by Michael Pirson - Publications - Faculty & Research

21 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Are We Thinking Too Little, or Too Much?

The most captivating item in Michael Norton's office is a Star Wars The Force Trainer, a toy that allows would-be Jedi warriors to levitate a Ping-Pong ball within a tube using only the power of focused thinking. Norton, a marketing... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

27 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

Voting Democrat or Republican? The Critical Childhood Influence That's Tough to Shake

American political candidates are forecast to spend as much as $12 billion by next November to put ads on airwaves, texts on phones, and signs on lawns. Yet new research from Harvard Business School finds that no amount of money can undo... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

11 Jun 2012
Research & Ideas

When Business Competition Harms Society

UCLA Anderson School, and Michael W. Toffel of Harvard Business School. In the quest to discover whether competition breeds unethical behavior, the researchers examined the vehicle emissions testing program in New York State, one of... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Auto

17 Nov 2008
Research & Ideas

Decoding the Artful Sidestep

instead provide distraction by answering something they would rather have been asked. And what is more, oftentimes their listeners either do not notice the verbal sleight of hand or do not mind it. New research View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

26 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

STEM Needs More Women. Recruiters Often Keep Them Out

non-traditional applicants.” Certificate programs often pay off for participants, and ensuring success for all involved—the universities, graduates, and future employers—is big business. Some 40 percent of graduates studied received a raise or promotion View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

18 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

Hazard Warning: The Unacceptable Cost of Toxic Workers

what he calls the negative outliers. The estimated cost—based on turnover triggered by the toxic worker and the cost associated with new hires and training—is likely on the low end, Minor says, because it doesn’t take into account... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

25 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Politics is Failing America, and What Business Can Do To Help

According to a new Harvard Business School report from Michael E. Porter, the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor, and co-author Katherine Gehl, a former CEO and political activist, Washington’s proverbial “swamp” isn’t a set of... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

14 Aug 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 14, 2018

and healthy innovation. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54851 in press Management Science Procedural Justice and the Risks of Consumer Voting By: Kim, Tami, Leslie John, Todd Rogers, and Michael I. Norton... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

18 Aug 2008
Research & Ideas

How Disruptive Innovation Changes Education

theory of disruptive innovation, often applied to a variety of other industries, such as technology and health care. Christensen's theory was first explored in his two New York Times bestsellers, The Innovator's Dilemma (1997) and The Innovator's Solution (with View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

12 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

What Actually Draws Sports Fans to Games? It's Not Star Athletes.

suggests that spectators also value something far simpler: the suspense of not knowing who will win. In fact, stadiums sell more tickets when the outcome of a game is less predictable, says a study by Harvard Business School Professor... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Sports

14 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

You're Right! You Are Working Longer and Attending More Meetings

Work-from-home employees whose days seem longer, with more meetings and emails than ever before, may find a new Harvard Business School study validating. An analysis of the emails and meetings of 3.1 million people in 16 global cities found that the average workday... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

13 Dec 2006
Research & Ideas

Improving Public Health for the Poor

Microfinance—essentially small loans that help impoverished individuals create jobs, small businesses, and stronger communities—may offer a window on new methods for widening access to healthcare for the poor. Led by Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Throwing Your Opponent: Strategies for the Internet Age

with Microsoft (The Free Press), Yoffie and Michael A. Cusumano of MIT's Sloan School of Management use this high-tech confrontation to outline a comprehensive approach to strategy in the ultracompetitive environment created View Details

Keywords: by Daniel Penrice

02 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Can Japan Compete? [Part One]

considered exemplary policies and practices by government. By looking more closely, however, Porter, Takeuchi, and Sakakibara also began to discover what they call "another Japan." While the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace & Hilah Geer

22 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

How to Learn from the Big Mistake You Almost Make

and express the value of resilience to their teams, the likelihood that workers will report such incidents increases. That was the main finding of Resilience vs. Vulnerability: Psychological Safety and Reporting of Near Misses with Varying Proximity to Harm in... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Health

19 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

What Makes Employees Trust (vs. Second-Guess) AI?

LISH senior research scientist Michael Menietti; Katherine C. Kellogg, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Luca Vendraminelli, who is affiliated with LISH and a post-doctoral fellow at the Politecnico di Milano.... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

02 Mar 2007
What Do You Think?

What Is the Government’s Role in US Health Care?

from government. Suggestions of causes of the current challenge of rapidly rising costs in relation to quality of outcomes, at least by the imperfect measure of life expectancy, included waste in the system (Julie Maire, Edward Hare, and... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Health

08 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Can Japan Compete? [Part Two]

In our January 2 update, we featured the first part of a two-part interview with HBS professor Michael E. Porter, an internationally influential expert on strategy and competition. (Porter was recently appointed to a University... View Details