Publications

2025
Article

Humor as a Window into Generative AI Bias

By: Roger Samure, Julian De Freitas and Stefano Puntoni

A preregistered audit of 600 images by generative AI across 150 different prompts explores the link between humor and discrimination in consumer-facing AI solutions. When ChatGPT updates images to make them “funnier”, the prevalence of stereotyped groups changes. While... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Demographics; Prejudice and Bias

June 2025
Article

Ideation with Generative AI—In Consumer Research and Beyond

By: Julian De Freitas, G. Nave and Stefano Puntoni

The use of large language models (LLMs) in consumer research is rapidly evolving, with applications including synthetic data generation, data analysis, and more. However, their role in creative ideation—a cornerstone of consumer research—remains underexplored. Drawing... View Details

Keywords: Large Language Model; AI and Machine Learning; Creativity; Innovation Strategy

01 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 1

have profoundly shaped the scope and range of organizational scholarship devoted to sexual minorities by showing that scholars using such contrasted frames have been drawn to very different research questions with respect to sexual... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

2021
Comment

Willpower Is a Form of, but Not Synonymous with, Self-control

By: Ariella S. Kristal and Julian Zlatev

We build on Ainslie's discussion of willpower by highlighting another common misconception in the literature: the conflation of self-control and willpower. In our commentary, we identify this issue and discuss the importance of recognizing willpower not as synonymous... View Details

Keywords: Self-control; Willpower; Personal Characteristics

Article

Normative Judgments and Individual Essence

By: Julian De Freitas, Kevin P. Tobia, George E. Newman and Joshua Knobe

A growing body of research has examined how people judge the persistence of identity over time—that is, how they decide that a particular individual is the same entity from one time to the next. While a great deal of progress has been made in understanding the types... View Details

Keywords: Concepts; Essentialism; Normative Factors; Persistence; True Self; Morality; Identity; Moral Sensibility; Perception

December 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

21Seeds: Taking Shots at Breakout Growth

By: Elie Ofek, Julian De Freitas, Michael Moynihan and Nicole Tempest Keller

21Seeds, a female-founded flavor-infused tequila startup launched in 2019, had made inroads into the alcoholic beverage industry by focusing on an underserved consumer segment in spirits—women, primarily in their 30s and 40s, many of whom were moms—and by following a... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Distribution Channels; Sales; Food and Beverage Industry

2017
Article

True Happiness: The Role of Morality in the Concept of Happiness

By: Jonathan Phillips, Julian De Freitas, Christian Mott, June Gruber and Joshua Knobe

Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents' psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has... View Details

Keywords: Moral Cognition; Happiness; Moral Sensibility; Emotions; Well-being

Article

Ownership Dilemmas: The Case of Finders Versus Landowners

By: Peter DiScioli, Rachel Karpoff and Julian De Freitas

People sometimes disagree about who owns which objects, and these ownership dilemmas can lead to costly disputes. We investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying people’s judgments about finder versus landowner cases, in which a person finds an object on someone... View Details

Keywords: Ownership Dilemma; Finders; Psychology And Law; Ownership; Property; Law; Social Psychology

February 2023
Case

SIMmersion: Simulating Crucial Conversations

By: Alison Wood Brooks, Julian Zlatev and F Katelynn Boland

This case introduces readers to SIMmersion, a company founded in 2002 that creates and sells training programs to firms, government agencies, educational institutions, and individuals (B2B and B2C). Their training programs are built around simulations (“sims”) that... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Interpersonal Communication; Training

25 Nov 2014
First Look

First Look: November 25

Sweden, Canada, and the U.S. obtain the highest management scores closely followed by Germany, with a gap to Italy, Brazil, and then finally India. We also show that autonomous government schools (i.e., government funded but with... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

September 2013
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: David Weinstein and Write the World

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Juliane Calingo Schwetz and Patricia Bissett Higgins

David Weinstein, a lawyer and former Chief Administrative Officer of mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments, launched Write the World, a proprietary online platform that included a writing curriculum, essay prompts in distinct subject matter, and access to expert... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Expansion; Social Entrepreneurship; Education; Business Startups; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

Article

Selfishly Benevolent or Benevolently Selfish? When Self-interest Undermines versus Promotes Prosocial Behavior

By: Julian Zlatev and Dale T. Miller

Existing research shows that appeals to self-interest sometimes increase and sometimes decrease prosocial behavior. We propose that this inconsistency is in part due to the framings of these appeals. Different framings generate different salient reference points,... View Details

Keywords: Altruism; Charitable Giving; Framing; Prosocial Behavior; Reference Points; Self-interest; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Framework; Behavior

January 2020
Article

The Long-Run Dynamics of Electricity Demand: Evidence from Municipal Aggregation

By: Tatyana Deryugina, Alexander MacKay and Julian Reif

We study the dynamics of residential electricity demand by exploiting a natural experiment that produced large and long-lasting price changes in over 250 Illinois communities. Using a flexible difference-in-differences matching approach, we estimate that the price... View Details

Keywords: Electricity Demand; Consumption Dynamics; Energy; Policy; Demand and Consumers; Price; Mathematical Methods

Register to Read

October 2024 (Revised February 2025)
Case

AI and Brand Management: Promises and Perils

By: Julian De Freitas and Elie Ofek

As AI gains traction across industries, companies anticipate that AI will revolutionize both backend processes and customer-facing interactions—with brands eager to leverage AI for tailored marketing materials and automated consumer engagements. Yet, despite a dramatic... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Brands and Branding; Reputation; Technology Adoption; Competitive Advantage

26 Apr 2020
Other Presentation

Towards Modeling the Variability of Human Attention

By: Kuno Kim, Megumi Sano, Julian De Freitas, Daniel Yamins and Nick Haber

Children exhibit extraordinary exploratory behaviors hypothesized to contribute to the building of models of their world. Harnessing this capacity in artificial systems promises not only more flexible technology but also cognitive models of the developmental processes... View Details

Keywords: Exploratory Learning Behaviors; Modeling; Artificial Intelligence; AI and Machine Learning

June 2003 (Revised November 2003)
Case

Siemens Medical Solutions: Strategic Turnaround

By: D. Quinn Mills and Julian Kurz

Describes how Siemens Medical Solutions (MED) accomplished a remarkable turnaround from a money-losing operation to one of Siemens' most profitable divisions. By late 1996, a challenging market environment in the health care industry as well as inefficiencies in the... View Details

Keywords: Opportunities; Globalized Firms and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Transformation; Problems and Challenges; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

2023
Working Paper

Change We Can’t Believe In: Distrust of Political Converts

By: Julian J. Zlatev, Amos Schurr and Nir Halevy

We propose and test three hypotheses regarding how people respond to political converts— individuals who switch their voting from one political party to another. Across two experiments, using behavioral and attitudinal measures of trust in two different countries, we... View Details

Keywords: Political Elections; Behavior; Attitudes; Trust