Learning By Thinking - Publications - Faculty & Research

16 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

The Messy Link Between Slave Owners and Modern Management

management today. “How much more do we need to think about our responsibility to people?” As fascinating as her findings were, Rosenthal had some misgivings about their implications. She didn't want to be perceived as saying something... View Details

Keywords: by Katie Johnston

11 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Employers Favor Men

men perform better on average at certain tasks, according to the research paper When Gender Discrimination Is Not About Gender. The paper was written by Katherine B. Coffman and Christine L. Exley, both assistant professors at Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

12 Feb 2018
Research & Ideas

Customers at the Back of the Line Are Anxious—Can You Keep Them from Leaving?

customers, and how operational choices affect customer behaviors and firm performance. We all spend a surprising amount of time waiting our turn; by one estimate, Americans wait in line 37 billion hours a year—118 hours for every person.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail; Service

11 Nov 2020
Research & Ideas

How Hackathons Help Decide Platform Winners and Losers

competitive challenges facing software companies. Their market success depends largely on persuading the above-mentioned developers to write for their platforms. A new research paper suggests that the two sides can serve their own best interests View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

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

02 Apr 2024
What Do You Think?

What's Enough to Make Us Happy?

ambitious but not always assured. “Career planning provides an opportunity to think about 'enough,' especially in a given timeframe." Our late colleague at Harvard Business School, Clayton Christensen, provided inspiration for this kind... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

13 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Picture This: Why Online Image Searches Drive Purchases

things like, 'When can I find a coat that I like by simply snapping a picture of somebody wearing that coat on the subway?” A new study of a Chinese e-commerce site’s image-powered search tool offers lessons for companies trying to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology; Technology; Consumer Products; Retail

15 Oct 2001
Op-Ed

Lessons from the Rubble

have been obvious even without the devastation we have just witnessed. First is that the new economy never was all that different from the old. In the ancient, heady days of the Internet boom, it became fashionable to declare that the physical bonds of commerce had... View Details

Keywords: by Debora L. Spar

04 Oct 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Soul and Machine (Learning)

Keywords: by Davide Proserpio, John R. Hauser, Xiao Liu, Tomomichi Amano et al.

18 Apr 2023
Research & Ideas

The Best Person to Lead Your Company Doesn't Work There—Yet

are external hires, and roughly two-thirds are “complete outsiders,” finds a recent working paper by Paul Gompers, the Eugene Holman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. In contrast, one recent analysis found... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

21 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Missing the Wave in Ship Transport

industry: dry bulk carriers, which primarily carry iron ore, coal, and grains; cargo ships, run by companies like Maersk that rent container space; and fuel tankers. In 2011, Dry bulk ships made up about 40 percent of the shipping... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Transportation

16 Feb 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Naivete and Cynicism in Negotiations and Other Competitive Contexts

Keywords: by Chia-Jung Tsay, Lisa L. Shu & Max H. Bazerman

18 Apr 2022
HBS Case

Dick’s Sporting Goods Followed Its Conscience on Guns—and It Paid Off

necessarily take the dramatic steps Stack and his colleagues took to rid their firm of most, though not all, gun sales. But Riedel, who teaches Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA) at HBS, says business leaders can still learn... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

05 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Lessons in Decision-Making: Confident People Aren't Always Correct (Except When They Are)

the right people are confident, suggests recent research by Thomas Graeber, assistant professor at Harvard Business School. His work tested the effects of meta-cognition—essentially, whether more skilled people are also more confident... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

12 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Publish or Perish: What the Research Says About Productivity in Academia

report by the American Association of University Professors showing that during the past three decades, academic employment in the US has shifted away from tenured positions—which tend to bring higher salaries and job security—toward... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Education

31 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

When Not to Trust Your Gut

for significant psychological biases that lead to irrationality. By accepting this fact, you can learn to overcome bias and think more rationally during your most important... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman & Deepak Malhotra

23 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Men Want Powerful Jobs More Than Women Do

Desirable. “Even in the most progressive, gender-balanced households, on average, women seem to think about a greater diversity of pursuits” While you let that provocative title sink in, it’s worth noting that the research was conducted... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

24 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Becoming an Ethical Negotiator

by how we relate to one another. They believe that attaching a price to integrity or loyalty is fundamentally to debase it. Q: You write, "Intent and impact are important factors in thinking about... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

04 Jan 2017
What Do You Think?

How Much Bureaucracy is a Good Thing in Government and Business?

Summing Up: Are Bureaucracies Worth Improving? Several messages emerge from responses to this month’s column on the worthiness of bureaucracies. In general, there is a wide range of thinking about the value of bureaucracies and work done... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett

21 Jul 2021
Research & Ideas

What Does an ESG Score Really Say About a Company?

Receiving more information can clarify the complex, but not when it comes to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores. A recent study shows that the more information a company discloses about its ESG practices, the more rating agencies disagree on how well... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

Publications