Publications

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Research Summary

Price as a Stimulus to Think: The Case for Willful Overpricing

Consumers aware of a new benefit will often experience uncertainty about its personal relevance or usage value. This paper shows that the decision to deliberate further to resolve this uncertainty and reach a polarized judgment of personal relevance critically depends... View Details

March 2021
Article

Parental Burnout Around the Globe: A 42-Country Study

By: Isabelle Roskam, Joyce Aguiar, Ege Akgun, Gizem Arikan, Mariana Artavia, Herve Avalosse, Kaisa Aunola, Michael Bader, Claire Bahati, Elizabeth J. Barham, Elaine Besson, Wim Beyers, Emilie Boujut, Maria Elena Brianda, Anna Brytek-Matera, Neomie Carbonneau, Filipa Cesar, Bin-Bin Chen, Geraldine Dorard, Luciana Carla dos Santos Elias, Sandra Dunsmuir, Natalia Egorova, Nicolas Favez, Anne-Marie Fontaine, Heather Foran, Julia Fricke, Kaichiro Furutani, Laura Gallee, Myrna Gannage, Maria Gaspar, Lucie Godbout, Amit Goldenberg, James J. Gross, Maria Ancuta Gurza, Ruby Hall, Muhammad Aamir Hashmi, Ogma Hatta, Mai Helmy, Thi Van Hoang, Mai Trang Huynh, Emerence Kaneza, Taishi Kawamoto, Goran Knezevic, Bassantea Lodegaena Kpassagou, Ljiljana B. Lazarevic, Sarah Le Vigouroux, Astrid Lebert-Charron, Vanessa Leme, Gao-Xian Lin, Carolyn MacCann, Denisse Manrique-Millones, Marisa Marias, Maria Isabel Miranda-Orrego, Marina Miscioscia, Clara Morgades-Bamba, Seyyedeh Fatemeh Mousavi, Badra Moutassem-Mimouni, Ana Muntean, Hugh Murphy, Alexis Ndayizigiye, Josue Ngnombouowo Tenkue, Sally Olderbak, Sophie Ornawka, Fatumo Osman, Daniela Oyarce-Cadiz, Pablo A Perez-Diaz, Konstantinos V Petrides, Claudia Pineda-Marin, Katharina Prandstetter, Alena Prikhidko, Ricardo T Ricci, Fernando Salinas-Quiroz, Raquel Sanchez-Rodriguez, Ainize Sarrionandia, Celine Scola, Vincent Sezibera, Paola Silva, Alessandra Simonelli, Bart Soenens, Emma Sorbring, Matilda Sorkkila, Charlotte Schrooyen, Elena Stanculescu, Elena Starchenkova, Dorota Szczygiel, Javier Tapia, Thi Minh Thuy Tri, Melissa Tremblay, A. Meltem Ustandag-Budak, Maday Valdes Pacheco, Hedwig van Bakel, Lesley Verhofstadt, Jaqueline Wendland, Saengduean Yotanyamaneewong and Moira Mikolajczak

High levels of stress in the parenting domain can lead to parental burnout, a condition that has severe consequences for both parents and children. It is not yet clear, however, whether parental burnout varies by culture, and if so, why it might do so. In this study,... View Details

Keywords: Exhaustion; Culture; Individualism; Collectivism; Prevalence; Family and Family Relationships; Values and Beliefs; Global Range

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Article

Social Recycling Transforms Unwanted Goods into Happiness

By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Cait Lamberton, Rebecca Walker Reczek and Michael I. Norton

Consumers are often surrounded by resources that once offered meaning or happiness but that have lost this subjective value over time—even as they retain their objective utility. We explore the potential for social recycling—disposing of used goods by allowing other... View Details

Keywords: Disposition; Well-being; Prosocial Behavior; Pro-environmental Behavior; Happiness; Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Environmental Sustainability

Article

Relational Reconciliation: Socializing Others Across Demographic Differences

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan and Erin M. Reid

In demographically diverse organizations, employees charged with socializing others— socialization agents—must navigate a deep tension between the organization’s needs to integrate individuals into a collective and individuals’ needs for recognition of their unique... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Organizational Culture; Identity; Employees

August 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Zillow Offers: Winning Online Real Estate 2.0

By: Luis Viceira, Marco Di Maggio and Allison Ciechanover

Founded in 2005, Zillow had become the leading online real estate and home-related marketplace. The brand was recognized as a trusted resource for players in the real estate market, providing information and transparency on home prices. Revenue, which was historically... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Corporate Culture; Intermediation; Brokerage; Startup; Evaluating Business Investments; Property; Information Technology; Business Model; Expansion; Business Startups; Real Estate Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

