Publications

06 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

Skills and Behaviors that Make Entrepreneurs Successful

financed them—declared such brick-and-mortar businesses were dinosaurs on their way to extinction. The success of Bluemercury proved the critics wrong. “We’ve always had a hard time being able to identify the skills and behaviors of... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Working Knowledge

Teaching Interest

Behavioral Finance (Econ 970, Spring 2015)

Second-year undergraduate course covering recent advances in the field of behavioral finance. The course begins by examining some of the most canonical pricing anomalies, such as claims to identical cashflows trading at different prices in different markets, and... View Details

February 2013
Article

Commitment and Behavior Change: Evidence from the Field

By: Katie Baca-Motes, Amber Brown, Ayelet Gneezy, Elizabeth A. Keenan and Leif D. Nelson

Influencing behavior change is an ongoing challenge in psychology, economics, and consumer behavior research. Building on previous work on commitment, self-signaling, and the principle of consistency, a large, intensive field experiment (N = 2,416) examined the effect... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Marketing

Teaching Interest

Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LEAD)

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

Professor Bernstein taught Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LEAD) from 2013-2016 (7 sections). This course focuses on how managers become effective leaders by addressing the human side of enterprise.

The course is divided into five modules:View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Organizations; Personal Development and Career; Relationships; Communication

May 2014
Case

Gunfire at Sea (multi-media case)

By: Michael Tushman and Tom Ryder

This short video illustrates the challenges of leading innovation and change. This classic case (one of the oldest in the HBS system) retains its timeliness. The case describes how Lt. Sims develops a new form of gunfire at sea—continuous aim gunfire. While 3,000% more... View Details

Keywords: Organization Behavior; Change; Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Innovation Leadership; United States

Educators

2023
Working Paper

Behavioral Transmission: Evidence from a Public Health Campaign in Bangladesh

By: Reshmaan Hussam and Dayea Oh

We examine how behavior change transmits across contexts in the setting of hand hygiene in rural Bangladesh. We randomize an edutainment intervention across classrooms to trace schoolto-home transmission in handwashing behavior and randomize the proportion of students... View Details

Keywords: Handwashing; Interventions; Public Health; Health; Behavior; Change; Bangladesh

January 24, 2025
Article

Behaviorally Designed Training Leads to More Diverse Hiring

By: Cansin Arslan, Edward H. Chang, Siri Chilazi, Iris Bohnet and Oliver P. Hauser

Many organizations have shown interest in increasing the diversity of their workforces for various reasons. Collectively, they have spent millions of dollars and countless employee hours on diversity training. Yet, there is little empirical evidence that such training... View Details

Keywords: Training; Diversity; Selection and Staffing; Behavior; Outcome or Result; Organizational Change and Adaptation

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May–June 2023
Article

Unmasking Behaviors During the Pandemic with Video Analytics

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Kaiquan Xu and Kannan Srinivasan

In 2020, as the novel coronavirus spread globally, face masks were recommended in public settings to protect against and slow down viral transmission. People complied to varying extents, and their reactions may have been driven by a variety of psychological factors.... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Social Influence; Social Norms; Health Pandemics; Behavior

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2019
Article

More Amazon Effects: Online Competition and Pricing Behaviors

By: Alberto Cavallo

I study how online competition, with its shrinking margins, algorithmic pricing technologies, and the transparency of the web, can change the pricing behavior of large retailers in the U.S. and affect aggregate inflation dynamics. In particular, I show that in the past... View Details

Keywords: Amazon; Online Prices; Inflation; Uniform Pricing; Price Stickiness; Monetary Economics; Economics; Macroeconomics; Inflation and Deflation; System Shocks; United States

August 2002 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Gillette Company (D): Implementing Change

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

How a strategic change agenda is implemented depends on leaders below the top in every function and geographic region translating the agenda into actions. But those actions do not always unfold as planned. This case examines the first 16 months of a turnaround from the... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Competitive Strategy; Strategic Planning; Change Management; Organizational Design; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Behavior; Leading Change; Retail Industry

Educators

July 2015
Article

Executives' 'Off-the-Job' Behaviors and Financial Reporting Risk

By: Robert Davidson, Aiyesha Dey and Abbie Smith

We examine how executives' behavior outside the workplace, as measured by their ownership of luxury goods (low “frugality”) and prior legal infractions, is related to financial reporting risk. We predict and find that chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Behavior; Personal Characteristics; Crime and Corruption; Governance Compliance; Financial Reporting; Organizational Culture

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13 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

When Gender Changes the Negotiation

negotiation can set the stage for differences in outcomes negotiated by men and by women, particularly when (1) the opportunities and limits of the negotiation are unclear; and (2) situational cues in these ambiguous situations trigger different View Details

Keywords: by Dina W. Pradel, Hannah Riley Bowles & Kathleen L. McGinn

11 Jan 2008
Working Paper Summaries

See No Evil: When We Overlook Other People’s Unethical Behavior

Keywords: by Francesca Gino, Don A. Moore & Max H. Bazerman

2023
Working Paper

The Buy-In Effect: When Increasing Initial Effort Motivates Behavioral Follow-Through

By: Holly Dykstra, Shibeal O'Flaherty and A.V. Whillans

Behavioral interventions often focus on reducing friction to encourage behavior change. In contrast, we provide evidence that adding friction can promote long-term behavior change when behaviors involve repeated costly efforts over longer time horizons. In... View Details

Keywords: Friction; Behavior; Environmental Sustainability; Transportation; Outcome or Result

19 Jul 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Government 'Nudges' Motivate Good Citizen Behavior

suitcases at the airport. But now agencies are finding that subtle “nudges” can motivate behavior much better than ads, fines, or deadlines. Nudges, or small changes to the context in which decisions are... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

26 Jan 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Behavioral Ethics: Toward a Deeper Understanding of Moral Judgment and Dishonesty

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman & Francesca Gino

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

Two dramatically different approaches to organizational change are being employed in the world today, according to our observations, research, and experience. We call these Theory E and Theory O of change. Like all managerial action,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

10 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Do You Have Change Fatigue?

the necessary behavioral changes. Poor communication. A change initiative is like the start of a marathon: change will be occurring rapidly in some units, whereas in others it... View Details

Keywords: by Nick Morgan

June 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Innovation at Insigne Health

By: Srikant M. Datar, Linda A. Cyr and Caitlin N. Bowler

Insigne Health is a fictional for-profit, integrated health insurer/health care provider whose leadership believes that by shifting members’ focus from “sickness” to “well-being” it could increase the overall health of its insured population and decrease the resources... View Details

Keywords: Design Thinking; Behavior Change; Chronic Disease; Health Care; Health Care and Treatment; Design; Behavior; Change; Innovation and Management

Educators