Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,387)
- Faculty Publications (550)
- July 2024
- Article
How Artificial Intelligence Constrains Human Experience
By: A. Valenzuela, S. Puntoni, D. Hoffman, N. Castelo, J. De Freitas, B. Dietvorst, C. Hildebrand, Y.E. Huh, R. Meyer, M. Sweeney, S. Talaifar, G. Tomaino and K. Wertenbroch
Many consumption decisions and experiences are digitally mediated. As a consequence, consumer behavior is increasingly the joint product of human psychology and ubiquitous algorithms (Braun et al. 2024; cf. Melumad et al. 2020). The coming of age of Large Language... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Webmunk: A New Tool for Studying Online Behavior and Digital Platforms
By: Chiara Farronato, Andrey Fradkin and Chris Karr
Understanding the behavior of users online is important for researchers, policymakers, and private companies alike. But observing online behavior and conducting experiments is difficult without direct access to the user base and software of technology companies. We... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
What Makes Players Pay? An Empirical Investigation of In-Game Lotteries
By: Tomomichi Amano and Andrey Simonov
In 2020, gamers spent more than $15 billion on loot boxes, lotteries of virtual items in video
games. Paid loot boxes are contentious. Game producers argue that loot boxes complement
the gameplay and expenditures on loot boxes reflect players’ enjoyment of the game.... View Details
- June 2024
- Case
SnapTravel: Betting on 'Super.com'
By: Reza Satchu and Tom Quinn
This case explores SnapTravel, a travel startup offering discounted hotel rooms, and its founders’ desire to pivot to a “super app” that saved customers money across many different purchase types. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hussein Fazal and Henry Shi saw SnapTravel... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Plan; Business Startups; Change Management; Disruption; Transformation; Volatility; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Decisions; Income; Entrepreneurship; Geographic Scope; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Health Pandemics; Surveys; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Leading Change; Crisis Management; Goals and Objectives; Risk Management; Consumer Behavior; Game Theory; Risk and Uncertainty; Adaptation; Diversification; Expansion; System Shocks; Accommodations Industry; Technology Industry; Canada; United States; Las Vegas
- June 2024
- Article
Defining Who You Are by Whom You Serve? Strategies for Prosocial–Professional Identity Integration with Clients
By: Lakshmi Ramarajan and Julie Yen
Many professionals want to both achieve professional success and contribute to society. Yet, in some professional contexts, these aims are in tension because serving elite clients is considered the pinnacle of professional success, but professionals themselves may view... View Details
- May 2024
- Article
Relational Attributions for One’s Own Resilience Predict Compassion for Others
By: Rachel Ruttan, Ting Zhang, Sivahn Barli and Katherine DeCelles
Existing work on attribution theory distinguishes between external and internal attributions (i.e., “I overcame adversity due to luck” vs. “my own effort”). We introduce the construct of relational resilience attributions (i.e., “due to help from other people”) as a... View Details
- May–June 2024
- Article
Setting Gendered Expectations? Recruiter Outreach Bias in Online Tech Training Programs
By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Karim R. Lakhani and Roberto Fernandez
Competence development in digital technologies, analytics, and artificial intelligence is increasingly important to all types of organizations and their workforce. Universities and corporations are investing heavily in developing training programs, at all tenure... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Platform Information Provision and Consumer Search: A Field Experiment
By: Lu Fang, Yanyou Chen, Chiara Farronato, Zhe Yuan and Yitong Wang
Despite substantial efforts to help consumers search in more intuitive ways, text search remains the predominant tool for product discovery online. In this paper, we explore the effects of visual and textual cues for search refinement on consumer search and purchasing... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Warnings and Endorsements: Improving Human-AI Collaboration in the Presence of Outliers
By: Matthew DosSantos DiSorbo, Kris Ferreira, Maya Balakrishnan and Jordan Tong
Problem definition: While artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms may perform well on data that are representative of the training set (inliers), they may err when extrapolating on non-representative data (outliers). How can humans and algorithms work together to make... View Details
- January 2024
- Supplement
