Publications

Purchase

06 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

Should Entrepreneurs Pitch Products or Ideas for Products?

patent provides strong protection. For writers, a complete screenplay would better ensure copyright protection because the plot, dialogue, and characters are much better defined. In addition, “the threat of selling the idea to the buyer’s... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Motion Pictures & Video; Entertainment & Recreation; Banking

2022
Article

Which Corporate ESG News Does the Market React To?

By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

Using a dataset that classifies firm-level ESG news as positive and negative, we examine how stock prices react to different types of ESG news. We analyze 111,020 firm-day observations for 3,126 companies and find that prices react only to issues identified as... View Details

Keywords: ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Ratings; Social Capital; Environment; Sustainability; CSR; Stock Price; Stock Market Expectations; Materiality; Market Reaction; Environmental Sustainability; Governance; Social Issues; Performance; News

SSRN

12 Aug 2008
Op-Ed

Google-Yahoo Ad Deal is Bad for Online Advertising

sponsored search advertising. Industry estimates indicate that Google earns dramatically higher fees for each search.5 By assigning substantial traffic to Google, Yahoo can increase its short-run revenues.6 But if Yahoo assigns much of... View Details

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman; Advertising; Publishing

01 Jul 2019
What Do You Think?

Are Super Stretch Goals Only for the Very Young?

explanations for the phenomenon and its success or failure. These included such things as the nature of the industry or product, the way such goals are implemented, and the size of the organization making use of them. There were,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

23 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

It’s Called ‘Price Coherence,’ and It’s Surprisingly Bad for Consumers

restaurant versus on Grubhub.com, or paying cash versus using a credit card. In many cases, consumers pay the same price for a given product or service, whether buying it directly from its source or through an intermediary. Economists... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Air Transportation; Food & Beverage; Entertainment & Recreation

2010
Working Paper

Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal

By: Lara B. Aknin, Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh, Elizabeth W. Dunn, John F. Helliwell, Robert Biswas-Diener, Imelda Kemeza, Paul Nyende, Claire Ashton-James and Michael I. Norton

This research provides the first support for a possible psychological universal: human beings around the world derive emotional benefits from using their financial resources to help others (prosocial spending). Analyzing survey data from 136 countries, we show that... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Happiness; Motivation and Incentives; Welfare; Uganda; Canada

16 Aug 2024
In Practice

Election 2024: What's at Stake for Business and the Workplace?

incentives make a difference in whether global warming and its fallout are contained. A growing number of climate solution startups count on government spending to give their customers purchasing power and a reason to buy. State and local... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

Spring 2016
Article

Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design

By: Kevin J. Boudreau, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael E. Menietti

Tournaments are widely used in the economy to organize production and innovation. We study individual contestant-level data from 2,796 contestants in 774 software algorithm design contests with random assignment. Precisely conforming to theory predictions, the... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy

01 Dec 2003
What Do You Think?

Is This the Twilight Era for the Managed Mutual Fund?

in part for their own enrichment. As one might imagine, he is not popular with many of his peers in the mutual fund industry. To combat these practices, he has been perhaps the strongest advocate for indexed... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

April 2011
Teaching Note

Office of Technology Transfer - Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (TN)

By: Willy Shih and Sen Chai

Teaching Note for 611057. View Details

Keywords: Patents; Rights; Infrastructure; Multinational Firms and Management; Research and Development; Complexity; Commercialization; Technology Adoption; Motivation and Incentives; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Shanghai

Purchase

2021
Article

Helping and Happiness: A Review and Guide for Public Policy

By: Lara B. Aknin and Ashley V. Whillans

Perhaps one of the most reaffirming findings to emerge over the past several decades is that humans not only engage in generous behavior, they also appear to experience pleasure from doing so. Yet not all acts of helping lead to greater happiness. Here, we review the... View Details

Keywords: Generosity; Helping; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Happiness; Policy

28 May 2012
Research & Ideas

A Pragmatic Alternative for Creating a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy

credit for any of it." Starting The Strategy The authors argue that every company should have a CSR strategy that unifies the diverse range of its philanthropic giving, supply chain, "cause" marketing, and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

31 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

American Idle: Workers Spend Too Much Time Waiting for Something to Do

says Amabile. “We wanted to investigate idle time, in part, to raise everyone’s awareness of how widespread and pernicious it can be.” “With idle time, the organization is often hurt by it, and it’s not enjoyable for employees either”... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2011
Article

A Choice Prediction Competition for Social Preferences in Simple Extensive Form Games: An Introduction

By: Eyal Ert, Ido Erev and Alvin E. Roth

Two independent, but related, choice prediction competitions are organized that focus on behavior in simple two-person extensive form games: one focuses on predicting the choices of the first mover and the other on predicting the choices of the second mover. The... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions; Competition; Motivation and Incentives; Game Theory; Fairness

26 Apr 2011
Op-Ed

HBS Faculty Comment on Environmental Issues for Earth Day

Earth Day focuses the world's attention on the both the dangers and opportunities facing the planet. But sustainability and the intersection between business and the environment are issues that need to be addressed all the time, as cities grow, resources diminish, and... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Energy; Utilities

03 Oct 2012
What Do You Think?

Can We Bring Back the “Industrial Commons” for Manufacturing?

the educational system, with incentives to encourage advanced study in engineering as well as information and manufacturing-related technologies. In addition, they call for a national economic strategy View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Manufacturing

05 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

A Market for Human Cadavers in All but Name?

ongoing debate about the impact of using financial incentives for donors or their families to encourage anatomical donations (Clay and Block 2002; Delmonico et al. 2002; Harrington and Sayre 2006; Obermann... View Details

Keywords: by Michel Anteby; Health

23 Jan 2024
Book

More Than Memes: NFTs Could Be the Next Gen Deed for a Digital World

and whose owner(s) can be consistently identified. The term non-fungible token literally means what it says. Something is fungible when you can exchange one unit for another without a second thought. Dollar bills are fungible; so are... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Information Technology; Technology; Financial Services

Article

Four Things No One Will Tell You About ESG Data

By: Sakis Kotsantonis and George Serafeim

As the ESG finance field and the use of ESG data in investment decision-making continue to grow, the authors seek to shed light on several important aspects of ESG measurement and data. This article is intended to provide a useful guide for the rapidly rising number of... View Details