Publications

Article

Why Grit Requires Perseverance and Passion to Positively Predict Performance

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Andreas Wihler, Erica R. Bailey and Adam D. Galinsky

Prior studies linking grit—defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals—to performance are beset by contradictory evidence. As a result, commentators have increasingly declared that grit has limited effects. We propose that this inconsistent evidence has... View Details

Keywords: Grit; Perseverance; Passion; Motivation; Personal Characteristics; Emotions; Performance; Motivation and Incentives

11 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

When Parents Tell Kids to ‘Work Hard,’ Do They Send the Wrong Message?

Or it might be individual but based on controllable factors, such as hard work or persistence—in other words, effort. The researchers conducted an online survey of 200 Americans, presenting them with a... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Education

15 May 2015
Research & Ideas

Kids Benefit From Having a Working Mom

To gauge the global effect of working moms, the researchers dug into data from the International Social Survey Programme, a global consortium of organizations that conduct social science research, and... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

May–June 2021
Article

Why Start-ups Fail

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

If you’re launching a business, the odds are against you: Two-thirds of start-ups never show a positive return. Unnerved by that statistic, a professor of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School set out to discover why. Based on interviews and surveys with hundreds... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Problems and Challenges; Failure

Article

Friends or Foes? Examining Platform Owners' Entry into Complementors' Spaces

By: Feng Zhu

As platform owners continue to expand their ecosystems, many of them have started to provide consumers with their own complementary applications. These moves position the platform owners as direct competitors to their complementors. This paper surveys empirical studies... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Complementors; Digital Platforms; Market Entry and Exit; Competition

2008
Chapter

Management Accounting in India

This chapter surveys the history, evolution, and current status of accounting systems and practices in India. Tracing the roots of Indian accounting systems to the ancient civilization of the Indus Valley, we discuss the accounting contributions of historical writings... View Details

Keywords: History; Accounting; India

24 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

When Tech Platforms Identify Black-Owned Businesses, White Customers Buy

widespread discrimination on Airbnb, leading Airbnb to take steps to mitigate bias and prompting broader discussion across other companies. “Many businesses were unaware of the implications of their decisions,” says Luca, whose research... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Food & Beverage

June 2013
Article

Opting-in: Participation Bias in Economic Experiments

By: Robert Slonim, Carmen Wang, Ellen Garbarino and Danielle Merrett

Assuming individuals rationally decide whether to participate or not to participate in lab experiments, we hypothesize several non-representative biases in the characteristics of lab participants. We test the hypotheses by first collecting survey and experimental data... View Details

Keywords: Participation Bias; Laboratory Experiments; Prejudice and Bias; Research

2019
Book

Problem Solving: HBS Alumni Making a Difference in the World

By: Howard H. Stevenson, Russ Banham and Shirley Spence

Problem Solving is the culmination of four years of research conducted by a small project team from 2015 through 2018 in collaboration with HBS alumni, students, faculty, and staff. Its broad and deep knowledge base is derived from a survey of 13 MBA classes... View Details

Keywords: Harvard Business School; Alumni; Influence; Social Responsibility; Humanitarianism

Purchase

28 Mar 2016
Research & Ideas

What's a Boss Worth?

one person who poisons the whole bunch,” says Stanton, who co-wrote the study with Edward Lazear and Kathryn Shaw of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he began the research as part of his dissertation in 2011. In order to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Service

10 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

How to Live Happier in 2023: Diversify Your Social Circle

closely, the researchers conducted an online survey of nearly 600 people in the United States, asking them to recall their social interactions the previous day and categorize them into categories like... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

07 Apr 2022
Research & Ideas

Giving Back: Consumers Care More About How Companies Donate Than How Much

seems like a sizable portion of the firm’s earnings. In fact, consumers favor brands that seem to be giving a larger cut of their profits, even if the total dollar amount is lower compared to brands that give a smaller proportion of profits but larger total dollar... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

February 2018
Case

Qualtrics (A)

By: Doug J. Chung and James M. Lattin

Qualtrics was an online survey research platform and since the beginning, the company had relied entirely on an inside sales model—sales done remotely without face-to-face contact with clients. The low-cost inside sales model, along with an emphasis on a strong sales... View Details

Keywords: Sales Strategy; Inside Sales Model; Sales; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation

Educators

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Article

Financial Shame Spirals: How Shame Intensifies Financial Hardship

By: Joe J. Gladstone, Jon M. Jachimowicz, Adam Eric Greenberg and Adam D. Galinsky

Financial hardship is an established source of shame. This research explores whether shame is also a driver and exacerbator of financial hardship. Six experimental, archival, and correlational studies (N = 9,110)—including data from customer bank account histories and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Hardship; Financial Decision-making; Shame; Guilt; Personal Finance; Financial Condition; Decision Making; Emotions

Purchase

2021
Working Paper

How Much Should We Trust Staggered Difference-In-Differences Estimates?

By: Andrew C. Baker, David F. Larcker and Charles C.Y. Wang

Difference-in-differences analysis with staggered treatment timing is frequently used to assess the impact of policy changes on corporate outcomes in academic research. However, recent advances in econometric theory show that such designs are likely to be biased in the... View Details

Keywords: Difference In Differences; Staggered Difference-in-differences Designs; Generalized Difference-in-differences; Dynamic Treatment Effects; Mathematical Methods

SSRN

2010
Working Paper

Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal

By: Lara B. Aknin, Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh, Elizabeth W. Dunn, John F. Helliwell, Robert Biswas-Diener, Imelda Kemeza, Paul Nyende, Claire Ashton-James and Michael I. Norton

This research provides the first support for a possible psychological universal: human beings around the world derive emotional benefits from using their financial resources to help others (prosocial spending). Analyzing survey data from 136 countries, we show that... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Happiness; Motivation and Incentives; Welfare; Uganda; Canada