Publications

2024
Working Paper

Do Information Frictions and Corruption Perceptions Kill Competition? A Field Experiment on Public Procurement in Uganda

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Francesco Loiacono, Edwin Muhumuza and Edoardo Teso

We study whether information frictions and corruption perceptions deter firms from doing business with the government. We conduct two nationwide randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in collaboration with the national public procurement supervisory and anti-corruption... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Government and Politics; Crime and Corruption; Trust; Perception; Business and Government Relations

2022
Working Paper

How Foundations Think: The Ford Foundation as a Dominating Institution in the Field of American Business Schools

By: Rakesh Khurana, Kenneth C. Kimura and Marion Fourcade

Research Summary

Overview

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

I have spent my career studying novel talent management practices and their effect on collaboration and performance. My core research focuses on two interrelated organizational trends that have become salient in the 21st century: workplace transparency (who gets to... View Details

2022
Working Paper

Are Experts Blinded by Feasibility?: Experimental Evidence from a NASA Robotics Challenge

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Zoe Szajnfarber, Jason Crusan, Michael Menietti and Karim R. Lakhani

Resource allocation decisions play a dominant role in shaping a firm’s technological trajectory and competitive advantage. Recent work indicates that innovative firms and scientific institutions tend to exhibit an anti-novelty bias when evaluating new projects and... View Details

Keywords: Evaluations; Novelty; Feasibility; Field Experiment; Resource Allocation; Technological Innovation; Competitive Advantage; Decision Making

SSRN

2017
Working Paper

Seeking to Belong: How the Words of Internal and External Beneficiaries Influence Performance

By: Paul Green, Francesca Gino and Bradley R. Staats

In this paper, we examine how connecting to beneficiaries of one’s work increases performance and argue that beneficiaries internal to an organization (i.e., one’s own colleagues) can serve as an important source of motivation, even in jobs that—on the surface—may seem... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Motivation; Belongingness; Motivation; Job Design; Field Experiment; Motivation and Incentives; Strategy; Job Design and Levels

SSRN

June 2021
Article

Engineering Serendipity: When Does Knowledge Sharing Lead to Knowledge Production?

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva C. Guinan and Karim R. Lakhani

We investigate how knowledge similarity between two individuals is systematically related to the likelihood that a serendipitous encounter results in knowledge production. We conduct a natural field experiment at a medical research symposium, where we exogenously... View Details

Keywords: Cognitive Similarity; Innovation; Knowledge Production; Natural Field Experiment; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Sharing; Relationships

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Spring 2016
Article

Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design

By: Kevin J. Boudreau, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael E. Menietti

Tournaments are widely used in the economy to organize production and innovation. We study individual contestant-level data from 2,796 contestants in 774 software algorithm design contests with random assignment. Precisely conforming to theory predictions, the... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy

7 Jun 2012
Conference Presentation

How Do Risk Managers Become Influential? A Field Study of Toolmaking and Expertise in Two Financial Institutions

By: Anette Mikes

05 Sep 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design

Keywords: by Kevin J. Boudreau, Constance E. Helfat, Karim R. Lakhani & Michael E. Menietti.

21 Jun 2012
Conference Presentation

How Do Risk Managers Become Influential? A Field Study of Toolmaking and Expertise in Two Financial Institutions

By: Anette Mikes

June 2023
Article

The Salary Taboo: Privacy Norms and the Diffusion of Information

By: Zoë Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

The limited diffusion of salary information has implications for labor markets, such as wage discrimination policies and collective bargaining. Access to salary information is believed to be limited and unequal, but there is little direct evidence on the sources of... View Details

Keywords: Search Costs; Privacy; Norms; Compensation; Financial Industry; Field Experiment; Knowledge Dissemination; Equality and Inequality; Gender; Compensation and Benefits; Societal Protocols

16 Dec 2013
News

Ford 'Lifers' Get Second Chance as CEO Readies Exit

Keywords: Ford Motors; automotive industry; Mark Fields; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management; Transportation Equipment Manufacturing; Manufacturing

Research Summary

The Unexpected Effects of Workplace Transparency

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

Workplace transparency provides a foundation for learning and control, and therefore for satisfaction and productivity. Yet my research shows that an obsession with transparency-enhancing tools and structures can backfire, producing the unintended consequences of... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Privacy; Productivity; Field Experiments; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Human Resources; Leadership; United States; Europe; China; Japan

Article

Using Fresh Starts to Nudge Increased Retirement Savings

By: John Beshears, Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman and Shlomo Benartzi

We conducted a field experiment to study the effect of framing future moments in time as new beginnings (or “fresh starts”). University employees (N=6,082) received mailings with an opportunity to choose between increasing their contributions to a savings plan... View Details

Keywords: Choice Architecture; Randomized Field Experiment; Savings; New Beginning; Fresh Start; Saving; Retirement; Behavior

June 2012
Article

The Transparency Paradox: A Role for Privacy in Organizational Learning and Operational Control

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

Using data from embedded participant-observers and a field experiment at the second largest mobile phone factory in the world, located in China, I theorize and test the implications of transparent organizational design on workers' productivity and organizational... View Details

May–June 2015
Article

Back to the Future: Implications for the Field of HRM of the Multi-stakeholder Perspective Proposed 30 Years Ago

By: Michael Beer, Paul Boselie and Chris Brewster

Thirty years on from the seminal work Managing Human Assets (MHA) by Beer et al., we examine how the subject has developed. We offer a normative review, based on that model, and we critique the assumption that the business of HRM is solely to improve returns to owners... View Details

Keywords: Management; Human Resources

Article

Creating Firm Disclosures

By: Amir Amel-Zadeh, Alexandra Scherf and Eugene F. Soltes

Managers expend significant time and effort preparing disclosures about firm performance and strategy. Although prior literature has explored how variation in the style and presentation of disclosures impacts investors' perceptions of firms, little is known about how... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure; Earnings Conference Call; Field Study; MD＆A; Textual Analysis; Corporate Disclosure