Publications

August 8, 2017
Article

Buying Time Promotes Happiness

By: A.V. Whillans, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Paul Smeets, Rene Bekkers and Michael I. Norton

Around the world, increases in wealth have produced an unintended consequence: a rising sense of time scarcity. We provide evidence that using money to buy time can provide a buffer against this time famine, thereby promoting happiness. Using large, diverse samples... View Details

Keywords: Time; Money Funds; Well-being; Money; Happiness; Satisfaction

2012
Working Paper

Rainmakers: Why Bad Weather Means Good Productivity

By: Jooa Julia Lee, Francesca Gino and Bradley R. Staats

People believe that weather conditions influence their everyday work life, but to date, little is known about how weather affects individual productivity. Most people believe that bad weather conditions reduce productivity. In this research, we predict and find just... View Details

Keywords: Productivity; Opportunity Cost; Distractions; Weather; Performance Productivity; Social Psychology; Mathematical Methods

December 2004 (Revised July 2005)
Case

Extend Fertility

By: Myra M. Hart and Sylvia Sensiper

Focuses on the search for opportunity, the generation and evaluation of business concepts, creation of a business plan, and the start-up process. Follows experienced entrepreneur Christy Jones as she combines her business skills and personal experience to generate new... View Details

Keywords: Opportunities; Business Plan; Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Social Issues; Gender; Business Startups; Biotechnology Industry

Educators

May 18, 2012
Article

Randomized Government Safety Inspections Reduce Worker Injuries with No Detectable Job Loss

By: David I Levine, Michael W. Toffel and Matthew S. Johnson

Controversy surrounds occupational health and safety regulators, with some observers claiming that workplace regulations damage firms' competitiveness and destroy jobs and others arguing that they make workplaces safer at little cost to employers and employees. We... View Details

Keywords: Regulation; Occupational Safety; Evaluation; Regression; Matching; Difference In Differences; Safety; Health; Working Conditions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competitive Advantage; Performance; Manufacturing Industry; California

Karim R. Lakhani is the Dorothy & Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He specializes in technology management, innovation, digital transformation and artificial... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; communications; computer; health care; high technology; information technology industry; internet; pharmaceuticals; software; video games

Profile

Donna Khalife

Why was earning your MBA at HBS important to you? Earning my MBA at HBS was critical in giving me the right environment to explore my passions and gain new skills to pursue those passions whole-heartedly. How has your HBS experience... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment / Media; Entrepreneurship

13 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Experimental Researcher Helps Improve Health Care in Zambia

"We can't solve the challenges of global health without deeply understanding what motivates customer and provider behavior," she said. And field experiments make that possible. View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Health

17 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 17

that impact perceptions of leadership. These observations suggest actionable opportunities to improve team leadership behavior. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=52114 The Effects of Quota Frequency on Sales Force Performance: Evidence... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Dec 2016
HBS Seminar

Erik Snowberg, California Institute of Technology

February 2021
Article

How Transparency into Internal and External Responsibility Initiatives Influences Consumer Choice

By: Ryan W. Buell and Basak Kalkanci

Amid growing calls for transparency and social and environmental responsibility, companies are employing different strategies to improve consumer perceptions of their brands. Some pursue internal initiatives that reduce their negative social or environmental impacts... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Operations; Corporate Social Responsibility; Operational Transparency; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Operations; Environmental Sustainability; Consumer Behavior; Perception

SSRN

February 2023
Article

Increasing the Demand for Workers with a Criminal Record

By: Zoë Cullen, Will Dobbie and Mitchell Hoffman

State and local policies increasingly restrict employers’ access to criminal records, but without addressing the underlying reasons that employers may conduct criminal background checks. Employers may thus still want to ask about a job applicant’s criminal record... View Details

Keywords: Criminal Record; Hiring; Background Checks; Recruitment; Insurance

2021
Article

Don't Get It or Don't Spread It: Comparing Self-interested versus Prosocial Motivations for COVID-19 Prevention Behaviors

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Erez Yoeli and David Rand

COVID-19 prevention behaviors may be seen as self-interested or prosocial. Using American samples from MTurk and Prolific (total n = 6,850), we investigated which framing is more effective—and motivation is stronger—for fostering prevention behavior intentions. We... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Prevention; Prosocial Motivation; Health Pandemics; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives

December 2019
Article

Communicating with Warmth in Distributive Negotiations Is Surprisingly Counterproductive

By: M. Jeong, J. Minson, M. Yeomans and F. Gino

When entering into a negotiation, individuals have the choice to enact a variety of communication styles. We test the differential impact of being “warm and friendly” versus “tough and firm” in a distributive negotiation, when first offers are held constant and... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Style; Communication Strategy; Perception; Performance Effectiveness; Outcome or Result

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

Abstract—Understanding why employees go the extra mile at work is a key problem for many organizations. We conduct a field experiment at a medical organization to study motivations for employees to submit... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

October 2021
Article

Changing Gambling Behavior through Experiential Learning

By: Shawn A. Cole, Martin Abel and Bilal Zia

This paper tests experiential learning as a debiasing tool to reduce gambling in South Africa, through a randomized field experiment. The study implements a simple, interactive game that simulates the odds of winning the national lottery through dice rolling.... View Details

Keywords: Debiasing; Experiential Learning; Behavioral Economics; Financial Education; Learning; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Behavior; Decision Making

2013
Book

Porte à porte: Reconquérir la démocratie sur le terrain

By: Guillaume Liégey, Arthur Muller and Vincent Pons

From January to May 2012, campaign activists supporting François Hollande knocked at five millions doors, making this door-to-door effort the largest in Europe to date. This project was formed by Guillaume Liégey, Arthur Muller, and Vincent Pons, who had met at the... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Political Elections; United States; Europe

Purchase

Article

When Feeling Skillful Impairs Coordination in a Lottery Selection Task

By: Anna Dorfman, Yoella Bereby-Meyer and Simone Moran

Choosing a major field of study to secure a good job after graduation is a tacit coordination problem that requires considering others' choices. We examine how feeling skillful, either induced (Experiment 1) or measured (Experiment 2), affects coordination in this type... View Details