Educators

February 2001 (Revised June 2002)
Case

Customer Value Measurement at Nortel Networks--Optical Networks Division

By: Das Narayandas

Since 1995, Nortel Networks' Optical Networks (ON) division has been incorporating customer satisfaction and loyalty measures into its business practices to increase customer value. Over the years, key process owners in various parts of the organization have become... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Management Teams; Marketing Strategy; Value Creation; Telecommunications Industry

Educators

July–August 2021
Article

Surfacing the Submerged State: Operational Transparency Increases Trust in and Engagement with Government

By: Ryan W. Buell, Ethan Porter and Michael I. Norton

Problem definition: As trust in government reaches historic lows, frustration with government performance approaches record highs. Academic/practical relevance: We propose that in co-productive settings like government services, peoples’ trust and... View Details

Keywords: Government Services; Behavioral Operations; Operational Transparency; Government Administration; Service Operations; Programs; Perception; Attitudes; Behavior; Trust

January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Equal Justice Initiative: Mercy, Truth and Dignity

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Gerald Chertavian and Brittany Logan

In 1989, the Equal Justice Initiative was established as a non-profit, public interest law firm by Harvard Law School graduate, Bryan Stevenson.

EJI provides legal assistance to condemned prisoners, people wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced, children in... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Nonprofit Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Growth and Development Strategy; Social Issues; Race

Educators

Article

Emotional Acknowledgment: How Verbalizing Others' Emotions Fosters Interpersonal Trust

By: Alisa Yu, Justin M. Berg and Julian Zlatev

People often respond to others’ emotions using verbal acknowledgment (e.g., “You seem upset”). Yet, little is known about the relational benefits and risks of acknowledging others’ emotions in the workplace. We draw upon Costly Signaling Theory to posit how emotional... View Details

Keywords: Emotion; Costly Signaling; Interpersonal Trust; Emotional Valence; Interpersonal Relationships; Empathic Accuracy; Emotions; Relationships; Trust; Interpersonal Communication

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May 2024
Article

Selfish Corporations

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Niels Gormsen and Timothy McQuade

We study how perceptions of corporate responsibility influence policy preferences and the effectiveness of corporate communication when agents have imperfect memory recall. Using a new large-scale survey of U.S. citizens on their support for corporate bailouts, we... View Details

Keywords: Public Opinion; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Policy

June 16, 2014
Article

Working With Your In-Laws Isn't Always a Terrible Idea

By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer

This article delves into the complex dynamics involving in-laws within family-owned enterprises. In-laws often face a challenging dual role as they must conform to the same professional standards as non-family employees while concurrently grappling with perceptions of... View Details

Keywords: Family and Family Relationships; Family Ownership; Employees

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08 Mar 2022
News

Women Can’t Go Back to the Pre-Pandemic Status Quo

Web

Publications - Faculty & Research

Moura and Katie Sonnefeldt Despite decades of initiatives to address healthcare inequities in the U.S., disparities across race, gender, geography, and income remain stubbornly persistent. This article... View Details

2022
Book

Democratize Work: The Case for Reorganizing the Economy

By: Isabelle Ferreras, Julie Battilana and Dominique Méda

What happens to a society—and a planet—when capitalism outgrows democracy? The tensions between democracy and capitalism are longstanding, and they have been laid bare by the social effects of COVID-19. The narrative of “essential workers” has provided thin cover for... View Details

Keywords: Democratic Capitalism; Essential Workers; Sustainability; Equality and Inequality; Climate Change; Social Issues

25 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

Women make up more than half of the labor force in the United States and earn almost 60 percent of advanced degrees, yet they bring home less pay and fill fewer seats in the C-suite than men, particularly in... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

31 Jan 2017
News

All The Single Ladies - Women Who Downplay Their Successes And Why It’s a Huge Mistake

Article

The Radical Flank Effect and Cross-occupational Collaboration for Technology Development during a Power Shift

By: Emily Truelove and Katherine C. Kellogg

This 12-month ethnographic study of an early entrant into the U.S. car-sharing industry demonstrates that when an organization shifts its focus from developing radical new technology to incrementally improving this technology, the shift may spark an internal power... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Conflict and Resolution; Power and Influence; Perception; Behavior; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

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July 2021
Article

Consumers—Especially Women—Avoid Buying from Firms with Higher Gender Pay Gaps

By: Tobias Schlager, Bhavya Mohan, Katherine DeCelles and Michael I. Norton

We document a unique driver of consumer behavior: the public disclosure of a firm’s gender pay gap. Four experiments provide causal evidence that when firms are revealed to have gender pay gaps, consumers are less willing to pay for their goods, a reaction driven by... View Details

Keywords: Pay Gap; Perceived Wage Fairness; Purchase Intention; Gender; Wages; Fairness; Perception; Consumer Behavior