Filter Results:
(1,209)
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,849)
- People (1)
- News (352)
- Research (1,209)
- Events (8)
- Multimedia (13)
- Faculty Publications (740)
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,849)
- People (1)
- News (352)
- Research (1,209)
- Events (8)
- Multimedia (13)
- Faculty Publications (740)
Sort by
- 2022
- Working Paper
Stories, Statistics and Memory
By: Thomas Graeber, Christopher Roth and Florian Zimmermann
For most decisions, we rely on information encountered over the course of days,
months or years. We consume this information in various forms, including abstract
summaries of multiple data points – statistics – and contextualized anecdotes about
individual instances... View Details
Graeber, Thomas, Christopher Roth, and Florian Zimmermann. "Stories, Statistics and Memory." Working Paper, December 2022.
- 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
De Freitas, Julian, Kevin P. Tobia, George E. Newman, and Joshua Knobe. "Normative Judgments and Individual Essence." Cognitive Science 41, no. S3 (2017): 382–402.
- 2025
- Working Paper
Culture and Contemporary Political Preferences
By: Vasiliki Fouka and Marco Tabellini
This chapter reviews the literature on the relationship between culture and political preferences. We distinguish conceptually between the direct cultural transmission of political ideology and the transmission of more primitive preferences and beliefs that influence... View Details
Fouka, Vasiliki, and Marco Tabellini. "Culture and Contemporary Political Preferences." Working Paper, March 2025.
- May 2014
- Article
From Purpose to Impact: Figure Out Your Passion and Put It to Work
By: Nick Craig and Scott Snook
We offer opinions on leadership. A need is seen for executives to have a strong belief in the purpose of their lives as individuals and within an organization to be effective leaders and to accomplish their personal goals. Executives are urged to examine their lives to... View Details
Keywords: Leadership
Craig, Nick, and Scott Snook. "From Purpose to Impact: Figure Out Your Passion and Put It to Work." Harvard Business Review 92, no. 5 (May 2014): 105–111.
- 2011
- Article
Free to Punish? The American Dream and the Harsh Treatment of Criminals
By: Rafael Di Tella
We describe the evolution of selective aspects of punishment in the U.S. over the period 1980-2004. We note that imprisonment increased around 1980, a period that coincides with the "Reagan revolution" in economic matters. We build an economic model where beliefs about... View Details
Keywords: Crime and Corruption
Di Tella, Rafael. "Free to Punish? The American Dream and the Harsh Treatment of Criminals." Cato Papers on Public Policy 1 (2011).
- May 1996 (Revised August 2001)
- Case
Timberland and Community Involvement
By: James E. Austin and Jaan Elias
The Timberland Co., a manufacturer and retailer of footwear, outdoor apparel, and accessories, committed itself to instituting and communicating a core set of values to its employees, stockholders, and consumers. The system of beliefs emphasized community service.... View Details
Keywords: Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Business and Community Relations; Social Enterprise; Corporate Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry
Austin, James E., and Jaan Elias. "Timberland and Community Involvement." Harvard Business School Case 796-156, May 1996. (Revised August 2001.)
- October 2022
- Article
Underestimating Counterparts' Learning Goals Impairs Conflictual Conversations
By: Hanne K. Collins, Charles A. Dorison, Francesca Gino and Julia A. Minson
Given the many contexts in which people have difficulty engaging with views that disagree with their own— from political discussions to workplace conflicts—it is critical to understand how conflictual conversations can be improved. Whereas previous work has focused on... View Details
Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Conflict and Resolution; Values and Beliefs; Learning; Perception
Collins, Hanne K., Charles A. Dorison, Francesca Gino, and Julia A. Minson. "Underestimating Counterparts' Learning Goals Impairs Conflictual Conversations." Psychological Science 33, no. 10 (October 2022): 1732–1752.
- 28 May 2007
- Research & Ideas
How Property Ownership Changes Your World View
Quarterly Journal of Economics, HBS professor Rafael Di Tella, Sebastian Galiani of the University of Washington, St. Louis, and Ernesto Schargrodsky of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella delve into this question by comparing the beliefs... View Details
Keywords: by Julia Hanna
- September 2014
- Article
The New Heretics: Hybrid Organizations and the Challenges they Present to Corporate Sustainability
By: Nardia Haigh and Andrew J. Hoffman
Corporate sustainability has become mainstream; reaching into all areas of business management. Yet despite this progress, large-scale social and ecological issues continue to worsen. In this article, we examine how corporate sustainability has been enacted as a... View Details
Keywords: Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Mission and Purpose
Haigh, Nardia, and Andrew J. Hoffman. "The New Heretics: Hybrid Organizations and the Challenges they Present to Corporate Sustainability." Organization & Environment 27, no. 3 (September 2014): 223–241.
- September 2010 (Revised January 2012)
- Case
OPOWER: Increasing Energy Efficiency through Normative Influence (A)
By: Amy J.C. Cuddy, Kyle Todd Doherty and Maarten W. Bos
The case profiles OPOWER, an energy efficiency software company that applies Cialdini's principles of social influence to successfully encourage consumers to reduce their energy usage. OPOWER was co-founded in 2008 by two young Harvard graduates, Dan Yates and Alex... View Details
Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Applications and Software; Attitudes; Entrepreneurship; Energy Conservation; Power and Influence; Growth and Development Strategy; Energy Industry; United States
Cuddy, Amy J.C., Kyle Todd Doherty, and Maarten W. Bos. "OPOWER: Increasing Energy Efficiency through Normative Influence (A)." Harvard Business School Case 911-016, September 2010. (Revised January 2012.)
