Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,744)
- Faculty Publications (241)
- Article
Forgoing Earned Incentives to Signal Pure Motives
By: Erika L. Kirgios, Edward H. Chang, Emma E. Levine, Katherine L. Milkman and Judd B. Kessler
Policy makers, employers, and insurers often provide financial incentives to encourage citizens, employees, and customers to take actions that are good for them or for society (e.g., energy conservation, healthy living, safe driving). Although financial incentives are... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
When Do Experts Listen to Other Experts? The Role of Negative Information in Expert Evaluations for Novel Projects
By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Misha Teplitskiy, Gary Gray, Hardeep Ranu, Michael Menietti, Eva C. Guinan and Karim R. Lakhani
The evaluation of novel projects lies at the heart of scientific and technological innovation, and yet literature suggests that this process is subject to inconsistency and potential biases. This paper investigates the role of information sharing among experts as the... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Changing Ingroup Boundaries: The Effect of Immigration on Race Relations in the U.S.
By: Vasiliki Fouka and Marco Tabellini
How do social group boundaries evolve? Does the appearance of a new outgroup change the ingroup's perceptions of other outgroups? We introduce a conceptual framework of context-dependent categorization, in which exposure to one minority leads to recategorization of... View Details
Keywords: In-group-out-group Relations; Immigration; Race; Attitudes; Boundaries; Prejudice and Bias
- March 2020
- Case
Behavior Change for Good
By: Max Bazerman, Michael Luca and Marie Lawrence
In 2017, Katy Milkman and Angela Duckworth created Behavior Change for Good (BCFG)—a behavioral science initiative founded with the goal of helping people achieve long-term behavior change in the areas of personal health, financial decisions (savings), and education.... View Details
- March 2020
- Article
A Revolution in Economics? It's Just Getting Started...
By: Shawn A. Cole, William Pariente and Anja Sautmann
We have each experienced thrills and pain while supporting the mission of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which facilitated many of the experiments described in the 2019 Nobel Prize citation. J-PAL in many ways seeks to fulfill what Angrist and Pischke... View Details
- March–April 2020
- Article
Avoid the Pitfalls of A/B Testing
By: Iavor I. Bojinov, Guillaume Sait-Jacques and Martin Tingley
Online experiments measuring whether “A,” usually the current approach, is inferior to “B,” a proposed improvement, have become integral to the product-development cycle, especially at digital enterprises. But often firms make serious mistakes in conducting these... View Details
- March 2020
- Article
Which Early Withdrawal Penalty Attracts the Most Deposits to a Commitment Savings Account?
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Christopher Harris, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and Jung Sakong
Previous research has shown that some people voluntarily use commitment contracts that restrict their own choice sets. We study how people divide money between two accounts: a liquid account that permits unrestricted withdrawals and a commitment account that is... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
The Effects of Hierarchy on Learning and Performance in Business Experimentation
By: Sourobh Ghosh, Stefan Thomke and Hazjier Pourkhalkhali
Do senior managers help or hurt business experiments? Despite the widespread adoption of business experiments to guide strategic decision-making, we lack a scholarly understanding of what role senior managers play in firm experimentation. Using proprietary data of live... View Details
- February 2020 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
StockX: The Stock Market of Things
By: Chiara Farronato, John J. Horton, Annelena Lobb and Julia Kelley
Founded in 2015 by Dan Gilbert, Josh Luber, and Greg Schwartz, StockX was an online platform where users could buy and sell unworn luxury and limited-edition sneakers. Sneaker resale prices often fluctuated over time based on supply and demand, creating a robust... View Details
Keywords: Markets; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Demand and Consumers; Consumer Behavior; Analytics and Data Science; Market Design; Digital Platforms; Market Transactions; Marketplace Matching; Supply and Industry; Analysis; Price; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry; North and Central America; United States; Michigan; Detroit
- Article
