Publications

09 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

Who Sways the USDA on GMO Approvals?

agencies such as the USDA is to protect public health and safety; based on previous economic theory, however, Hiatt started with a different assumption—the primary goal of an agency is really to protect its own legitimacy. After all, it's... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage; Biotechnology; Agriculture & Agribusiness

March 2018
Exercise

Does It Hurt To Ask?

By: Alison Wood Brooks

Does It Hurt To Ask? (DIHTA) is an interactive exercise that pairs students (in groups of two) for a brief, spontaneous, open-ended conversation during class. Each student is given instructions to ask many questions (as many as possible) or few questions (ideally zero)... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy; Perception; Information; Power and Influence

29 Apr 2019
Research & Ideas

Is the Digital Age Making Us Petty?

punish the person socially, such as by assigning them boring tasks. These results held across age groups and cultures. (One study compared the perceptions of American participants with those View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

15 Oct 2024
Research & Ideas

We Have Better Ways to Break Habits Than Willpower. Why Don't We Use Them?

strategies—external aids like Internet blockers, nicotine patches, and swear jars. At the same time, studies show that few people use these supportive strategies. Why? “We know these kinds of strategies are helpful, and we know they tend... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

July 2010
Article

Workplace Peers and Entrepreneurship

By: Ramana Nanda and Jesper B. Sorensen

We examine whether the likelihood of entrepreneurial activity is related to the prior career experiences of an individual's co-workers, using a unique matched employer-employee panel dataset. We argue that coworkers can increase the likelihood that an individual will... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Perception; Opportunities; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence

2020
Working Paper

Topic Preference Detection: A Novel Approach to Understand Perspective Taking in Conversation

By: Michael Yeomans and Alison Wood Brooks

Although most humans engage in conversations constantly throughout their lives, conversational mistakes are commonplace— interacting with others is difficult, and conversation re-quires quick, relentless perspective-taking and decision making. For example: during every... View Details

Keywords: Natural Language Processing; Interpersonal Communication; Perspective; Decision Making; Perception

2021
Working Paper

'Just Letting You Know…': Underestimating Others' Desire for Constructive Feedback

By: Nicole Abi-Esber, Jennifer Abel, Juliana Schroeder and Francesca Gino

People often avoid giving feedback to others even when it would help fix a problem immediately. Indeed, in a pilot field study (N=155), only 2.6% of individuals provided feedback to survey administrators that the administrators had food or marker on their faces.... View Details

Keywords: Feedback; Helping; Prosocial Behavior; Relationships; Social Psychology; Theory; Perception

10 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: January 10

inequality typically exhibit less support for government-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

18 Jan 2016
Blog Post

Meet the HBS Race, Gender & Equity Initiative

produced by HBS faculty. What are the Race, Gender & Equity Initiative’s goals? Gender and other forms of inequality present pressing business challenges, and we bring the unique strengths View Details

28 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 28

insights on the resolution of disputes in global trade while contributing to our understanding of the evolving role of modeling at international organizations. Nations' Income... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 15, 2019

is mediated by perceptions that their own advice will not be followed. Advice seekers fail to anticipate this negative relational impact, exposing them to unanticipated adverse consequences of their... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

October 2024
Article

On Why Women-owned Businesses Take More Time to Secure Microloans

By: Goran Calic, Moren Lévesque and Anton Shevchenko

Examining gender differences in business financing reveals important dimensions on which women- and men-owned businesses differ. Although considerable progress has been made in understanding gender differences in mobilizing resources, the role of time in business... View Details

Keywords: Microfinance; Gender; Financing and Loans; Equality and Inequality; Risk and Uncertainty; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship

Register to Read

25 Aug 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: After Charlottesville, Where Does a CEO's Responsibility Lie?

reason–people tend to form brand preferences when they’re young. Young consumers who are alienated by a perception of corporate support for Trump might be lost for a lifetime, not just an administration. “A... View Details

Keywords: by Gautam Mukunda

Winter 2022
Article

Distributing a Billion Vaccines: COVAX Successes, Challenges, and Opportunities

By: Eric Budish, Hannah Kettler, Scott Duke Kominers, Erik Osland, Canice Prendergast and Andrew A. Torkelson

By January 2022, the COVAX international vaccine collaboration had allocated over a billion vaccines to over 140 countries. We describe and review the allocation process chosen, which reflected both an objective of equitably distributing vaccines across the world and... View Details

Keywords: Vaccines; Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Health Pandemics; Distribution; Supply Chain; Equality and Inequality

20 Jan 2017
Research & Ideas

Here’s How Businessman Trump Is Likely to Approach the Presidency

think, “How can we help each other?” You’d expect someone like this to be very transactional, with a very high sensitivity to perception of current events, with a very high sensitivity to perceived financial... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese

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

March 2016
Teaching Note

MasterCard: Driving Financial Inclusion

By: Sunil Gupta

Since joining MasterCard (MC) in 2010, CEO Ajay Banga had made advancing financial inclusion (FI)—bringing formal financial services to marginalized populations—an important goal for the company. In 2014, MC had entered a number of partnerships with governments and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Inclusion; Banking; Equality and Inequality; Credit Cards; Developing Countries and Economies; Banking Industry; South Africa; Nigeria

September 2017 (Revised March 2019)
Supplement

Henry Kissinger: Negotiating Black Majority Rule in Rhodesia (B)

By: James K. Sebenius and Laurence A. Green

In 1976, United States Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger conducted a series of intricate, multiparty negotiations in Southern Africa to persuade white Rhodesian leader Ian Smith to accede to black majority rule. Conducted near the end of President Gerald Ford’s... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Race; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Participants; Negotiation Deal; Government and Politics; Africa; United States

2024
Working Paper

Modest Victims: Victims Who Decline to Broadcast Their Victimization Are Seen As Morally Virtuous

By: Nathan Dhaliwal, Jillian J. Jordan and Pat Barclay

What do people think of victims who conceal their victimhood? We propose that the decision to not broadcast that one has been victimized serves as a costly act of modesty—in doing so, one is potentially forgoing social support and compensation from one’s community. We... View Details

Keywords: Public Opinion; Mathematical Methods; Communication; Perception; Reputation