Publications

March 1991 (Revised January 1993)
Background Note

Why Do Good Managers Choose Poor Strategies?

The uncertainty and complexity of most business environments make successful management a difficult art. Frequently, bright, experienced, well-educated people manage their companies into strategic distress. Many of these bad results are not simply a matter of bad luck.... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Prejudice and Bias; Business Strategy; Cognition and Thinking

Educators

01 Jun 2015
News

Creating Change

(HBS Archives Photographs: Student Life) In 1970, there were no female members of the Harvard Club of New York City, and women entered the club through a separate entrance. Alumna Roslyn Payne (MBA 1970) and her classmates were determined to change that. Their... View Details

Keywords: April White

01 Dec 2010
News

Ilene Lang

Lang Related Links “It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won’t”: New research by HBS associate professor Jordan Siegel finds that multinational companies can spin gender bias into gold by recruiting and hiring well-educated female... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; interview; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

Web

2015 Symposium - Race, Gender & Equity

2015 Gender and Work Symposium: Research to Change the World Presentation Erin Hennes Erin Hennes speaks at 2015 Gender and Work Symposium: Research to Change the World Erin Hennes speaks at 2015 Gender and Work Symposium: Research to Change the World Reducing View Details

06 Nov 2020
News

Signal Boost

like implicit bias and the actions you can take as an individual or as an organization or as a community to be more welcoming,” says Lara. “I get employers telling me, ‘Well, you know, we tried hiring diverse people but they don’t stay.’... View Details

04 Jan 2021
Blog Post

Bringing the Lessons of 2020 into 2021

Unconscious Bias in Recruiting Creating Inclusive Recruiting Events in a Time of Innovation Actions Organizations Can Take to Communicate their Commitment to Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging How to Create a Psychologically Safe... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

Web

Harvard Business School

Embedded Consumption Modupe Akinola Robinson (PhD) 2009 Deadly Decisions: An Examination of Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot under Threat Erin L. Henry (PhD) 2015 Facilitative Boundary Leadership: Enabling Collaboration in Complex,... View Details

18 Oct 2016
News

Leading the Way for Women Entrepreneurs

rental clothes to clients, was comical at times. “I was trying to convince a roomful of men in blue button-down shirts why wearing a new outfit everyday would empower them,” she said. Hyman said the bigger problem in the business world is the subtle View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Myers; Birchbox; Rent the Runway; Hello Alfred; Retail Trade; Finance

20 Dec 2022
Blog Post

7 Resolutions for Recruiting in the New Year

sexual orientation, etc.? What do your employee retention numbers tell you about who on your team feels supported? Are you actively seeking out diverse candidates, and if so, what do your hiring numbers tell you about bias in the... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

09 May 2018
Research & Ideas

A Simple Way for Restaurant Inspectors to Improve Food Safety

are hospitalized, and 3,000 die due to foodborne illnesses, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The research is detailed in the paper “How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Food & Beverage; Service

Web

Diversity on Teams: Our Own Harvest - Race, Gender & Equity

Just Digital Future Diversity on Teams: Our Own Harvest A Conversation with Tina Opie on Race and Appearance in the Workplace Lori Mackenzie on Identifying and Blocking Gender Bias in the Workplace In our Just Digital Future interview... View Details

21 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 21

source of information contains greater bias and slant-text written by an expert or that constructed via collective intelligence? Do the costs of acquiring, storing, displaying, and revising information shape those differences? We evaluate... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

24 Aug 2020
Working Paper Summaries

When Do Experts Listen to Other Experts? The Role of Negative Information in Expert Evaluations for Novel Projects

Keywords: by Jacqueline N. Lane, Misha Teplitskiy, Gary Gray, Hardeep Ranu, Michael Menietti, Eva C. Guinan, and Karim R. Lakhani

November 2007
Case

Differences at Work: Ben (A)

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Rachel Gordon

During a casual conversation one of Ben's professional colleagues unexpectedly makes an anti-Semitic remark. What should Ben do? View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Behavior; Ethics; Religion; Employees; Diversity

Educators

January 2023
Article

Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights

By: Alvaro Calderon, Vasiliki Fouka and Marco Tabellini

Between 1940 and 1970, more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the United States, during the Second Great Migration. This same period witnessed the struggle and eventual success of the civil rights movement in ending institutionalized... View Details

Keywords: Civil Rights; Great Migration; History; Race; Rights; Prejudice and Bias; Government Legislation

April 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Exercise

Raptor Oil Company: An Exercise

The exercise, which adapts a famous experiment by experimental psychologist Thomas Gilovich, is designed to show both the ubiquity of analogy or associative thinking more generally and its potential perils. Students are presented with a scenario in which an oil company... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Cognition and Thinking; Prejudice and Bias; Strategy

Web

BiGS Fellows | Institute for Business in Global Society

collects data about the outcome of an algorithm within a particular context, and then assesses its impact on its users. The platform studies facial and emotion recognition and can help uncover the racial bias in algorithms used by social... View Details

Article

The Impact of Penalties for Wrong Answers on the Gender Gap in Test Scores

By: Katherine B. Coffman and David Klinowski

Multiple-choice exams play a critical role in university admissions across the world. A key question is whether imposing penalties for wrong answers on these exams deters guessing from women more than men, disadvantaging female test-takers. We consider data from a... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Standardized Testing; Gender; Higher Education; Prejudice and Bias