difficult. Manifestations of homophily, the notion that individuals tend to interact with others who resemble them,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 1994
Article

The Work Preference Inventory: Assessing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations

By: T. M. Amabile, K. G. Hill, B. A. Hennessey and E. M. Tighe

The Work Preference Inventory (WPI) is designed to assess individual differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Both the college student and the working adult versions aim to capture the major elements of intrinsic motivation (self-determination,... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Measurement and Metrics; Higher Education; Employees; Personal Characteristics

Tony Mayo is the Thomas S. Murphy Senior Lecturer of Business Administration and C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator in the Organizational Behavior Unit of Harvard Business School (HBS). He currently teaches and serves as the course head for... View Details

Keywords: advertising; airline; education industry; nonprofit industry; publishing industry; service industry

Article

Faithful and Customizable Explanations of Black Box Models

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju, Ece Kamar, Rich Caruana and Jure Leskovec

As predictive models increasingly assist human experts (e.g., doctors) in day-to-day decision making, it is crucial for experts to be able to explore and understand how such models behave in different feature subspaces in order to know if and when to trust them. To... View Details

Keywords: Interpretable Machine Learning; Black Box Models; Decision Making; Framework

23 May 2011
Op-Ed

Leading and Lagging Countries in Contributing to a Sustainable Society

which corporate and investor behavior is changing. We did so by analyzing data from more than 2,000 companies in 23 countries, and then ranked those countries based on the degree of integration of corporate environmental and social... View Details

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles & George Serafeim

February 2024
Case

Levels.fyi: How Negotiations Coaching and Pay Transparency Change Job Market Outcomes

By: Zoë B. Cullen

Salary information is everywhere. What impact does it have on compensation? How should employees and employers use salary information in negotiations? This case brings to light how pay information affects behavior and job market outcomes in surprising ways. View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Compensation and Benefits; Negotiation

Educators

02 Nov 2016
HBS Seminar

Gillian Hadfield, University of California, Gould School of Law

29 Aug 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Patent Trolls

Keywords: by Lauren Cohen, Umit G. Gurun & Scott Duke Kominers

09 Jul 2013
Research & Ideas

Catching Up With Boards--Jay Lorsch

performance and succession, corporate strategy, and executive compensation. In a recent interview at Harvard Business School, governance expert Jay Lorsch, the School's Louis Kirstein Professor of Human Relations, offered his insights.... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner

Article

Consistent Belief in a Good True Self in Misanthropes and Three Interdependent Cultures

By: Julian De Freitas, Hagop Sarkissian, George E. Newman, Igor Grossman, Felipe De Brigard, Andres Luco and Joshua Knobe

People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to... View Details

Keywords: Concepts; Social Cognition; Moral Reasoning; True Self; Culture; Misanthropy; Behavior; Values and Beliefs; Moral Sensibility

October 1991 (Revised January 2000)
Case

Workplace Safety at Alcoa (A)

By: Kim B. Clark and Joshua D. Margolis

Examines the challenge facing the managers of a large aluminum manufacturing plant in its drive to improve workplace safety. The CEO of the company has made safety a top priority. The plant has made good progress in reducing the injury rate, but now confronts the need... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Safety; Problems and Challenges; Change Management; Operations; Resignation and Termination; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Manufacturing Industry; United States

Educators