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- October 2011 (Revised December 2022)
- Background Note
Ethical Analysis: Moral Disengagement
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Celia Moore
Moral disengagement is a process that enables people to engage in negative behaviors, from small misdeeds to great atrocities, without believing that they are causing harm or doing wrong. When Conrad Black, the fallen Canadian mogul convicted of multiple counts of... View Details
- 2011
- Chapter
American Exceptionalism?: A Comparative Analysis of the Origins and Trajectory of U.S. Business Education Development
By: Rakesh Khurana
As business education in an academic setting becomes an increasingly global phenomenon, the university-based business school in America remains a unique institution. This holds true despite the fact that the American business school as it evolved in the post-World War... View Details
- September 2011
- Article
Global Capitalism at Risk: What Are You Doing About It?
Market capitalism, a system that has proven to be a remarkable engine of wealth creation, is poised for a breakdown. That sounds dire, and it is. Increasing income inequality, migration, weaknesses in the global financial system, environmental degradation, and... View Details
- August 2011 (Revised October 2015)
- Case
Boardroom Battle Behind Bars: Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings—A Corporate Governance Drama
By: William C. Kirby and Tracy Yuen Manty
Despite widespread news of the incarceration of Gome Electronics' CEO, Huang Guangyu, Bain Capital felt they carefully undertook due diligence before making a significant investment in the company. The venture capital firm was confident that it and the current... View Details
Keywords: China; Legal Aspects Of Business; Corruption; Risk; Corporate Governance; Crime and Corruption; Power and Influence; Risk Management; Business and Shareholder Relations; Venture Capital; Ethics; Governing and Advisory Boards; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Values and Beliefs; Private Equity; China
- 2011
- Working Paper
Free to Punish? The American Dream and the Harsh Treatment of Criminals
By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra
We describe the evolution of selective aspects of punishment in the U.S. over the period 1980-2004. We note that imprisonment increased around 1980, a period that coincides with the "Reagan revolution" in economic matters. We build an economic model where beliefs about... View Details
- June 2011
- Article
Implicit Voice Theories: Taken-for-granted Rules of Self-censorship at Work
By: J. R. Detert and Amy C. Edmondson
This article examines, in a series of four studies, the nature and impact of implicit voice theories-largely taken-for-granted beliefs about when and why speaking up at work is risky or inappropriate. In Study 1, qualitative data from 190 interviews conducted in a... View Details
- April 2011
- Article
Strategies for Learning from Failure
By: Amy C. Edmondson
Many executives believe that all failure is bad (although it usually provides lessons)--and that learning from it is pretty straightforward. The author, a professor at Harvard Business School, thinks both beliefs are misguided. In organizational life, she says, some... View Details
- 2011
- Book
Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It
By: Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel
When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability... View Details
- February 2011
- Article
Bounded Ethicality in Negotiations
By: Max Bazerman
Routine and persistent acts of dishonesty prevail in everyday life, yet most people resist shining a critical moral light on their own behavior, thereby maintaining and oftentimes inflating images of themselves as moral individuals. We overview the psychology that... View Details
- January – February 2011
- Article
Are You a Good Boss-Or a Great One?
By: Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback
Private moments of doubt and fear come even to managers who have spent years on the job. Any number of events can trigger them: an initiative is going poorly; you get a lukewarm performance review; your new assignment is daunting. HBS professor Linda Hill and executive... View Details
- 2011
- Article
Free to Punish? The American Dream and the Harsh Treatment of Criminals
By: Rafael Di Tella
We describe the evolution of selective aspects of punishment in the U.S. over the period 1980-2004. We note that imprisonment increased around 1980, a period that coincides with the "Reagan revolution" in economic matters. We build an economic model where beliefs about... View Details
Keywords: Crime and Corruption
- Article
The Social Utility of Feature Creep
By: Debora V. Thompson and Michael I. Norton
Previous research shows that consumers frequently choose products with too many features that they later find difficult to use. Our research shows that this seemingly suboptimal behavior may in fact confer benefits when factoring in the social context of consumption.... View Details
- Article
Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing
By: Michael I. Norton and Samuel R. Sommers
Although some have heralded recent political and cultural developments as signaling the arrival of a post-racial era in America, several legal and social controversies regarding "reverse racism" highlight Whites' increasing concern about anti-White bias. We show that... View Details
Keywords: Racism; Zero-sum Game; Bias; Affirmative Action; Prejudice and Bias; Race; Social Issues; United States
- Article
Who Benefits from Religion?
By: Daniel Mochon, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely
Many studies have documented the benefits of religious involvement. Indeed, highly religious people tend to be healthier, live longer, and have higher levels of subjective well-being. While religious involvement offers clear benefits to many, in this paper we explore... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Conveniently Upset: Avoiding Altruism by Distorting Beliefs about Others
By: Rafael Di Tella and Ricardo Perez-Truglia
In this paper we present the results from a "corruption game" (a dictator game modified so that the second player can accept a side payment that reduces the overall size of the pie). Dictators (silently) treated to have the possibility of taking a larger proportion of... View Details
- Article
On the Origin of Shared Beliefs (and Corporate Culture)
This article shows how corporate culture, in the sense of shared beliefs and values, originates (often unintentionally) through screening, self-sorting, and manager-directed joint learning. It shows that such culture will be stronger among more important employees and... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Peronist Beliefs and Interventionist Policies
By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra
We study the logic of Peronist interventionist polices and the beliefs that support them. Instead of a comprehensive approach, we focus on three elements. First, we study beliefs and values about the economic system present in Peron's speeches during the period... View Details
- November 2010
- Article
Which of These People Is Your Future CEO?
By: Boris Groysberg, Andrew Hill and Toby Johnson
Americans have long believed that U.S. military officers-trained for high-stakes positions, resilience, and mental agility-make excellent CEOs. That belief is sound, but the authors' analysis of the performance of 45 companies led by CEOs with military experience... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised August 2016)
- Case
On Weldon's Watch: Recalls at Johnson & Johnson from 2009 to 2010
By: Clayton S. Rose, Sandra J. Sucher, Rachel Gordon and Matthew Preble
In October of 2010, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) was unable to extricate itself from a year long recall crisis that had subjected the firm to criticism from Congress and regulators, resulted in the resignation of one of the firm's most senior officers, and cost hundreds of... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
Building a Developmental Culture: The Birth of Deloitte University
By: Boris Groysberg, Maureen Gibbons and Joshua Bronstein
It is October 2009 and Barry Salzberg, CEO of Deloitte LLP, has just returned from the groundbreaking of Deloitte University. When completed, Deloitte University would be a world class learning and development center owned by, and for the exclusive use by the employees... View Details