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December 2024
Article

Managerial Pluralism: Thirty Years of Teaching Business Ethics

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

The author reflects on 30 years of teaching business ethics at Harvard Business School. The paper presents tactical lessons for teaching courses in professional ethics and introduces “managerial pluralism.” This concept is akin to Isaiah Berlin’s value pluralism and... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Ethics; Judgments

May 1987
Supplement

Disctech, Inc., Video

Focuses on 1) the roles of management, auditors, and the board of directors in making judgments about accounting reserves and 2) the task of "controlling" top management. View Details

Keywords: Management; Governing and Advisory Boards; Accounting

Article

If You're Going to Do Wrong, at Least Do It Right: Considering Two Moral Dilemmas at the Same Time Promotes Moral Consistency

By: Netta Barak-Corren, Chia-Jung Tsay, Fiery Cushman and Max Bazerman

We study how people reconcile conflicting moral intuitions by juxtaposing two versions of classic moral problems: the trolley problem and the footbridge problem. When viewed separately, most people favor action in the former and disapprove of action in the latter,... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Judgments; Problems and Challenges; Conflict and Resolution

January 2011 (Revised July 2011)
Supplement

Caterpillar, Inc. (B)

By: David F. Hawkins

Analyst must identify role of management and actuarial judgment in measuring corporate post employment benefit obligations and assets. View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Compensation and Benefits; Resignation and Termination; Manufacturing Industry; Mining Industry; Consumer Products Industry

10 Apr 2021
News

Trump's Plan to Start His Own Social Media Platform Is Doomed to Failure, Say Experts

30 Jul 2018
News

Why Ethical People Become Unethical Negotiators

March 2020
Article

The Role of Numbers in the Customer Journey

By: Shelle Santana, Manoj Thomas and Vicki Morwitz

At each stage in customers’ journeys, they encounter different types of numeric information that they process using different judgment strategies. Relevant numbers might include budgets, price, product attributes, product counts, product ratings, numbers in brand... View Details

Keywords: Numbers; Heuristics; Numerical Cognition; Pricing; Customer Journey; Information; Consumer Behavior

March 2025
Article

Is Personal Identity Intransitive?

By: J. De Freitas and L. J. Rips

There has been a call for a potentially revolutionary change to our existing understanding of the psychological concept of personal identity. Apparently, people can psychologically represent people, including themselves, as multiple individuals at the same time. Here... View Details

Keywords: Identity; Judgments

13 Apr 2012
HBS Seminar

Drazen Prelec, Professor of Management Science and Economics at MIT Sloan School of Management

Research Summary

Moral Reasoning & Experimental Political Philosophy

In this work, we demonstrate a new and morally significant effect on judgment and decision-making. This research is inspired by the work of John Rawls, widely regarded as the most important political philosopher of the 20th Century. Here we apply the central... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Fairness; Distributive Justice

1982
Article

Children's Artistic Creativity: Detrimental Effects of Competition in a Field Setting

By: T. M. Amabile

Girls whose ages ranged from 7 to 11 years made paper collages during 1 of 2 residential parties. Those in the experimental group were competing for prizes, whereas those in the control group expected that the prizes would be raffled off. Artist-judges later rated each... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Early Childhood Education; Motivation and Incentives; Situation or Environment; Competition; Teaching

16 Feb 2012
News

An artful perspective

June 1989 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Thumbs-Up Video, Inc.

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

A start-up video rental business is described to provide a basis for a bookkeeping and financial reporting exercise for an accounting course. Both start-up and operating transactions are included along with situations requiring judgments about depreciation policies and... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Financial Statements; Accounting Audits; Accrual Accounting; Financial Reporting; Accounting Industry

Educators

02 Apr 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Strategic Foresight as Dynamic Capability: A New Lens on Knightian Uncertainty

Keywords: by J. Peter Scoblic

May 2013
Teaching Note

Launching Krispy Natural: Cracking the Product Management Code (Brief Case)

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Heather Beckham

This case study concerns a review and interpretation of test market results for a new packaged good product. The purpose of the case is to provide students with practice and guidelines in the analysis of quantitative test market data while illustrating the roles of... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Product Marketing

August 2021
Article

Anger Damns the Innocent

By: Katherine DeCelles, Gabrielle Adams, Holly S. Howe and Leslie K. John

False accusations of wrongdoing are common and can have grave consequences. In six studies, we document a worrisome paradox in perceivers’ subjective judgments of a suspect’s guilt. Specifically, we find that laypeople (online panelists; N = 4,983) use suspects’ angry... View Details

Keywords: Morality; Accusations; Deception; Guilt; Affect; Emotions; Behavior; Perception; Judgments; Decision Making