Publications

2017
Working Paper

Are You a Guest Here? Field Experiments on Racial Discrimination in Customer Service

By: Alexandra C. Feldberg and Tami Kim

May–June 2021
Article

How to Close the Gender Gap

By: Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg

Most companies say they’re committed to advancing women into leadership roles. What they may fail to recognize, though, is that systemic barriers are holding women back. As a result, women remain disadvantaged at every stage of their employment and underrepresented in... View Details

Keywords: Gender Discrimination; Employment; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Talent and Talent Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation

September 2021
Case

Francoise Brougher (A)

By: Edward H. Chang, Nour Kteily and Kathleen McGinn

Francoise Brougher was a high-powered technology executive in Silicon Valley. After successful stints at Google (where she rose to lead a $16 billion ad sales business) and Square (which she helped take public), she joined Pinterest as its first Chief Operating Officer... View Details

Keywords: Gender Discrimination; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Resignation and Termination; Negotiation

Educators

April 2023
Article

Racial Inequality in Work Environments

By: Letian Zhang

This article explores racial stratification in work environments. Inequality scholars have long identified racial disparities in wage and occupational attainment, but workers’ careers and well-being are also shaped by elements of their work environment, including firm... View Details

Keywords: Discrimination; Race; Equality and Inequality; Working Conditions; Personal Development and Career; Organizational Culture

September 2019 (Revised December 2022)
Background Note

African American Inequality in the United States

By: Janice H. Hammond, A. Kamau Massey and Mayra G. Garza

This note describes how historical and on-going policies and practices that discriminate against African Americans led to present-day inequality. Topics include slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, “black codes,” and policies and practices relating to criminal justice,... View Details

Keywords: African Americans; Justice; Slavery; Discrimination; Race; Equality and Inequality; Prejudice and Bias; Policy; History; United States

Educators

05 Jun 2024
News

« La discrimination envers les immigrés prive les économies de bienfaits potentiels en matière d’innovation »

03 Jun 2016
News

Airbnb says it plans to take action to crack down on racial discrimination on its site

26 Apr 2021
News

A High-Profile Gender Discrimination Case Pushed VC Firms to Hire More Women. It’s Hardly Helped Female Entrepreneurs.

Web

2.4.1 Cases Involving Sexual Harassment or Other Sexual Misconduct & Cases involving Discrimination or Bullying | MBA

2.4.1 Cases Involving Sexual Harassment or Other Sexual Misconduct & Cases involving Discrimination or Bullying 2.4 Disciplinary Process Whenever a formal complaint of sexual harassment or other sexual misconduct is investigated and the... View Details

Research Summary

Multinational Firms, Labor Market Discrimination, and the Capture of Competitive Advantage by Exploiting the Social Divide

The organizational theory of the multinational firms holds that foreignness is a liability, and specifically that lack of embeddedness in host-country social networks is a source of competitive disadvantage; meanwhile the literature on labor market discrimination... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firm; Multinationals; Labor Market Discrimination

Summer 2025
Article

Dynamic Competition for Customer Memberships

By: Cristian Chica, Julian Jimenez-Cardenas and Jorge Tamayo

A competitive two-period membership (subscription) market is analyzed. Two symmetric firms charge a “membership” fee that allows consumers to buy products or services at a given unit price for both periods. Firms can choose between long- or short-term memberships. When... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Price Discrimination; Membership; Dynamic Competition; Competition; Price; Consumer Behavior; Business Model

2025
Working Paper

Choosing and Using Information in Evaluation Decisions

By: Katherine Baldiga Coffman, Scott Kostyshak and Perihan O. Saygin

We use a controlled experiment to study how information acquisition impacts candidate evaluations. We provide evaluators with group-level information on performance and the opportunity to acquire additional, individual-level performance information before making a... View Details

Keywords: Discrimination; Beliefs; Stereotypes; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Selection and Staffing; Performance Evaluation

Article

Eliminating Unintended Bias in Personalized Policies Using Bias-Eliminating Adapted Trees (BEAT)

By: Eva Ascarza and Ayelet Israeli

An inherent risk of algorithmic personalization is disproportionate targeting of individuals from certain groups (or demographic characteristics such as gender or race), even when the decision maker does not intend to discriminate based on those “protected”... View Details

Keywords: Algorithm Bias; Personalization; Targeting; Generalized Random Forests (GRF); Discrimination; Customization and Personalization; Decision Making; Fairness; Mathematical Methods

2020
Working Paper

(When) Does Appearance Matter? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Christos A. Makridis and Subhradip Sarker

While there is evidence about labor market discrimination based on race, religion, and gender, we know little about whether physical appearance leads to discrimination in labor market outcomes. We deploy a randomized experiment on 1,000 respondents in India between... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Coronavirus; Discrimination; Homophily; Labor Market Mobility; Limited Attention; Resumes; Personal Characteristics; Prejudice and Bias

March 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Managing Religion in the Workplace: Abercrombie & Fitch and Masterpiece Cakeshop

By: Derek van Bever

Challenges related to managing religion in the workplace are on the rise, as are religious discrimination claims and monetary settlements, in the United States and around the world. This case examines two incidents of alleged religious discrimination that made their... View Details

Keywords: Religious Discrimination; First Amendment; Religious Freedom Restoration Act; Business Ethics; Religion And Business; Management; EEOC; Ethics; Religion; Conflict Management; Retail Industry; United States

Educators

December 2019
Article

The Impact of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Donald Ngwe, Kris J. Ferreira and Thales Teixeira

Many online stores are designed such that shoppers can easily access any available discounted products. We propose that deliberately increasing search frictions by placing small obstacles to locating discounted items can improve online retailers’ margins and even... View Details

Keywords: Online Retailing; Friction; Effor; Search Costs; Price Discrimination; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Strategy; Price; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry

Article

Repairing the Damage: The Effect of Price Knowledge and Gender on Auto-Repair Price Quotes

By: Meghan Busse, Ayelet Israeli and Florian Zettelmeyer

In this paper we investigate whether sellers treat consumers differently on the basis of how well informed consumers appear to be. We implement a large-scale field experiment in which callers request price quotes from automotive repair shops. We show that sellers alter... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Price Discrimination; Automobiles; Field Experiment; Information; Fairness; Price; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Internet and the Web; Gender; Service Industry; Auto Industry