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Article

Values, Purpose, Meaning, and Expectations: Why Culture and Context Matter

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

The "rational person" standard, based on assumptions of economic self-interest, has long prevailed in legal reasoning. But understanding of decision making, behavioral choices, and possibilities for action must be enlarged to include a variety of factors that give... View Details

Keywords: Standards; Interests; Decision Making; Behavior; Value; Groups and Teams; Performance Expectations; Organizational Culture; Leadership; Business Cycles; Forecasting and Prediction; Motivation and Incentives

2018
Report

The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III

The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World study is the eighth in the MIT Energy Initiative’s "Future of" series, which aims to shed light on a range of complex and important issues involving energy and the environment. A central theme is... View Details

Keywords: Nuclear Energy; Carbon Emissions; Environment; Environmental Sustainability; Energy; Energy Policy; Energy Sources

2012
Working Paper

Entrepreneurship in the Natural Food and Beauty Categories Before 2000: Global Visions and Local Expressions

By: Geoffrey Jones

This working paper examines the creation of the global natural food and beauty categories before 2000. This is shown to have been a lengthy process of new category creation involving the exercise of entrepreneurial imagination. Pioneering entrepreneurs faced little... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Consumer Goods; Entrepreneurs; Environment; Food; Globalization; Business History; Agribusiness; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Asia; Europe; Latin America; Middle East; North and Central America

2010
Working Paper

Regulating for Legitimacy: Consumer Credit Access in France and America

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull

Theories of legitimate regulation have emphasized the role of governments either in fixing market failures to promote greater efficiency or in restricting the efficient functioning of markets in order to pursue public welfare goals. In either case, features of markets... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Financial Markets; Personal Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Welfare; France; United States

26 Aug 2002
Research & Ideas

High-Stakes Decision Making: The Lessons of Mount Everest

decisions. The Everest analysis suggests that leaders must pay close attention to how they balance competing pressures in their organizations, and how their words and actions shape the perceptions and beliefs of organization members. In... View Details

Keywords: by Michael A. Roberto

06 May 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Introductory Reading For Being a Leader and The Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological Model

Keywords: by Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen, Steve Zaffron & Kari L. Granger; Education

October 6, 2015
Article

Compared to Men, Women View Professional Advancement as Equally Attainable, but Less Desirable

By: Francesca Gino, Caroline Ashley Wilmuth and Alison Wood Brooks

Women are underrepresented in most high-level positions in organizations. While a great deal of research has provided evidence that bias and discrimination give rise to and perpetuate this gender disparity, in the current research, we explore another explanation: men... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Gender

05 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Managers Should Reveal Their Failures

failures, nor does it affect their perception of the person’s status. “Even after revealing their struggles or failures, high achievers still look good,” Brooks says. She cautioned that this effect works only for people who have reached... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

10 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Too Nice to Lead? Unpacking the Gender Stereotype That Holds Women Back

If you’re a woman in the workplace, chances are your boss and colleagues expect you to be nicer than your male peers, new research suggests. And that perception could contribute to differences in which jobs you are hired for, which tasks... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta

September 2007
Article

(Noisy) Communication

By: Bharat Anand and Ron Shachar

Communication is central to many settings in marketing and economics. A focal attribute of communication is miscommunication. We model this key characteristic as a noise in the messages communicated, so that the sender of a message is uncertain about its perception by... View Details

Keywords: Communication Intention and Meaning; Interpersonal Communication; Cost vs Benefits; Marketing Communications; Performance Improvement; Mathematical Methods

27 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Hard Work Isn't Enough: How to Find Your Edge

about gender and race or perceptions about age and class. Indeed, vast research shows that certain groups, such as women and African Americans, have a tougher time getting ahead. Yet Huang argues that we can’t let other people’s... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

17 Jan 2024
HBS Case

Psychological Pricing Tactics to Fight the Inflation Blues

psychological pricing to your advantage is key during times like these,” Ofek says. “When you raise prices, demand often falls—and sometimes consumer perceptions cause the fall to be so big that you're better off absorbing at least some... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Consumer Products; Retail

12 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

COVID Tested Global Supply Chains. Here’s How They’ve Adapted

be warranted. Alfaro suggests that what is missing amid current debates is the need to evaluate these welfare tradeoffs. While there is a popular perception that the pandemic highlighted the problems with far-flung global supply chains,... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

2018
Chapter

Why Do So Many Chinese Students Come to the United States?

By: William C. Kirby

Many books offer information about China, but few make sense of what is truly at stake. The questions addressed in this unique volume provide a window onto the challenges China faces today and the uncertainties its meteoric ascent on the global horizon has provoked.... View Details

Keywords: Asia; China; Emerging Country; Students; Education; Higher Education; Globalization; International Relations; History; Society; Education Industry; Asia; China; United States

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19 Jan 2015
Research & Ideas

Is Wikipedia More Biased Than Encyclopædia Britannica?

For more than a century, the long, stately rows of Encyclopædia Britannica have been a fixture on the shelves of many an educated person's home—the smooshed-together diphthong in the first word a symbol of old-world erudition and gravitas. So it was a shock to many... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Publishing

22 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

A Randomized Field Study of a Leadership WalkRounds™-Based Intervention

departments, intensive care units, and medical/surgical units. We collected survey data from nurses in those work areas. Measures: To measure the program's impact, we collected pre and post survey data on perceptions of improvement in... View Details

Keywords: by Anita L. Tucker & Sara J. Singer; Health

2022
Conference Presentation

Organizational Competition: A Catalyst for Workplace Diversity and Desires for Uniqueness

By: Samantha N. Smith, Edward H. Chang, Erika L. Kirgios and Katherine L. Milkman

Competition is prevalent in organizations. For example, people often compete against their colleagues for status and recognition in the workplace or for opportunities for advancement. Workers also compete against others to get hired into organizations in the first... View Details

Keywords: Status and Position; Organizational Culture; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior

11 Oct 2016
First Look

October 11, 2016

Serafeim Abstract—We construct a measure of corporate purpose within a sample of U.S. companies based on approximately 500,000 survey responses of worker perceptions about their employers. We find that this measure of purpose is not... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2022
Case

Thinking Outside the Wine Box (A): Mekanism and the Franz for Life Campaign

By: Tomomichi Amano, Elie Ofek, Mengjie Cheng and Amy Klopfenstein

This case provides an overview of “Franz for Life,” an advertising campaign that independent advertising agency Mekanism created and executed to revitalize the brand image of Franzia, a low-cost boxed wine. For several years, Franzia’s popularity declined among... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Digital Marketing; Social Marketing; Marketing Communications; Product Positioning; Food and Beverage Industry; Advertising Industry; United States