Publications

Forthcoming
Article

Public Perception and Autonomous Vehicle Liability

By: Julian De Freitas, Xilin Zhou, Margherita Atzei, Shoshana Boardman and Luigi Di Lillo

The deployment of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and the accompanying societal and economic benefits will greatly depend on how much liability AV firms will have to carry for accidents involving these vehicles, which in turn impacts their insurability and associated... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Judgments; Legal Liability; Insurance; Perception

Forthcoming
Article

Racial Discrimination and the Social Contract: Evidence from U.S. Army Enlistment During WWII

By: Nancy Qian and Marco Tabellini

This paper documents that the Pearl Harbor attack triggered a sharp increase in volunteer enlistment rates of American men, the magnitude of the increase was smaller for Black men than for white men and the Black-white gap was larger in counties with higher levels of... View Details

Keywords: State Capacity; Institutions; War; History; Race; Prejudice and Bias; Government Administration

Forthcoming
Article

Reflexivity in Credit Markets

By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson and Lawrence J. Jin

Reflexivity is the idea that investors' biased beliefs affect market outcomes and that market outcomes in turn affect investors’ future biases. We develop a dynamic behavioral model of the credit cycle featuring this two-way feedback loop. Investors form beliefs about... View Details

Keywords: Reflexivity; Attitudes; Financial Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment; Credit

Research Summary

Reinvention and “Frame Flexibility”

By: Ryan L. Raffaelli

Adopting a radical innovation creates pressure for leaders to reframe their mental models while they also sustain their organization's existing capabilities and product category variants. Yet at key junctures in a product class and during technological change, a... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Change; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Diffusion Processes; Technology Adoption; Cognition and Thinking; Identity; Emotions

Forthcoming
Article

Reputation Burning: Analyzing the Impact of Brand Sponsorship on Social Influencers

By: Mengjie Cheng and Shunyuan Zhang

The growth of the influencer marketing industry warrants an empirical examination of the effect of posting sponsored videos on influencers' reputations. We collected a novel dataset of user-generated YouTube videos created by prominent English-speaking influencers in... View Details

Keywords: Reputation; Mathematical Methods; Marketing Reference Programs; Social Media; Brands and Branding

Find at Harvard

Research Summary

Research

By: Michael I. Norton

Professor Norton's research can be grouped into two broad areas. First, he explores the effects of social norms on people’s attitudes and behavior, addressing the key role that social factors play in shaping the preferences of individuals. This work has a particular... View Details

Forthcoming
Article

The Effect of a System for Sharing Best Practices Within Pre-existing Peer Networks

By: Shelley Xin Li and Tatiana Sandino

Peer networks, such as enterprise social networks (ESNs), can facilitate knowledge transfer across employees. However, such systems can also lead to information overload or difficulty in finding useful information. We examine data from a natural field experiment where... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Best Practices; Enterprise Social Media; Management Accounting And Control Systems; Social and Collaborative Networks; Communication Technology; Knowledge Sharing; Sales; Social Media; Retail Industry

Forthcoming
Article

The Political Economy of Anti-Bribery Enforcement

By: Lauren Cohen and Bo Li

Using exogenous variation in the timing and geographic location of U.S. Congressional elections, we find that the probability of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement actions against foreign firms increases significantly preceding senatorial elections,... View Details

Keywords: Bribery; Regulatory Enforcement; Crime and Corruption; Political Elections; Power and Influence; Public Opinion; Geographic Location

Research Summary

The Psychology of Conversation

By: Alison Wood Brooks

Conversation is a profound part of the human experience. To share our ideas, thoughts, and feelings with each other, we converse face to face and remotely—via phone, email, text message, online comment boards, and in contracts. Conversations form the bedrock of our... View Details

Research Summary

The Transition to Retirement

By: Teresa M. Amabile

My current major research program is the Retirement Transitions Study: a broad study of retiring professionals' everyday experiences, including identification with work; identity stability, change, and development; meaningfulness of work; changes in life structure,... View Details

Keywords: Careers; Psychology; Creativity; Identity; Retirement; Meaning

Research Summary

The Unexpected Effects of Workplace Connectivity

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

While investigating how workplace transparency and privacy shape organizational behavior and performance, I wondered about the related effects of workplace connectivity. As new digital tools and organizational forms make it far easier for employees to communicate... View Details

Keywords: Human Behavior; Performance; Virtual Work; Hybrid Work; Office Space; Workplace Design; Organizations; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Networks; Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Communication

Research Summary

The Unexpected Effects of Workplace Transparency

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

Workplace transparency provides a foundation for learning and control, and therefore for satisfaction and productivity. Yet my research shows that an obsession with transparency-enhancing tools and structures can backfire, producing the unintended consequences of... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Privacy; Productivity; Field Experiments; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Human Resources; Leadership; United States; Europe; China; Japan

Research Summary

Trust

By: Sandra J. Sucher

In this research, I aim to provide a practical orientation to trust—how to build it, how it can be damaged, how it might be repaired—grounded in my experience as an executive and in the research on organizational trust and moral philosophy. As a case researcher, I... View Details

Research Summary

Trust

By: Deepak Malhotra

My research on trust falls into two broad categories. First, I study barriers to trust development, and focus on mechanisms that might help to overcome these barriers. One recent project analyzes over 150,000 pages of documents concerning 102-interfirm disputes to... View Details

Article

Unregulated Emotional Risks of AI Wellness Apps

By: Julian De Freitas and Glenn Cohen

We propose that AI-driven wellness apps powered by large language models can foster extreme emotional attachments and dependencies akin to human relationships—posing risks like ambiguous loss and dysfunctional dependence—that challenge current regulatory frameworks and... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Well-being; Emotions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms