Publications

Silvan Baier is a doctoral student in Organizational Behavior at HBS and the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. He studies how social structures shape and are shaped by the organization, spread, and evaluation of ideas and people. In his research, he... View Details

2024
Working Paper

CSR Under the Pressure of Financial Shocks

By: Monica Kabutey, Syrena Shirley and Anywhere Sikochi

This study examines how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced firms' interactions with customers and suppliers. Customer-supplier relationships are essential because the success of interconnected firms affects the sustainability of the entire supply chain. We use the... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Supply Chain; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Crisis

Article

The Unprecedented Stock Market Reaction to COVID-19

By: Scott Baker, Nicholas Bloom, Steven J. Davis, Kyle Kost, Marco Sammon and Tasaneeya Viratyosin

No previous infectious disease outbreak, including the Spanish Flu, has impacted the stock market as forcefully as the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, previous pandemics left only mild traces on the U.S. stock market. We use text-based methods to develop these points with... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Stock Market; Health Pandemics; Governance; Policy; Financial Markets

Social psychologist Cuddy, an assistant professor of business administration, investigates how people perceive and categorize others. Warmth and competence, she finds, are the two critical variables. They account for about 80 percent of our... View Details

March 2023
Article

Authentic First Impressions Relate to Interpersonal, Social, and Entrepreneurial Success

By: David M. Markowitz, Maryam Kouchaki, Francesca Gino, Jeffrey T. Hancock and Ryan L. Boyd

This paper examines how verbal authenticity influences person perception. Our work combines human judgments and natural language processing to suggest verbal authenticity is a positive predictor of interpersonal interest (Study 1: 294 dyadic conversations), engagement... View Details

Keywords: Authenticity; Impression Formation; Natural Language Processing; First Impressions; Communication; Perception; Success

September 2019 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Dove and Real Beauty: Building a Brand with Purpose

By: Mark R. Kramer, Myriam Sidibe and Gunjan Veda

Unilever subsidiary Dove soap became a "brand with a purpose" and created shared value when the company decided to launch a Campaign for Real Beauty to combat the artificial media-driven stereotype of female beauty that causes appearance anxiety in women and girls... View Details

Keywords: Stereotype; Body Image; Female; Self-Esteem; Brands and Branding; Mission and Purpose; Advertising Campaigns; Gender; Resource Allocation

February 2006 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Grove International Partners

By: Robert F. Higgins, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Suzanne Petrela

Grove International Partners, one of the world's largest international real estate private equity funds, is actively seeking new investment opportunities in the seniors housing industry. The firm has identified two potential opportunities--one located in Japan and one... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Investment; Opportunities; Financial Services Industry; Health Industry; Japan; United Kingdom

2011
Article

The Dynamics of Warmth and Competence Judgments, and Their Outcomes in Organizations

By: Amy J.C. Cuddy, Peter Glick and Anna Beninger

Two traits-warmth and competence-govern social judgments of individuals and groups, and these judgments shape people's emotions and behaviors. This paper describes the causes and consequences of warmth and competence judgments; how, when, and why they determine... View Details

Keywords: Judgments; Organizations; Emotions; Behavior; Selection and Staffing; Performance Evaluation; Resource Allocation; Valuation; Competency and Skills; Information; Research

2013
Article

Ethically Adrift: How Others Pull Our Moral Compass from True North, and How we Can Fix It

By: C. Moore and F. Gino

This chapter is about the social nature of morality. Using the metaphor of the moral compass to describe individuals' inner sense of right and wrong, we offer a framework to help us understand social reasons why our moral compass can come under others' control, leading... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Moral Sensibility; Behavior

31 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

The Most Powerful Workplace Motivator

annual salary offer of $115,000 is unfair on its own. They might be perfectly happy with that salary if it weren't for the information that it's below average." And it's not just a matter of money. In several studies of social comparison... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

July 2013 (Revised September 2013)
Case

New York City: Bloomberg's Strategy for Economic Development

By: Michael E. Porter, Christian H.M. Ketels and Jorge Ramirez-Vallejo

Traces the economic development of New York City from its founding in the 17th century through 2012. Focuses on the decisions made by New York City officials, past and present, highlighting the challenges of economic development at the city level. Enables deep... View Details

Keywords: History; Development Economics; Industry Clusters; Policy; Government Administration; Financial Crisis; Growth and Development Strategy

27 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

Managers, Your Employees Don’t Want to Be Facebook ‘Friends’

For the most part, social media is what you make it. You choose whom to keep tabs on, who can follow you back, what you “like,” and which snippets of your life you reveal. But what if those carefully curated depictions are suddenly on the... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Kim Raczka

January 2020 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Governing PG&E

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

The five commissioners of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) listened intently at a public forum in April 2019 as PG&E Corporation’s out-going chairman Richard Kelly described the company’s proposed new board. PG&E, which provided electricity and natural... View Details

2005
Article

Early Decisions: A Regulatory Framework

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

We describe a regulatory framework that helps consumers who have difficulty sticking to their own long-run plans. Early Decision regulations help long-run preferences prevail by allowing consumers to partially commit to their long-run goals, making it harder for a... View Details

Keywords: Hyperbolic Discounting; Self-control; Commitment; Consumer Behavior; Taxation; Attitudes

September 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Case

Dream: Impact Through Real Estate

By: Michael Chu and John Masko

The Canadian city of Toronto had one of the largest housing affordability problems of any city in the developed world. One company trying to address this problem was Dream, one of the largest real estate groups in Canada. In 2021, Dream had just launched a new system... View Details

This paper proposes a new approach to social cost-benefit analysis using a model in which a benevolent government chooses risky projects in the presence of market failures and tax distortions. The government internalizes market failures and therefore perceives project... View Details

Summer 2018
Article

CSR needs CPR: Corporate Sustainability and Politics

By: Thomas Lyon, Magali A. Delmas, John W. Maxwell, Pratima Bansal, Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, Patricia Crifo, Rodolphe Durand, Jean-Pascal Gond, Andrew King, Michael Lenox, Michael W. Toffel, David Vogel and Frank Wijen

Corporate sustainability has gone mainstream, and many companies have taken meaningful steps to improve their own environmental performance. But while corporate political actions such as lobbying can have a greater impact on environmental quality, they are ignored in... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Communication; Policy; Business and Government Relations