Publications

Educators

2011
Working Paper

The Importance of Work Context in Organizational Learning from Error

By: Lucy H. MacPhail and Amy C. Edmondson

This paper examines the implications of work context for learning from errors in organizations. Prior research has shown that attitudes and behaviors related to error vary between groups within organizations but has not investigated or theorized the ways in which... View Details

Keywords: Judgments; Learning; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Failure; Performance Improvement; Opportunities; Complexity

2016
Working Paper

Who Pays for White-Collar Crime?

By: Paul Healy and George Serafeim

Using a proprietary dataset of 667 companies around the world that experienced white-collar crime, we investigate what drives punishment of perpetrators of crime. We find a significantly lower propensity to punish crime in our sample, where most crimes are not reported... View Details

Keywords: Crime; Gender Bias; Women; Women Executives; Corruption; Legal Aspects Of Business; Firing; Human Capital; Human Resource Management; Prejudice and Bias; Crime and Corruption; Judgments; Law Enforcement; Human Resources; Corporate Governance; Gender

SSRN

29 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 29, 2006

Using Judgmental Forecasts Authors:Vishal Gaur, Saravanan Kesavan, Ananth Raman, and Marshall L. Fisher Periodical:Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (forthcoming) Abstract Measuring demand uncertainty is a key activity in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2011
Working Paper

Memory Lane and Morality: How Childhood Memories Promote Prosocial Behavior

By: Francesca Gino and Sreedhari D. Desai

Four experiments demonstrated that recalling memories from one's own childhood lead people to experience feelings of moral purity and to behave prosocially. In Experiment 1, participants instructed to recall memories from their childhood were more likely to help the... View Details

Keywords: Judgments; Moral Sensibility; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Organizational Culture; Behavior; Emotions; Personal Characteristics; Welfare

01 Sep 2004
News

MBA Class of 2004 Celebrates Class Day and Commencement

audience. Imagine, he asked, that you could carry in your pocket a miniature governing board composed of several individual voices and characters whose collective judgment could be called on in times of need. For his own “pocket board,”... View Details

Keywords: commencement; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

23 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 23, 2008

incompetence. Warmth and competence judgments support systematic patterns of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions, including ambivalent prejudices. Past views of prejudice as a univalent antipathy have obscured the unique... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

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

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Fairness; Values and Beliefs; Game Theory; Personal Characteristics

Article

The Performer's Reactions to Procedural Injustice: When Prosocial Identity Reduces Prosocial Behavior

By: Adam M. Grant, Andrew Molinsky, Joshua D. Margolis, Melissa Kamin and William Schiano

Considerable research has examined how procedural injustice affects victims and witnesses of unfavorable outcomes, with little attention to the “performers” who deliver these outcomes. Drawing on dissonance theory, we hypothesized that performers' reactions to... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Judgments; Fairness; Outcome or Result; Behavior; Identity; Power and Influence

Find at Harvard

July 2009 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Risk Management at Wellfleet Bank: All That Glitters Is Not Gold

By: Anette Mikes

This case motivates a debate on the role of staff functions, such as risk management: what does it mean for them to be independent, and at the same time, to partner the business lines? The case describes the risk assessment process in the corporate banking arm of... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Credit; Banks and Banking; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Mathematical Methods

Educators

23 Oct 2019
News

Preparing Leaders to Leverage Artificial Intelligence

Administration, made educating students “to use data for judgment, and judgment for data” one of the top three priorities guiding the MBA curriculum. “AI is not just displacing human workers—it is changing the nature of firms, how they... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Ambition; Pathbreaking Research; Artificial Intelligence

08 Dec 2003
Research & Ideas

Is That Really Your Best Offer?

making snap judgments about people based on the wrong cues. The fact is, though, that most of us aren't nearly as good as we think we are at catching deception, whether it's malicious or merely defensive. Studies show that our hunches... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Wheeler

01 Sep 2008
News

Negative Ad Power

against an attractive but relatively unknown candidate. The alternative of crafting a distinct, positive image takes longer and becomes more difficult as the day of judgment approaches. Policy differences grow fuzzier as both candidates... View Details

Keywords: John A. Quelch;Katherine E. Jocz; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

01 Sep 2014
News

Faculty Q&A: Cents and Sensibilities

you might say—about the mechanical effects of an economic policy. We are not very good at thinking about the broader value judgments underneath those decisions. What part does the minimum wage debate play in larger policy discussion about... View Details

Keywords: April White; faculty research; writing

26 Apr 2011
News

Do You See What I See?

In the second-year elective The Moral Leader, students read and discuss a wide selection of literary sources, confronting complex moral challenges and developing the analytical skills and judgment that will be required of them as business... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

2009
Working Paper

The Devil Wears Prada: Effects of Exposure to Luxury Goods on Cognition and Decision Making

By: Roy Y.J. Chua and Xi Zou

Although the concept of luxury has been widely discussed in social theories and marketing research, relatively little research has directly examined the psychological consequences of exposure to luxury goods. This paper demonstrates that mere exposure to luxury goods... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Ethics; Marketing; Behavior; Power and Influence; Luxury

01 Dec 2018
News

Alumni Are Integral to HBS

chairman of Metis Capital Partners in Lagos, Nigeria, who also chairs the advisory board of Harvard’s Center for African Studies. “As alumni, we need to give students the benefit of our judgment so that they aren’t always reinventing the... View Details

July 1977
Article

Social Roles, Social Control and Biases in Social Perception Processes

By: L. D. Ross, T. M. Amabile and J. Steinmetz

To make accurate social judgments, an individual must both recognize and adequately correct for the self-presentation advantages or disadvantages conferred upon actors by their social roles. Two experiments using 120 undergraduates examined social perceptions formed... View Details

Keywords: Perception; Prejudice and Bias; Social Psychology; Judgments; Power and Influence; Status and Position; Situation or Environment

Find at Harvard

October 2022
Case

Ethena: A Go-to-Market Dilemma

By: Rembrand Koning and Stacy Straaberg

In November 2021, Roxanne Petraeus and Anne Solmssen, founders of Brooklyn-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Ethena, were looking to expand their compliance training business. The founders hired Arnie Gullov-Singh, an outside revenue consultant, to advise on... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Growth and Development Strategy; Business or Company Management; Business Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Technology Industry; United States; New York (state, US)

Educators