Publications

Article

The Similarity Heuristic

By: Daniel Read and Yael Grushka-Cockayne

Decision makers often make snap judgments using fast‐and‐frugal decision rules called cognitive heuristics. Research into cognitive heuristics has been divided into two camps. One camp has emphasized the limitations and biases produced by the heuristics; another has... View Details

Keywords: Heuristics And Biases; Fast-and-frugal Heuristics; Similarity; Representative Design

Article

Gender Bias, Social Impact Framing, and Evaluation of Entrepreneurial Ventures

By: Matthew Lee and Laura Huang

Recent studies find that female-led ventures are penalized relative to male-led ventures due to role incongruity, or a perceived “lack of fit,” between female stereotypes and expected personal qualities of business entrepreneurs. We examine whether social impact... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Framework; Perception; Performance Evaluation

April 2018
Article

Compromised Ethics in Hiring Processes? How Referrers' Power Affects Employees' Reactions to Referral Practices

By: Rellie Derfler-Rozin, Bradford Baker and F. Gino

In this paper, we explore referral-based hiring practices and show how a referrer’s power (relative to the hiring manager) influences other organizational members’ support (or lack thereof) for who is hired through perceptions of the hiring manager’s motives and... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Ethics; Perception

March 2016 (Revised February 2023)
Teaching Note

Advertising Experiments at RestaurantGrades

By: Michael Luca, Weijia Dai and Hyunjin Kim

Advertising Experiments at RestaurantGrades is an exercise in which students are asked to analyze and make a recommendation on the basis of simulated experimental data. The setting is a hypothetical restaurant review company called RestaurantGrades (RG), which shows... View Details

Keywords: Advertising Campaigns; Marketing; Digital Marketing; Analysis; Performance Effectiveness

07 Apr 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The Consequences of Financial Innovation: A Counterfactual Research Agenda

Keywords: by Josh Lerner & Peter Tufano

2023
Working Paper

In-Context Unlearning: Language Models as Few Shot Unlearners

By: Martin Pawelczyk, Seth Neel and Himabindu Lakkaraju

Machine unlearning, the study of efficiently removing the impact of specific training points on the trained model, has garnered increased attention of late, driven by the need to comply with privacy regulations like the Right to be Forgotten. Although unlearning is... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Copyright; Information

2023
Article

Towards Bridging the Gaps between the Right to Explanation and the Right to Be Forgotten

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju, Satyapriya Krishna and Jiaqi Ma

The Right to Explanation and the Right to be Forgotten are two important principles outlined to regulate algorithmic decision making and data usage in real-world applications. While the right to explanation allows individuals to request an actionable explanation for an... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; AI and Machine Learning; Decision Making; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

September 16, 2022
Article

A Causal Test of the Strength of Weak Ties

By: Karthik Rajkumar, Guillaume Saint-Jacques, Iavor I. Bojinov, Erik Brynjolfsson and Sinan Aral

The authors analyzed data from multiple large-scale randomized experiments on LinkedIn’s People You May Know algorithm, which recommends new connections to LinkedIn members, to test the extent to which weak ties increased job mobility in the world’s largest... View Details

Keywords: Job Mobility; Social Networks; Social Ties; Networks; Personal Development and Career

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Program Requirements - Doctoral

Methods in Corporate Finance (HBS 4220) Matched Sampling and Study Design (Stat 240); (Stat 140 or Econ 1127 are strongly recommended as prerequisites) Design of Field Research Methods (HBS 4070) Experimental Methods (HBS 4435) Additional... View Details

17 Dec 2013
First Look

First Look: December 17

as an imperial power. Publisher's link: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9952.html August 2013 American Economic Review Household Bargaining and Excess Fertility: An Experimental Study in Zambia By: Ashraf, Nava, Erica Field, and Jean... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

regulation. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55884 April 2019 Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Incentives for Public Goods Inside Organizations: Field Experimental Evidence By: Blasco,... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Kathleen L. McGinn

Kathleen L. McGinn

Professor Kathleen L. McGinn, Baker Foundation Professor and Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration (emeritus) at Harvard Business School, has served in various leadership roles at HBS, including Research... View Details

2010
Working Paper

Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological Model (PDF File of PowerPoint Slides)

By: Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen and Kari Granger

This presentation is based on our research program over the last seven years in which our objective has been to rigorously distinguish leader and leadership and to create a technology for providing access to being a leader and exercising leadership effectively (in... View Details

Keywords: Curriculum and Courses; Innovation and Invention; Leadership Development; Goals and Objectives; Research and Development; Attitudes; Perception; Technology; United States

SSRN

18 Nov 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Financial Development and Technology Diffusion

Keywords: by Diego Comin & Ramana Nanda

Article

Diversity Thresholds: How Social Norms, Visibility, and Scrutiny Relate to Group Composition

By: Edward H. Chang, Katherine L. Milkman, Dolly Chugh and Modupe Akinola

Across a field study and four experiments, we examine how social norms and scrutiny affect decisions about adding members of underrepresented populations (e.g., women, racial minorities) to groups. When groups are scrutinized, we theorize that decision makers strive to... View Details

Keywords: Social Norms; Impression Management; Groups and Teams; Governing and Advisory Boards; Diversity; Gender; Decision Making

2015
Chapter

Negotiations: Statistical Aspects

By: James K. Sebenius

'Negotiation analysis' seeks to develop prescriptive theory and useful advice for negotiators and third parties. It generally emphasizes the parties' underlying interests, alternatives to negotiated agreement, approaches to productively manage the inherent tension... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Preparation; Negotiation Tactics; Negotiation Participants

October 2009
Article

Making Time Off Predictable—and Required

By: Leslie Perlow and Jessica L. Porter

People in professional services believe a 24/7 work ethic is essential for getting ahead—and so they work 60-plus hours a week and stay tethered to their BlackBerrys. This perpetuates a vicious cycle: Responsiveness breeds the need for more responsiveness. When people... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Performance Expectations; Performance Productivity; Work-Life Balance; Service Industry