Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(899)
- Faculty Publications (120)
- March 2022
- Module Note
A Behavioral Science Perspective on Motivation and Incentives
By: John Beshears and Ashley Whillans
This module note for instructors describes a module that integrates insights from the behavioral science of motivation into the economic analysis of incentive systems. View Details
- Article
A 680,000-Person Megastudy of Nudges to Encourage Vaccination in Pharmacies
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Linnea Gandhi, Mitesh S. Patel, Heather N. Graci, Dena M. Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Jake Rothschild, Jonathan E. Bogard, Ilana Brody, Christopher F. Chabris, Edward Chang, Gretchen B. Chapman, Jennifer E. Dannals, Noah J. Goldstein, Amir Goren, Hal Hershfield, Alex Hirsch, Jillian Hmurovic, Samantha Horn, Dean Karlan, Ariella S. Kristal, Cait Lamberton, Michael N. Meyer, Allison H. Oakes, Maurice E. Schweitzer, Maheen Shermohammed, Jaochim H. Talloen, Caleb Warren, Ashley V. Whillans, Kuldeep N. Yadav, Julian J. Zlatev, Ron Berman, Chalanda N. Evans, Rahul Ladhania, Jens Ludwig, Nina Mazar, Sendhil Mullainathan, Christopher K. Snider, Jann Spiess, Eli Tsukayama, Lyle Ungar, Christophe Van den Bulte, Kevin G. Volpp and Angela L. Duckworth
Encouraging vaccination is a pressing policy problem. To assess whether text-based reminders can encourage pharmacy vaccination and what kinds of messages work best, we conducted a megastudy. We randomly assigned 689,693 Walmart pharmacy patients to receive one of 22... View Details
- February 2022 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Aleph Farms: A New Culture of Meat
By: Elie Ofek and Jeff Huizinga
Aleph Farms, an Israeli food-tech start-up, was hoping to play a major role in disrupting the conventional meat sector. Compared to intensive agricultural practices, Aleph’s cultured (or lab-grown) meat solution held the promise of considerably reducing greenhouse gas... View Details
Keywords: Innovation; Disruptive Innovation; Adoption; Go To Market Strategy; Industry Evolution; Food Industry; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Marketing Of Innovations; Brand Building; Capital Expenditures-equipment; Disruption; Green Technology; Environmental Sustainability; Food; Market Entry and Exit; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry
- Article
Megastudies Improve the Impact of Applied Behavioural Science
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Dena Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Pepi Pandiloski, Yeji Park, Aneesh Rai, Max Bazerman, John Beshears, Lauri Bonacorsi, Colin Camerer, Edward Chang, Gretchen Chapman, Robert Cialdini, Hengchen Dai, Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, Ayelet Fishbach, James J. Gross, Samantha Horn, Alexa Hubbard, Steven J. Jones, Dean Karlan, Tim Kautz, Erika Kirgios, Joowon Klusowski, Ariella Kristal, Rahul Ladhania, Jens Ludwig, George Loewenstein, Barbara Mellers, Sendhil Mullainathan, Silvia Saccardo, Jann Spiess, Gaurav Suri, Joachim H. Talloen, Jamie Taxer, Yaacov Trope, Lyle Ungar, Kevin G. Volpp, Ashley V. Whillans, Jonathan Zinman and Angela L. Duckworth
Policy-makers are increasingly turning to behavioural science for insights about how to improve citizens’ decisions and outcomes. Typically, different scientists test different intervention ideas in different samples using different outcomes over different time... View Details
- Article
Decarbonization Factors
By: Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim, David Turkington and Hui (Stacie) Wang
In the face of accelerating climate change, investors are making capital allocations seeking to decarbonize portfolios by reducing the carbon emissions of their holdings. To understand the performance of portfolio decarbonization strategies and investor behavior... View Details
- 2021
- Book
The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta
Trust is the most powerful force underlying the success of every business. Yet it can be shattered in an instant, with a devastating impact on a company’s market cap and reputation. How to build and sustain trust requires fresh insight into why customers, employees,... View Details
Keywords: Power; Corporate Culture; Future Of Work; Innovation; Technology Strategy; Automation; Stakeholder Engagement; Employee Attitude; Customer Behavior; Shareholder Value; Government And Business; Impact Investing; Corporate Change And Sustainability; Trust; Power and Influence; Globalization; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Innovation and Invention; Human Resources; Information Technology; Strategy; Corporate Accountability; Asia; Europe; South America; Middle East; North and Central America
- 2021
- Article
Nudging the Commute: Using Behaviorally-Informed Interventions to Promote Sustainable Transportation
By: Ashley Whillans, Joseph Sherlock, Jessica Roberts, Shibeal O'Flaherty, Lyndsay Gavin, Holly Dykstra and Michael Daly
Dramatic reductions in carbon emissions must take place immediately. A human-centric method of reducing environmental impacts is to “nudge” employees away from single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) toward more sustainable commuting options. While an abundance of research... View Details
- May 2021
- Simulation
Customer Compatibility Exercise Application
By: Ryan W. Buell
Customers impose considerable variability on the operating systems of service organizations. They show up when they wish (arrival variability), they ask for different things (request variability), they vary in their willingness and ability to help themselves (effort... View Details
- May 2021 (Revised February 2024)
- Teaching Note
THE YES: Reimagining the Future of E-Commerce with Artificial Intelligence (AI)
By: Ayelet Israeli and Jill Avery
THE YES, a multi-brand shopping app launched in May 2020 offered a new type of buying experience for women’s fashion, driven by a sophisticated algorithm that used data science and machine learning to create and deliver a personalized store for every shopper, based on... View Details