Winning Business at Russell Reynolds
By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco
In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting—and... View Details
- December 2023
- Article
Discerning Saints: Moralization of Intrinsic Motivation and Selective Prosociality at Work
By: Mijeong Kwon, Julia Lee Cunningham and Jon M. Jachimowicz
Intrinsic motivation has received widespread attention as a predictor of positive work outcomes, including employees’ prosocial behavior. In the current research, we offer a more nuanced view by proposing that intrinsic motivation does not uniformly increase prosocial... View Details
- December 2023
- Article
Save More Today or Tomorrow: The Role of Urgency in Precommitment Design
By: Joseph Reiff, Hengchen Dai, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman and Shlomo Benartzi
To encourage farsighted behaviors, past research suggests that marketers may be wise to invite consumers to pre-commit to adopt them “later.” However, the authors propose that people will draw different inferences from different types of pre-commitment offers, and that... View Details
- October 2023
- Article
Coordination and Bandwagon Effects: How Past Rankings Shape the Behavior of Voters and Candidates
By: Riako Granzier, Vincent Pons and Clémence Tricaud
Candidates’ placements in polls or past elections can be powerful coordination devices for both parties and voters. Using a regression discontinuity design in French elections, we show that candidates who place first by only a small margin in the first round are more... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
How Do Voters Respond to Cues by Charismatic Leaders? Evidence from Brazil
By: Paula Rettl
While elite-cue effects on public opinion are well-documented, questions remain as
to when and why voters use elite cues to inform their opinions and behaviors. This
study contributes to answer these questions by testing whether voters react to cues
by charismatic... View Details
Keywords: Elites; Public Engagement; Politics; Political Affiliation; Political Campaigns; Political Influence; Political Leadership; Political Economy; Survey Research; COVID-19; COVID-19 Pandemic; COVID; Cognitive Psychology; Cognitive Biases; Political Elections; Voting; Power and Influence; Identity; Behavior; Latin America; Brazil
- October 2023
- Article
Speedy Activists: Firm Response Time to Sociopolitical Events Influences Consumer Behavior
By: Jimin Nam, Maya Balakrishnan, Julian De Freitas and Alison Wood Brooks
Organizations face growing pressure from their consumers and stakeholders to take public stances on sociopolitical issues. However, many are hesitant to do so lest they make missteps, promises they cannot keep, appear inauthentic, or alienate consumers, employees, or... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
How People Use Statistics
By: Pedro Bordalo, John J. Conlon, Nicola Gennaioli, Spencer Yongwook Kwon and Andrei Shleifer
We document two new facts about the distributions of answers in famous statistical problems: they are i) multi-modal and ii) unstable with respect to irrelevant changes in the problem. We offer a model in which, when solving a problem, people represent each hypothesis... View Details
- August 2023
- Case
Reimagining Hindustan Unilever (A)
By: Sunil Gupta and Rachna Tahilyani
In the fall of 2019, the CEO and MD of Hindustan Unilever (HUL), India’s largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) firm, is wondering what to do about their experiments to digitize distribution. Despite three years of intense efforts, their apps to empower retailers... View Details
- August 2023
- Supplement
Reimagining Hindustan Unilever (B)
By: Sunil Gupta and Rachna Tahilyani
In April 2023, as the CEO and MD of Hindustan Unilever (HUL), India’s largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) firm, prepared to hand over the firm’s reins to his successor, he proudly reflected on the last decade. His quest to digitally transform HUL into an... View Details
- August 2023 (Revised August 2023)
- Case
Sky Therapeutics: Innovating in Digital Therapeutics
By: Satish Tadikonda, Olivia Reszczynski and William Marks
Shad Faraz and Alex Youssef were intrigued by the opportunities in the relatively new area of Digital Therapeutics. Despite initial successes, early entrants had struggled with reimbursement and revenue-predictability challenges. However, venture investors still... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Algorithm Failures and Consumers' Response: Evidence from Zillow
By: Isamar Troncoso, Runshan Fu, Nikhil Malik and Davide Proserpio
In November 2021, Zillow announced the closure of its iBuyer business. Popular media largely attributed this to a failure of its proprietary forecasting algorithm. We study the response of consumers to Zillow’s iBuyer business closure. We show that after the iBuyer... View Details