Publications

2023
Working Paper

Polarizing Corporations: Does Talent Flow to "Good" Firms?

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Tim McQuade, Gabriel Ramos, Thomas Rauter and Olivia Xiong

We conduct a field experiment in partnership with the largest job platform in Brazil to study how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices of firms affect talent allocation. We find both an average job-seeker’s preference for ESG and a large degree of... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Job Search; Talent and Talent Management; Wages; Attitudes

October 2012
Article

The Gifts We Keep on Giving: Documenting and Destigmatizing the Regifting Taboo

By: Gabrielle S. Adams, Francis J. Flynn and Michael I. Norton

Five studies investigate whether the practice of "regifting"-a social taboo-is as offensive to givers as regifters assume. Participants who imagined regifting thought that the original givers would be more offended than givers reported feeling, to such an extent that... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Attitudes; Behavior; Research

September–October 2013
Article

Discretion Within Constraint: Homophily and Structure in a Formal Organization

By: Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart and Michael Tushman

Homophily in social relations results from both individual preferences and selective opportunities for interaction, but how these two mechanisms interact in large, contemporary organizations is not well understood. We argue that organizational structures and geography... View Details

Keywords: Familiarity; Interpersonal Communication; Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Social and Collaborative Networks; Gender; Information Technology Industry

Article

Changes in Negative Reciprocity as a Function of Age

By: Yoella Bereby-Meyer and Shelly Fiks

Standard economic models assume people exclusively pursue material self-interests in social interactions. However, people exhibit social preferences; that is, they base their choices partly on the outcomes others obtained in a social interaction. People care about... View Details

16 Dec 2019
Research & Ideas

Taking on the Taboos That Keep Women Out of India's Workforce

In India’s rural villages, social norms dictate that women are to remain in the home, not out and about—and definitely not working. If a woman is seen working outside the home, her neighbors might think she’s a bad mother. They might also... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

February 2012
Article

Walking the Talk in Multiparty Bargaining: An Experimental Investigation

By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Katherine L. Milkman and Markus Noth

We study the framing effects of communication on payoffs in multiparty bargaining. Communication has been shown to be more truthful and revealing than predicted in equilibrium. Because talk is preference revealing, it may effectively frame bargaining around a logic of... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Negotiation Process; Fairness; Negotiation Types; Interpersonal Communication; Game Theory; Cooperation

31 Jan 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Behavioral Decision Research, Legislation, and Society: Three Cases

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman

09 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

Chance Encounters: What's at Stake in Return-to-Office Decisions

skepticism of that preference comes from other research I’ve done on the metaverse, a vision for a 3D internet, and other digital technologies that allow people to isolate themselves in a digital environment. There are some real concerns... View Details

Keywords: by Jen McFarland Flint, HBS Alumni Bulletin

28 Jun 2022
Book

The Moral Enterprise: How Two Companies Profit with Purpose

How can government and business work together in this fractious political moment, when finding solutions to pressing problems like inequality and climate change are more urgent than ever? Rebecca Henderson, Harvard University’s John and Natty McArthur University... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

2025
Working Paper

Corporate Actions as Moral Issues

By: Zwetelina Iliewa, Elisabeth Kempf and Oliver Spalt

We examine nonpecuniary preferences across a broad set of corporate actions using a representative sample of the U.S. population. Our core findings, based on large-scale online surveys, are that (i) self-reported nonpecuniary concerns are large both for stock market... View Details

Keywords: Public Opinion; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Moral Sensibility

16 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Nonprofit Networking: The New Way to Grow

Whether their mission is to protect wildlife, help disabled people, or offer financial services in developing countries, nonprofit organizations often believe they need to grow big before they can achieve significant social impact. HBS... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

November 2018
Case

Sportradar (A): From Data to Storytelling

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karen Elterman and Oliver Gassmann

In 2013, the Swiss sports data company Sportradar debated whether to expand from its core business of data provision to bookmakers into sports media products. Sports data was becoming a commodity, and in the future, sports leagues might reduce their dependence on... View Details

Educators

Purchase

20 Oct 2015
HBS Seminar

Elizabeth Pontikes, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

2019
Working Paper

Labor Market Shocks and the Demand for Trade Protection: Evidence from Online Surveys

By: Rafael Di Tella and Dani Rodrik

We study preferences for government action in response to layoffs resulting from different types of labor-market shocks. We consider the following shocks: technological change, a demand shift, bad management, and three kinds of international outsourcing. Respondents... View Details

Keywords: Labor; Markets; System Shocks; Trade; Attitudes; Surveys

September 2011
Article

The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value

By: Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton

A ubiquitous feature of even the fastest self-service technology transactions is the wait. Conventional wisdom and operations theory suggests that the longer people wait, the less satisfied they become; we demonstrate that due to what we term the labor illusion, when... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Perception; Valuation; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Performance Effectiveness; Customer Satisfaction; Service Industry

2025
Working Paper

Threat and Assimilation: Evidence from Refugees in Germany

By: Philipp Jaschke, Sulin Sardoschau and Marco Tabellini

This paper studies the effects of local threat on the cultural assimilation and economic integration of refugees, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in their allocation across German regions between 2013 and 2016. We use representative survey data and... View Details

Keywords: Assimilation; Threat Hypothesis; Migration; Cultural Change; Refugees; Culture; Identity; Germany

November 2011 (Revised June 2013)
Case

Natura Cosméticos, S.A.

Rodolfo Guttilla, Director of Corporate Affairs for Natura Cosméticos S.A. (Natura), prepared for a meeting with key stakeholders to discuss the future of integrated reporting at Natura. A cosmetics company with a strong brand, robust growth in international and... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Decision Making; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Brazil

Educators

Purchase

28 Mar 2013
News

40 Under Forty: Jessica Tisch, 32

2020
Working Paper

Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation

By: Matti Tuomala and Matthew C. Weinzierl

Prioritarianism has been at the center of the formal approach to optimal tax theory since its modern starting point in Mirrlees (1971), but most theorists’ use of it is motivated by tractability rather than explicit normative reasoning. We characterize analytically and... View Details

Keywords: Prioritarianism; Optimal Taxation; Utilitarianism; Redistribution; Inverse-optimum; Taxation; Theory