Keywords: Data; Data Analytics; Artificial Intelligence; AI; AI Algorithms; AI Creativity; Fashion; Retail; Retail Analytics; E-Commerce Strategy; Platform; Platforms; Big Data; Preference Elicitation; Predictive Analytics; App Development; ＂Marketing Analytics＂; Advertising; Mobile App; Mobile Marketing; Apparel; Online Advertising; Referral Rewards; Referrals; Female Ceo; Female Entrepreneur; Female Protagonist; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Creativity; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing Channels; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; AI and Machine Learning; E-commerce; Digital Platforms; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- Article
Joy and Rigor in Behavioral Science
By: Hanne K. Collins, Ashley V. Whillans and Leslie K. John
In the past decade, behavioral science has seen the introduction of beneficial reforms to reduce false positive results. Serving as the motivational backdrop for the present research, we wondered whether these reforms might have unintended negative consequences on... View Details
- May–June 2021
- Article
Savvy Self-Promotion: The Delicate Art and Science of Bragging
By: Leslie K. John
Everyone knows that success at work depends on being—and being seen as—both competent and likable. You need people to notice your growth and accomplishments while also enjoying your company. But if you draw attention to the value you’ve created, to ensure that managers... View Details
- May 2021
- Article
The Firm Next Door: Using Satellite Images to Study Local Information Advantage
By: Jung Koo Kang, Lorien Stice-Lawrence and Forester Wong
We use novel satellite data that track the number of cars in the parking lots of 92,668 stores for 71 publicly listed U.S. retailers to study the local information advantage of institutional investors. We establish car counts as a timely measure of store-level... View Details
- April 2021 (Revised July 2021)
- Case
StockX: The Stock Market of Things (Abridged)
By: Chiara Farronato, John J. Horton, Annelena Lobb and Julia Kelley
Founded in 2015 by Dan Gilbert, Josh Luber, and Greg Schwartz, StockX was an online platform where users could buy and sell unworn luxury and limited-edition sneakers. Sneaker resale prices often fluctuated over time based on supply and demand, creating a robust... View Details
Keywords: Markets; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Demand and Consumers; Consumer Behavior; Analytics and Data Science; Market Design; Digital Platforms; Market Transactions; Marketplace Matching; Supply and Industry; Analysis; Price; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry; North and Central America; United States; Michigan; Detroit
- March 2021 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
Applied: Using Behavioral Science to Debias Hiring
By: Ashley Whillans and Jeff Polzer
The UK government’s Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) needed to hire a new associate and were trying to increase the diversity of their job candidates. This decision was based on academic research showing that recruiters and managers often fell into common traps like... View Details
- March 2021
- Supplement
Applied: Using Behavioral Science to Debias Hiring (B)
By: Ashley Whillans and Jeff Polzer
At the end of 2018, Applied faced questions of stakeholder management and scale. Glazebrook wanted clients to get rid of CVs altogether. To do this, they would have to help hiring managers and recruiters easily build task-based assessments of the skills that their... View Details
- Article
Internal Deadlines, Drug Approvals, and Safety Problems
By: Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun and Danielle Li
Absent explicit quotas, incentives, reporting, or fiscal year-end motives, drug approvals around the world surge in December, at month-ends, and before respective major national holidays. Drugs approved before these informal deadlines are associated with significantly... View Details
- February 2021 (Revised May 2021)
- Case
SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service
By: Ramana Nanda, Abhishek Nagaraj and Allison Ciechanover
Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on... View Details
- 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
- January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
- Teaching Note
The What Works Centre: Using Behavioral Science to Improve Social Worker Well-being (A) and (B)
This case describes the experiences of Michael Sanders—the Chief Executive of the What Works Center for Children’s Social Care—as he led the design and implementation of a program of research aimed at improving the social care system in the United Kingdom (UK) at the... View Details
- January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
THE YES: Reimagining the Future of E-Commerce with Artificial Intelligence (AI)
By: Jill Avery, Ayelet Israeli and Emma von Maur
THE YES, a multi-brand shopping app launched in May 2020 offered a new type of buying experience for women’s fashion, driven by a sophisticated algorithm that used data science and machine learning to create and deliver a personalized store for every shopper, based on... View Details
Keywords: Data; Data Analytics; Artificial Intelligence; AI; AI Algorithms; AI Creativity; Fashion; Retail; Retail Analytics; E-Commerce Strategy; Platform; Platforms; Big Data; Preference Elicitation; Preference Prediction; Predictive Analytics; App Development; ＂Marketing Analytics＂; Advertising; Mobile App; Mobile Marketing; Apparel; Online Advertising; Referral Rewards; Referrals; Female Ceo; Female Entrepreneur; Female Protagonist; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Creativity; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing Channels; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; AI and Machine Learning; E-commerce; Digital Platforms; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States