- Article
Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing
By: Michael I. Norton and Samuel R. Sommers
Although some have heralded recent political and cultural developments as signaling the arrival of a post-racial era in America, several legal and social controversies regarding "reverse racism" highlight Whites' increasing concern about anti-White bias. We show that... View Details
Keywords: Racism; Zero-sum Game; Bias; Affirmative Action; Prejudice and Bias; Race; Social Issues; United States
Norton, Michael I., and Samuel R. Sommers. "Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing." Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, no. 3 (May 2011): 215–218.
- 2023
- Book
Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader's Guide to Solving Hard Problems
By: Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
Speed has gotten a bad name in business, much of it deserved. When Facebook made "Move fast and break things" an informal company motto, it fueled a widely held belief that we can either make progress or take care of people, one or the other. That a certain amount of... View Details
Keywords: Leading Change; Performance Improvement; Problems and Challenges; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture
Frei, Frances X., and Anne Morriss. Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader's Guide to Solving Hard Problems. Harvard Business Review Press, 2023.
- Article
Inaccurate Group Meta-Perceptions Drive Negative Out-Group Attributions in Competitive Contexts
By: J. Lees and M. Cikara
Across seven experiments and one survey (n = 4,282), people consistently overestimated out-group negativity towards the collective behaviour of their in-group. This negativity bias in group meta-perception was present across multiple competitive (but not cooperative)... View Details
Lees, J., and M. Cikara. "Inaccurate Group Meta-Perceptions Drive Negative Out-Group Attributions in Competitive Contexts." Nature Human Behaviour 4, no. 3 (March 2020): 279–286.
- 2015
- Working Paper
Political Identity and Trust
By: Pablo Hernandez and Dylan Minor
We explore how political identity affects trust. Using an incentivized experimental survey conducted on a representative sample of the U.S. population, we vary information about partners' partisan identity to elicit trust behavior, beliefs about trustworthiness, and... View Details
Keywords: Trust
Hernandez, Pablo, and Dylan Minor. "Political Identity and Trust." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-012, July 2015.
- Article
Who Benefits from Religion?
By: Daniel Mochon, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely
Many studies have documented the benefits of religious involvement. Indeed, highly religious people tend to be healthier, live longer, and have higher levels of subjective well-being. While religious involvement offers clear benefits to many, in this paper we explore... View Details
Mochon, Daniel, Michael I. Norton, and Dan Ariely. "Who Benefits from Religion?" Social Indicators Research 101, no. 1 (March 2011): 1–15.
- June 2024
- Article
The Diversity Heuristic: How Team Demographic Composition Influences Judgments of Team Creativity
By: Devon Proudfoot, Zachariah Berry, Edward H. Chang and Min B. Kay
Despite mixed evidence for the relationship between demographic diversity and creativity, we propose that observers hold a lay belief that demographic diversity increases creativity and apply this lay belief in judgments about teams and their creative work. Across... View Details
Proudfoot, Devon, Zachariah Berry, Edward H. Chang, and Min B. Kay. "The Diversity Heuristic: How Team Demographic Composition Influences Judgments of Team Creativity." Management Science 70, no. 6 (June 2024): 3879–3901.
- April 1998 (Revised May 2000)
- Case
Guidant Corporation: Shaping Culture Through Systems
By: Robert L. Simons and Antonio Davila
Guidant is a successful IPO start-up selling pacemakers and defibrillators. The case describes how managers install systems to balance innovation and control. Three parts of a shareholder value strategy are described. Controls include incentive systems, beliefs... View Details
Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Motivation and Incentives; Planning; Risk Management; Management Systems; Business Strategy; Value Creation; System; Service Industry; Financial Services Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry
Simons, Robert L., and Antonio Davila. "Guidant Corporation: Shaping Culture Through Systems." Harvard Business School Case 198-076, April 1998. (Revised May 2000.)
- September 2023
- Article
Corporate Purpose in Public and Private Firms
By: Claudine Gartenberg and George Serafeim
Analyzing data from approximately 1.5 million employees across 1,108 established public and private US companies, we find that the strength of employee beliefs related to purpose is weaker in public companies. Among public companies, those beliefs are stronger for... View Details
Keywords: Purpose; Corporate Purpose; Culture; Corporate Culture; Public And Private Organizations; Hedge Fund; Executive Pay; Corporate Governance; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Culture; Mission and Purpose; Employees; Attitudes; Executive Compensation; Ownership
Gartenberg, Claudine, and George Serafeim. "Corporate Purpose in Public and Private Firms." Management Science 69, no. 9 (September 2023): 5087–5111.
- November 1991 (Revised July 1995)
- Case
Body Shop International
Describes the start-up and rapid growth of a company whose founder holds strong, non-traditional beliefs about the role of the corporation and its responsibility to society. After profiling Anita Roddick as a person, the case describes the anti-mainstream approach she... View Details
Keywords: Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Leadership Style; Management Succession; Management Teams; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Values and Beliefs; Global Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry
Bartlett, Christopher A. "Body Shop International." Harvard Business School Case 392-032, November 1991. (Revised July 1995.)
- Forthcoming
- Article
Non-Binary Gender Economics
By: Katherine B. Coffman, Lucas C. Coffman and Keith Marzilli Ericson
Economics research has largely overlooked non-binary individuals. We aim to jump-start the literature by providing data on several economically-important beliefs and preferences. Among many results, non-binary individuals report more gender-based discrimination and... View Details