Designing Social Networks: Joint Tasks and the Formation and Endurance of Network Ties
By: Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning
Can managers influence the formation of organizational networks? In this article, we evaluate the effect of joint tasks on the creation of network ties with data from a novel field experiment with 112 aspiring entrepreneurs. During the study, we randomized individuals... View Details
- Article
What We Can Learn from Five Naturalistic Field Experiments That Failed to Shift Commuter Behaviour
By: Ariella S. Kristal and A.V. Whillans
Across five field experiments with employees of a large organization (n = 68,915), we examined whether standard behavioural interventions (“nudges”) successfully reduced single-occupancy vehicle commutes. In Studies 1 and 2, we sent letters and emails with nudges... View Details
- February 2020
- Article
Why Prosocial Referral Incentives Work: The Interplay of Reputational Benefits and Action Costs
By: Rachel Gershon, Cynthia Cryder and Leslie K. John
While selfish incentives typically outperform prosocial incentives, in the context of customer referral rewards, prosocial incentives can be more effective. Companies frequently offer “selfish” (i.e., sender-benefiting) referral incentives, offering customers financial... View Details
- January–February 2020
- Article
Are You Undervaluing Your Customers?: It’s Time to Start Measuring and Managing Their Worth
By: Rob Markey
Leaders recognize that they should manage their businesses to maximize the value of the customer base. But too often, earnings pressures result in cost-cutting measures that hurt customers.
Loyalty-leading companies operate differently. They create systems for... View Details
- 2020
- Article
Fast Exact Matrix Completion: A Unified Optimization Framework for Matrix Completion
By: Dimitris Bertsimas and Michael Lingzhi Li
We formulate the problem of matrix completion with and without side information as a non-convex optimization problem. We design fastImpute based on non-convex gradient descent and show it converges to a global minimum that is guaranteed to recover closely the... View Details
Keywords: Mathematical Methods
- December 24, 2019
- Editorial
Why It’s So Hard to Change People’s Commuting Behavior
By: Ariella Kristal and Ashley Whillans
Car commuters report higher levels of stress and lower job satisfaction compared to train commuters—in large part because car commuting can involve driving in traffic and navigating tense road situations. Some employers are trying to get involved and reduce car... View Details
- 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
- November 26, 2019
- Article
Veil-of-Ignorance Reasoning Favors the Greater Good
By: Karen Huang, Joshua D. Greene and Max Bazerman
The “veil of ignorance” is a moral reasoning device designed to promote impartial decision-making by denying decision-makers access to potentially biasing information about who will benefit most or least from the available options. Veil-of-ignorance reasoning was... View Details
- November 2019
- Supplement
Kids & Company: Entering the U.S.
By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah Mehta and Matthew Preble
This video supplement pairs with “Kids & Company: Entering the U.S.” (case no. 418011). It contains eight individual clips that range in length from 5 to 12 minutes. Instructors can use the videos, either in whole or in part, as an additional teaching... View Details
Keywords: Early Childhood Education; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Leadership; Marketing; Product Marketing; Brands and Branding; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Product Design; Product Development; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Selection and Staffing; Customer Focus and Relationships; Entrepreneurship; Service Industry; Canada; United States
- October 14, 2019
- Article
The Truth About Open Offices: There Are Reasons Why They Don't Produce the Desired Interactions
By: Ethan Bernstein and Ben Waber
It’s never been easier for workers to collaborate—or so it seems. Open, flexible, activity-based spaces are displacing cubicles, making people more visible. Messaging is displacing phone calls, making people more accessible. Enterprise social media such as Slack and... View Details
- Article
Organizational Innovation in the Multinational Enterprise: Internalization Theory and Business History
By: Teresa da Silva Lopes, Mark Casson and Geoffrey Jones
This article engages in a methodological experiment by using historical evidence to challenge a common misperception about internalization theory. The theory has often been criticized for maintaining that it assumes a hierarchically organized MNE based on knowledge... View Details