Publications

September 2016
Supplement

Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (B)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby

The (B) case documents the development of a strategy to achieve system-level impact in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape for a nonprofit focused on addressing patients' basic social needs through healthcare institutions. Founded in 1996 with a volunteer-staffed... View Details

Keywords: Scaling Social Impact; Scaling Social Enterprise; Health Care Delivery; Health Care Outcomes; Nonprofit Scaling; Nonprofit; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Nonprofit Organizations; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; United States

May–June 2023
Article

A New Approach to Building Your Personal Brand: How to Communicate Your Value

By: Jill Avery and Rachel Greenwald

For better or worse, in today’s world everyone is a brand. Whether you’re applying for a job, asking for a promotion, or writing a dating profile, your success will depend on getting others to recognize your value. So you need to get comfortable marketing... View Details

Keywords: Personal Brand; Influencer Marketing; Leadership Development; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Identity; Reputation; Competency and Skills

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

11 Feb 2022
Lecture

Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work-Family Narrative as a Social Defense Against the 24/7 Work Culture

By: Irene Padavic and Robin J. Ely

Are women’s family responsibilities the reason for their stalled advancement?

Conventional wisdom says “yes.” But is it true? When companies create solutions to address work-life conflict instead of rethinking the 24/7 work culture, they find their... View Details

Keywords: Gender; Equality and Inequality; Work-Life Balance

23 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Lessons on Life, Graffiti, and Value: 'It's in That Darkness That You Can Actually Develop and Evolve'

liberating, creatively and personally. “We had this charismatic appeal, this raw authenticity, but we didn’t have the cultural or social capital to access those worlds and people weren’t exactly excited about opening the doors for us, for... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

Article

The Interplay Between Sharing Behavior and Beliefs About Others in Children During Dictator Games

By: Hernando Santamaría-García, María Luz González-Gadea, Rafael Di Tella, Agustín Ibáñez and Mariano Sigman

Previous studies in adults demonstrated that beliefs and sharing decisions in social scenarios are closely related. However, to date, little is known about the development of this relationship in children. By using a modified dictator game, we assessed sharing behavior... View Details

Keywords: Dictator Game; Altruism; Generosity; Development; Conveniently Upset; Behavior; Values and Beliefs; Perception; Decision Making

Research Summary

Ethics & Politics of Emerging Technologies

In this stream of research, my collaborators and I investigate the ethical, political, and social implications of computational technologies.

In this work, I often collaborate with academic colleagues in computer science by helping to... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Algorithms; Computational Social Science

2023
Working Paper

Achieving Universal Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: Addressing Market Failures or Providing a Social Floor?

By: Katherine Baicker, Amitabh Chandra and Mark Shepard

The United States spends substantially more on health care than most developed countries, yet leaves a greater share of the population uninsured. We suggest that incremental insurance expansions focused on addressing market failures will propagate inefficiencies and... View Details

Keywords: Public Sector; Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Policy; Innovation and Invention

2014
Article

Framework for China's Novel Sustainable Evaluation System Strategy

By: Robert G. Eccles and Peijun Duan

China’s sustainable development faces three challenges: first, the follow-up momentum of sustainable economic growth and economic transformation is insufficient; second, some resources and environment loads have reached their limits; third, some products affecting the... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Development; Integrated Report; New Evaluation System; China

2012
Article

A Reduced-Form Approach to Behavioral Public Finance

By: Sendhil Mullainathan, Joshua Schwartzstein and William Congdon

Research in behavioral public finance has blossomed in recent years, producing diverse empirical and theoretical insights. This article develops a single framework with which to understand these advances. Rather than drawing out the consequences of specific... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Social Insurance; Externalities; Taxation; Finance; Public Sector

Extraverts Reap Greater Social Rewards From Passion Because They Express Passion More Frequently and More Diversely

Passion is stereotypically expressed through animated facial expressions, energetic body movements, varied tone, and pitch—and met with interpersonal benefits. However, these capture only a subset of passion expressions that are more common for extraverts.... View Details

22 Nov 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work-Family Narrative as a Social Defense against the 24/7 Work Culture

Keywords: by Irene Padavic, Robin J. Ely, and Erin M. Reid

March 2021 (Revised June 2022)
Case

Bill Wilson: Changing the World

By: Robert Simons and Max Saffer

This case describes the life choices of Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. A young man with tremendous potential, Wilson hit rock bottom as a drunk. An epiphany, coupled with his personal drive, led him to build a worldwide organization that has helped... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Nonprofit Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Values and Beliefs; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Work-Life Balance; Personal Development and Career

Educators

Research Summary

Overview

My research aims to understand how prosperity is created in poor countries. My first “chapter” in this larger quest has focused on how rich-country actors have managed to be a force for change in poor-country economies. I have investigated the various attempts of... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Aid; Africa; Private Sector Development; Economic Development; Political Economy; Fragile States; Governance; Private Sector; Emerging Markets; Development Economics; Non-Governmental Organizations; Natural Disasters; Africa; Liberia

March 2018
Supplement

JPMorgan Chase: Invested in Detroit (B)

By: Joseph L. Bower and Michael Norris

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Local Economic Development; Workforce Development; Philanthropic Investment; Financial Institutions; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Urban Development; Business and Community Relations; Banking Industry; United States; Michigan

January 2017 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Vox Capital: Pioneering Impact Investing in Brazil

By: Julie Battilana, Marissa Kimsey, Falko Paetzold and Priscilla Zogbi

Vox Capital was the first certified impact investing fund in Brazil. Founded in 2009, it provides early-stage capital for companies offering innovative and scalable solutions to enhance the lives of low-income Brazilians, while aiming to simultaneously generate... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Social Performance Measurement; Social Entrepreneurship; Investment Funds; Social Enterprise; Brazil

Educators

Research Summary

Overview

Chu's research is focused on business and low income sectors, particularly in the use of commercial platforms to deliver what has traditionally been considered public responsibilities. In the last three decades, business models have emerged to meet the underserved... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Microfinance; Base Of The Pyramid; Role Of Profit And Social Impact; Private Sector Development; Emerging Markets; Business Ventures; Health Care and Treatment; Management; Social Enterprise; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Health Industry; Latin America; North and Central America; Asia; Africa

2022
Working Paper

Optimal Illiquidity

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Christopher Clayton, Christopher Harris, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

We calculate the socially optimal level of illiquidity in an economy populated by households with taste shocks and naive present bias. The government chooses mandatory contributions to accounts, each witha different pre-retirement withdrawal penalty. Collected... View Details

Keywords: Illiquidity; Commitment; Flexibility; Savings; Social Security; Retirement; Government Legislation; Taxation; Saving

Article

Unconscious Bias Training That Works

By: Francesca Gino and Katherine Coffman

To become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, many companies have turned to unconscious bias (UB) training. By raising awareness of the mental shortcuts that lead to snap judgments—often based on race and gender—about people’s talents or character, it strives to... View Details

Keywords: Implicit Bias; Social Integration; Empathy; Prejudice and Bias; Employees; Training; Attitudes; Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation