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17 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 17

critiques of prior work on ads as signals; namely, that ad content is irrelevant, ad exposure is unnecessary, and the choice of ads as signals is inherently arbitrary. The Consumer Psychology of Mail-in... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July 2003
Article

Probabilistic Representation of Complexity

By: Nabil I Al-Najjar, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Emre Ozdenoren

We study individuals' behavior in an environment that is deterministic, but too complex to permit tractable deterministic representation. Under mild conditions, behavior is represented by a unique probabilistic model in which the agent's inability to think through all... View Details

Keywords: Complexity; Behavior; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Planning

January 2002 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Baseball Industry Update, 2002

By: Jan W. Rivkin and Elizabeth Johnson

Supplements The Baseball Strike. View Details

Keywords: Sports; Conflict and Resolution; Sports Industry

Educators

Article

The Critical Role of Second-order Normative Beliefs in Predicting Energy Conservation

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Oliver P. Hauser, Julia D. O'Brien, Erin Sherman and Adam D. Galinsky

Sustaining large-scale public goods requires individuals to make environmentally friendly decisions today to benefit future generations. Recent research suggests that second-order normative beliefs are more powerful predictors of behaviour than first-order personal... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Household; Behavior; Values and Beliefs; Forecasting and Prediction

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April 2009
Case

The First Global Financial Crisis of the 21st Century

By: Laura Alfaro and Renee Kim

The global economy was expected to suffer from negative growth for the full year in 2009, a phenomenon not seen since World War II. While the U.S. subprime mortgage disaster was blamed as the original instigator, it was noted that the "global imbalances" of the U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Mortgages; Globalized Economies and Regions; Policy; International Relations; Business and Government Relations; Conflict and Resolution

Educators

Article

The Feeling of Not Knowing It All

By: Haiyang Yang, Ziv Carmon, Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton

How do consumers assess their mastery of knowledge they have learned? We explore this question by investigating a common knowledge consumption situation: encountering opportunities for further learning. We argue and show that such opportunities can trigger a... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Consumption; Consumption Of Learning; Judgment Of Knowledge; Feeling Ofknowing; Confidence In Knowledge; WYSIATI; FONKIA; Knowledge Acquisition; Learning; Perception

11 Feb 2021
Blog Post

Good Leadership Is an Act of Kindness

helps modulate social interactions and emotion. Being kind is good for our own and our employees' mental health." And that translates to improved morale View Details

Keywords: All Industries

2007
Working Paper

Why Do Intermediaries Divert Search?

By: Andrei Hagiu and Bruno Jullien

We analyze the incentives to divert search for an information intermediary who enables buyers (consumers) to search affiliated sellers (stores). We identify two original motives for diverting search (i.e. inducing consumers to search more than they would like): i)... View Details

Keywords: Demand and Consumers; Motivation and Incentives; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Distribution Channels; Business Strategy; Retail Industry

05 Oct 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Don't More People Get Flu Shots at Work?

professor in Harvard Business School’s Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit. Beshears is an expert in behavioral economics, which uses insights from psychology and economics to explain individual... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Health

01 Mar 2010
News

Déjà Vu All Over Again

Opinions vary as to where things stand with the current economic climate: Are we in recovery mode, stalled, or still bottoming out? The distance of history offers a clearer perspective, as evidenced by an exhibit at the Baker Library | Bloomberg Center. “Bubbles,... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools

01 Dec 1998
News

Short Takes

or Both?," forthcoming in the American Bankruptcy Law Journal, HBS associate professor David A. Moss and his former research associate, Gibbs A. Johnson, cast doubt on this strategy. They attribute the rise... View Details

Keywords: Judith A. Ross

04 Dec 2007
First Look

First Look: December 4, 2007

frontline employees take initiative to improve their work systems to prevent operational failures. Drawing on the system improvement and team-learning literatures, we develop a framework of frontline system improvement View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2012
Article

Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of 'Independent' Directors

By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher Malloy

We provide evidence that firms appoint independent directors who are overly sympathetic to management, while still technically independent according to regulatory definitions. We explore a subset of independent directors for whom we have detailed, micro-level data on... View Details

Keywords: Recruitment; Management; Corporate Governance; Performance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Prejudice and Bias

12 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 12

management practices. Using data for 58 countries, we show that after the adoption of mandatory sustainability reporting laws and regulations, the social responsibility of business leaders increases. We also... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2008 (Revised March 2008)
Supplement

Uría Menéndez (B)

By: Robert G. Eccles

The Uria Menendez (B) Cas describes the three major strategic options facing the firm. It can be used when the instructor wants to teach the case over two classes. The first class, based on the A case, explores the reason for the the firm's success. The B case... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Law; Success; Strategic Planning; Expansion; Legal Services Industry; Iberian Peninsula

2024
Working Paper

Employer-Based Short-Term Savings Accounts

By: Sarah Holmes Berk, John Beshears, Jay Garg, James J. Choi and David Laibson

We study the introduction of a choice architecture design intended to increase short-term savings among employees at five U.K. firms. Employees were offered the opportunity to opt into a payroll deduction program that auto-deposits funds from each paycheck into a... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Personal Finance; Investment Funds; Employees; Saving; United Kingdom

Article

Common Variants of the Oxytocin Receptor Gene Do Not Predict the Positive Mood Benefits of Prosocial Spending

By: Ashley V. Whillans, Lara B. Aknin, Colin Ross, Lihan Chen and Frances S. Chen

Who benefits most from helping others? Previous research suggests that common polymorphisms of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) predict whether people behave generously and experience increases in positive mood in response to socially-focused experiences in daily... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Behavior; Positivity; Behavior Genetics; Individual Differences; Behavior; Emotions; Genetics; Spending