Publications

August 2021
Article

Hoping for the Worst? A Paradoxical Preference for Bad News

By: Kate Barasz and Serena Hagerty

Nine studies investigate when and why people may paradoxically prefer bad news—e.g., hoping for an objectively worse injury or a higher-risk diagnosis over explicitly better alternatives. Using a combination of field surveys and randomized experiments, the research... View Details

Keywords: Decision Avoidance; Difficult Decisions; Judgment And Decision Making; Medical Decision-making; Decision Making; Behavior

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2022
Article

Becoming a Learning Organization While Enhancing Performance: The Case of LEGO

By: Thomas Borup Kristensen, Henrik Saabye and Amy Edmondson

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to empirically test how problem-solving lean practices, along with leaders as learning facilitators in an action learning approach, can be transferred from a production context to a knowledge work context for the purpose... View Details

Keywords: Performance Efficiency; Learning; Organizational Change and Adaptation

Nine studies investigate when and why people may paradoxically prefer bad news—e.g., hoping for an objectively worse injury or a higher-risk diagnosis over explicitly better alternatives. Using a combination of field surveys and randomized experiments, the... View Details

17 Nov 2015
HBS Seminar

Kevin Boudreau, Harvard Business School, London Business School

Working Paper

The Returns to Skills During the Pandemic: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

By: Livia Alfonsi, Vittorio Bassi, Imran Rasul and Elena Spadini

The Covid-19 pandemic represents one of the most significant labor market shocks to the world economy in recent times. We present evidence from a field experiment to understand whether and why skilled and unskilled workers were differentially impacted by the shock, in... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; System Shocks; Labor; Competency and Skills; Development Economics; Uganda

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08 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Women’s Summit Celebrates ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuit’

accelerate the advancement of women leaders who make a difference in the world," Nohria said. Indeed, the anniversary has spawned a survey of several thousand alumnae on work-life balance and a new case study on the female View Details

Keywords: by Katie Koch & Harvard Gazette

Article

The Critical Role of Second-order Normative Beliefs in Predicting Energy Conservation

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Oliver P. Hauser, Julia D. O'Brien, Erin Sherman and Adam D. Galinsky

Sustaining large-scale public goods requires individuals to make environmentally friendly decisions today to benefit future generations. Recent research suggests that second-order normative beliefs are more powerful predictors of behaviour than first-order personal... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Household; Behavior; Values and Beliefs; Forecasting and Prediction

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13 Sep 2019
Blog Post

An Uncommon Summer: Project Management at an Education Non-Profit

my military background, they were intrigued by my experience in project and change management, especially while leading teams. After months of conversations and interviews, I was matched with the Human Resources team at Uncommon Schools... View Details

2022
Working Paper

Politics at Work

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Valdemar Pinho Neto and Edoardo Teso

We study how individual political views shape firm behavior and labor market outcomes. Using new micro-data on the political affiliation of business owners and private-sector workers in Brazil over the 2002–2019 period, we first document the presence of political... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Employees; Prejudice and Bias; Brazil

2022
Book

Productive Tensions: How Every Leader Can Tackle Innovation's Toughest Trade-Offs

By: Chris Bingham and Rory McDonald

Why is leading innovation in nascent business environments so distressingly hit-or-miss? More than 90% of high-potential ventures don’t reach their projected targets. Surveys show that 80% of executives consider innovation crucial to their growth strategy, but only 6%... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation and Management; Organizational Culture; Leadership Style; Decision Making

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2022
Article

Values and Inequality: Prosocial Jobs and the College Wage Premium

By: Nathan Wilmers and Letian Zhang

Employers often recruit workers by invoking corporate social responsibility, organizational purpose, or other claims to a prosocial mission. In an era of substantial labor market inequality, commentators typically dismiss these claims as hypocritical: prosocial... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Equality and Inequality; Wages; Recruitment

September 2024
Article

Political Elite Cues and Attitude Formation in Post-Conflict Contexts

By: Natalia Garbiras-Díaz, Miguel Garcia-Sanchez and Aila M. Matanock

Civil conflicts typically end with negotiated settlements, but many settlements fail, often during the implementation stage when average citizens have increasing influence. Citizens sometimes evaluate peace agreements by voting on referendums or the negotiating... View Details

Keywords: Civil Unrest; Peace Process; Political Leadership; Peace; Politics; Policy Change; Policy; Government and Politics; Government Administration; Governance; Political Elections; Civil Society or Community; Negotiation; Negotiation Participants; Public Relations Industry; Colombia; Latin America; South America

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2010
Working Paper

Disagreement about the Team's Status Hierarchy: An Insidious Obstacle to Coordination and Performance

By: Heidi K. Gardner

Hierarchies are pervasive in groups, generally providing clear guidelines for the dominance and deference behaviors that members are expected to show based on their relative ranks. But what happens when team members disagree about where each member ranks on the... View Details

Keywords: Performance Effectiveness; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Conflict and Resolution; Perception; Status and Position; Cooperation

24 Oct 2024
Blog Post

Trailblazing Success with Global Reach and Impact: Scott Wallinger (AMP 82, 1979)

axemanship, compass, mapping, and knots. During summers in college, I worked in various roles: at a National Forest in Idaho, conducting an aerial/ground oak wilt survey in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and with Weyerhaeuser’s Forest... View Details

2009
Article

Feeling the Heat: The Effects of Performance Pressure on Teams' Knowledge Use and Performance

By: Heidi K. Gardner

Why do some teams fail to use their members' knowledge effectively, even after having correctly identified each other's expertise? This paper identifies performance pressure as a critical barrier to effective knowledge utilization in teams. I theorize that performance... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Expectations; Groups and Teams

2023
Working Paper

The Irredeemability of the Past: Determinants of Reconciliation and Revenge in Post-Conflict Settings

By: Kristen Kao, Kristin Fabbe and Michael Bang Petersen

In the aftermath of violent conflict, identifying former enemy collaborators versus innocent bystanders forced to flee violence is difficult. In post-conflict settings, internally displaced persons (IDPs) risk becoming stigmatized and face difficulties... View Details

Keywords: Conflict and Resolution; War; Refugees; Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Public Opinion; Lawfulness; Iraq

July 2022
Article

The Passionate Pygmalion Effect: Passionate Employees Attain Better Outcomes in Part Because of More Preferential Treatment by Others

By: Ke Wang, Erica R. Bailey and Jon M. Jachimowicz

Employees are increasingly exhorted to “pursue their passion” at work. Inherent in this call is the belief that passion will produce higher performance because it promotes intrapersonal processes that propel employees forward. Here, we suggest that the pervasiveness of... View Details

Keywords: Passion; Self-fufilling Prophecy; Lay Beliefs; Interpersonal Processes; Employees; Performance; Attitudes; Organizational Culture; Social Psychology