Publications

2024
Working Paper

The Uneven Impact of Generative AI on Entrepreneurial Performance

By: Nicholas G. Otis, Rowan Clarke, Solène Delecourt, David Holtz and Rembrand Koning

Scalable and low-cost AI assistance has the potential to improve firm decision-making and economic performance. However, running a business involves a myriad of open-ended problems, making it difficult to know whether recent AI advances can help business owners make... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Performance Improvement; Small Business; Decision Choices and Conditions; Kenya

SSRN

2017
Working Paper

The Effectiveness of White-Collar Crime Enforcement: Evidence from the War on Terror

By: Trung Nguyen

This paper studies the deterrent effect of criminal enforcement on white-collar criminal activities. Using the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a shock to the FBI’s allocation of investigative resources and priorities, and variations in the Muslim population in the United... View Details

Keywords: Regulation; Fraud; White-collar Crime; Enforcement; Crime and Corruption; Law Enforcement; System Shocks

SSRN

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

However, we also heard that restaurateurs remained steadfastly committed to their goal of nurturing and nourishing people, providing a place of succor and community in a strange new world. Our conversations with the panel and our field... View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

Research Summary

Incentives and Education

(with Bob Slonim and Eric Bettinger)
No Child Left Behind has created an incentive system for schools to increase test scores as well as attendance figures.... View Details

Research Summary

Works in Progress

"Hunkering Down and Venturing Out: Network Activation in Response to the Uncertainty of Organizational Restructuring." Under Review. Awarded Best Paper in Organizational Behavior: 2011 Trans-Atlantic... View Details

January 2019
Article

Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats Through Performance-Based Postings

By: Adnan Q. Khan, Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Benjamin A. Olken

Bureaucracies often post staff to better or worse locations, ostensibly to provide incentives. Yet we know little about whether this works, with heterogeneity in preferences over postings impacting effectiveness. We propose a performance-ranked serial dictatorship... View Details

Keywords: Serial Dictatorship Mechanism; Employment; Geographic Location; Motivation and Incentives; Performance

2024
Working Paper

Precautionary Debt Capacity

By: Deniz Aydin and Olivia S. Kim

Firms with ample financial slack are unconstrained... or are they? In a field experiment that randomly expands debt capacity on business credit lines, treated small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) draw down 35 cents on the dollar of expanded debt capacity in... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Financing and Loans

Article

The Effect of Providing Peer Information on Retirement Savings Decisions

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and Katherine L. Milkman

Using a field experiment in a 401(k) plan, we measure the effect of disseminating information about peer behavior on savings. Low-saving employees received simplified plan enrollment or contribution increase forms. A randomized subset of forms stated the fraction of... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Decision Choices and Conditions; Retirement

2013 Winner of Academy of Management Awards for Outstanding Publication in Organizational Behavior and Best Published Paper in Organization and Management Theory

Using data from embedded participant-observers and a field experiment at the second... View Details

July 2020
Article

Tell It Like It Is: When Politically Incorrect Language Promotes Authenticity

By: J. Schroeder, M. Rosenblum and F. Gino

When a person’s language appears political—such as being politically correct or incorrect—it can influence fundamental impressions of him or her. Political correctness is “using language or behavior to seem sensitive to others’ feelings, especially those others who... View Details

Keywords: Language; Interpersonal Communication; Perception

October 2007 (Revised June 2008)
Case

Leader(ship) Development

By: Scott A. Snook

Designed for use in the first year of an MBA program, can be included within a core course on leadership or used more broadly to orient students to their upcoming experience while in school. Offers a series of robust conceptual models to help students frame their... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Framework; Business Education; Education Industry

Educators

Purchase

15 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Remembering Alfred Chandler

Harvard Business School, where he teaches the (MBA) Foundations business history course, Creating Modern Capitalism. He also serves as co-editor of the Business History Review. Al Chandler is appropriately regarded as the founder of the View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

January 2013
Article

Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India

By: Shawn A. Cole, Xavier Gine, Jeremy Tobacman, Petia Topalova, Robert M. Townsend and James Vickery

Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Household; India

2018
The Significance of Race Research in the 21st Century

Harvard Business School AASU50 Research Findings

Joshua D. Margolis

Joshua Margolis is James Dinan and Elizabeth Miller Professor of Business Administration and the Unit Head for the Organizational Behavior unit. He is also Faculty Chair of the Program for Leadership Development. His research and teaching revolve around leadership... View Details

Keywords: furniture; health care; insurance industry; nonprofit industry; pharmaceuticals

2023
Working Paper

Polarizing Corporations: Does Talent Flow to "Good" Firms?

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Tim McQuade, Gabriel Ramos, Thomas Rauter and Olivia Xiong

We conduct a field experiment in partnership with the largest job platform in Brazil to study how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices of firms affect talent allocation. We find both an average job-seeker’s preference for ESG and a large degree of... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Job Search; Talent and Talent Management; Wages; Attitudes

July 2024
Article

Whether to Apply

By: Katherine B. Coffman, Manuela Collis and Leena Kulkarni

Labor market outcomes depend, in part, upon an individual’s willingness to put herself forward for different opportunities. We use a series of experiments to explore gender differences in willingness to apply for higher return, more challenging work. We find that, in... View Details

Keywords: Beliefs; Recruitment; Job Search; Gender; Attitudes

Purchase

15 Feb 2024
Blog Post

How I Spent My 2+2 Deferral: Carol Wright

The HBS 2+2 program is a deferred admission process for current students in their final year of study, either in college or a full-time master’s degree program. If you are admitted through 2+2, you work for two to four years in a field of... View Details

August 2021
Article

The Undervalued Power of Self-relevant Research: The Case of Researching Retirement While Retiring

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Douglas T. (Tim) Hall

For decades, training in management research has emphasized objectivity, typically viewed as an arm’s length distance between the topic of the research and the interests of the researcher. This emphasis has led most scholars to avoid research topics of deep personal... View Details

Keywords: Qualitative Research Methods; Case Research Methods; Organizational Behavior; Careers; Career Changes And Transitions; Self-relevant Research; Research; Personal Development and Career; Transition; Identity; Retirement