Publications

Educators

Aug 2017
Conference Presentation

To Highlight or Downplay Differences? A Threat-Matching Model for Crafting Diversity Approaches

By: J. Lees and E. Apfelbaum

We integrate organizational and psychological scholarship to devise the threat matching model, a contingency theory that illustrates when, how, and which diversity approaches—frameworks leaders provide employees to understand and respond to diversity—promote... View Details

Keywords: Race And Ethnicity; Inclusion; Diversity; Gender; Race; Ethnicity; Equality and Inequality; Leadership

2018
Working Paper

Learning to Become a Taste Expert

By: Kathryn A. Latour and John A. Deighton

Evidence suggests that consumers seek to become more expert about hedonic products to enhance their enjoyment of future consumption occasions. Current approaches to becoming an expert center on cultivating an analytic mindset. In the present research the authors... View Details

Keywords: Hedonic; Wine; Expertise; Holistic; Analytic; Sensory; Taste; Learning; Experience and Expertise; Analysis; Perception

SSRN

27 Sep 2024
Research & Ideas

Charting 'Cheapflation': How Budget Brands Got So Pricey

cheaper goods could be tighter than those of makers of high-priced goods from the same category, adding pressure to raise prices as supply costs increased. But when inflation decreased, “the relative prices... View Details

Keywords: by Ana Elena Azpúrua

December 2004 (Revised August 2005)
Case

Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen

By: Robin J. Ely and Ingrid Vargas

Sophie Chen, an Asian-American MBA student at Harvard Business School, describes a professional situation in which she was unable to mentor a junior person effectively because she disapproved of the way her Asian-American mentee conformed to an ethnic stereotype.... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Perception; Relationships; Diversity

Educators

Article

(Too) Optimistic about Optimism: The Belief that Optimism Improves Performance.

By: Elizabeth R. Tenney, Jennifer M. Logg and Don A Moore

A series of experiments investigated why people value optimism and whether they are right to do so. In Experiments 1A and 1B, participants prescribed more optimism for someone implementing decisions than for someone deliberating, indicating that people prescribe... View Details

Keywords: Optimism; Bias; Accuracy; Decision Phase; Performance; Attitudes; Performance Improvement; Perception; Outcome or Result

January 2022
Background Note

Native American Incarceration

By: Reshmaan Hussam, Sophus A. Reinert and Jordan Naylor

In the early twenty-first century the Native American populations of the United States continued to live with the legacy of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and cultural destruction. Although other minority groups had increasingly been able to make their voices heard,... View Details

Keywords: Colonialism; Incarceration; Social Issues; Race; Equality and Inequality; History

Educators

12 Jan 2016
First Look

January 12, 2016

link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50304 October 2015 Health Affairs Exposure to Harmful Workplace Practices Could Account for Inequality in Life Spans Across Different Demographic Groups By: Goh, Joel, Jeffrey Pfeffer,... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

June 2024
Article

Redistributive Allocation Mechanisms

By: Mohammad Akbarpour, Piotr Dworczak and Scott Duke Kominers

Many scarce public resources are allocated at below-market-clearing prices, and sometimes for free. Such "non-market" mechanisms sacrifice some surplus, yet they can potentially improve equity. We develop a model of mechanism design with redistributive concerns. Agents... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Welfare; Mathematical Methods; Market Design; Cost vs Benefits

SSRN

2020
Working Paper

Hospital Allocation and Racial Disparities in Health Care

By: Amitabh Chandra, Pragya Kakani and Adam Sacarny

We develop a simple framework to measure the role of hospital allocation in racial disparities in health care and use it to study Black and white Medicare patients who are treated for heart attacks—a condition where virtually everyone receives care, hospital care is... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Equality and Inequality; Race; Analysis

December 2019
Article

Communicating with Warmth in Distributive Negotiations Is Surprisingly Counterproductive

By: M. Jeong, J. Minson, M. Yeomans and F. Gino

When entering into a negotiation, individuals have the choice to enact a variety of communication styles. We test the differential impact of being “warm and friendly” versus “tough and firm” in a distributive negotiation, when first offers are held constant and... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Style; Communication Strategy; Perception; Performance Effectiveness; Outcome or Result

04 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 4, 2018

Markets oral history database at the Harvard Business School to examine business leaders’ perceptions of political risk over time between the 1970s and the present day, employing NVivo coding View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

25 Apr 2018
Research & Ideas

We May Have Taken Too Much Credit for Easing Workplace Segregation

Hroe Large American companies are less racially integrated today than a generation ago—in fact, businesses have returned to the bleaker segregation levels of the 1970s, new research shows. This racial division among companies was a... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

19 May 2015
First Look

First Look: May 19

Cases & Course Materials Harvard Business School Case 715-023 Governing the 'Chinese Dream': Corruption, Inequality and the Rule of Law Xi Jinping assumed his position as head View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2011
Article

Egalitarianism and International Investment

By: Jordan I. Siegel, Amir N. Licht and Shalom H. Schwartz

This study identifies the effect of a key cultural dimension—egalitarianism—on a set of international investment outcomes. Egalitarianism expresses a society's cultural orientation with respect to intolerance for abuses of market and political power. We show... View Details

Keywords: Egalitarianism; International Investment; Culture; Cultural Distance; Foreign Direct Investment; Informal Institutions; Social Institutions; Cross-listing; Investment; Equality and Inequality; Mergers and Acquisitions

March 2022
Teaching Note

Inclusive Innovation at Mass General Brigham

By: Katherine Coffman and Olivia Hull

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 921-006, “Inclusive Innovation at Mass General Brigham." This case invites students to explore the individual and structural factors that lead to an under-representation of women in male-dominated domains, and to think critically about... View Details

Keywords: Inclusion; Gender Gap; Gender Inclusivity; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

2008
Working Paper

The Artful Dodger: Answering the Wrong Question the Right Way

By: Todd Rogers and Michael I. Norton

What happens when people try to "dodge" a question they would rather not answer by answering a different question? In four online studies using paid participants, we show that listeners can fail to detect dodges when speakers answer similar—but objectively... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Interpersonal Communication; Judgments; Perception

21 Apr 2015
First Look

First Look: April 21

Business School Case 315-050 Note on Economic Inequality (2015) For over half a century, most of the world's economies have enjoyed steady growth and prosperity. However, beginning in the 1980s, and... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel & Sean Silverthorne

28 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: Feb. 28

political and economic elite help explain the low achievement levels of these four countries and the incredible amount of heterogeneity within each of them. Download the paper:... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2019
Article

Bounded Ethicality and Ethical Fading in Negotiations: Understanding Unintended Unethical Behavior

By: McKenzie Rees, Ann E. Tenbrunsel and Max Bazerman

The business scandals in the past several decades led to the rising importance of ethics as a topic central to management scholarship. Behavioral scientists in particular were attracted to the topic in far greater numbers, and the study of ethical decision-making... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Behavior; Negotiation; Situation or Environment; Perception