Publications

Educators

Article

Reliable Post hoc Explanations: Modeling Uncertainty in Explainability

By: Dylan Slack, Sophie Hilgard, Sameer Singh and Himabindu Lakkaraju

As black box explanations are increasingly being employed to establish model credibility in high stakes settings, it is important to ensure that these explanations are accurate and reliable. However, prior work demonstrates that explanations generated by... View Details

Keywords: Black Box Explanations; Bayesian Modeling; Decision Making; Risk and Uncertainty; Information Technology

22 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

How to Make AI 'Forget' All the Private Data It Shouldn't Have

predictions about the world. And now, even though generative AI feels very different from making a simple prediction, at a technical level, that's really what it is. In order to train these predictive systems, you need lots of example data input and View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology; Information Technology

Article

The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts

By: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen Giblin and Michael I. Norton

Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher-order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as... View Details

Keywords: Spontaneous Thoughts; Self-Insight; Meaning; Attribution; Judgment And Decision Making; Decision Making; Cognition and Thinking

Find at Harvard

26 Apr 2023
In Practice

Is AI Coming for Your Job?

instead. At the same time, for other tasks, AI will provide useful outputs, but will need humans to optimize these outputs and complete tasks successfully. When thinking about “knowledge work,” it is especially important to consider that... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Technology

2023
Article

Post Hoc Explanations of Language Models Can Improve Language Models

By: Satyapriya Krishna, Jiaqi Ma, Dylan Slack, Asma Ghandeharioun, Sameer Singh and Himabindu Lakkaraju

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in performing complex tasks. Moreover, recent research has shown that incorporating human-annotated rationales (e.g., Chain-of-Thought prompting) during in-context learning can significantly enhance... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Performance Effectiveness

2010
Book

A Call for Judgment: Sensible Finance for a Dynamic Economy

By: Amar Bhide

Our prosperity requires the enterprise of innumerable individuals and businesses who exercise their imagination and judgment—and bear responsibility for outcomes. And it is through dialogue and relationships that widespread enterprise is fostered, not merely prices in... View Details

Keywords: Recession; Banking; Banks; Finance; Economics; Macroeconomics; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

Find at Harvard

September–October 2013
Article

Learning from Customers: Individual and Organizational Effects in Outsourced Radiological Services

By: Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats

The ongoing fragmentation of work has resulted in a narrowing of tasks into smaller pieces that can be sent outside the organization and, in many instances, around the world. This trend is shifting the boundaries of organizations and leading to increased outsourcing.... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Medical Specialties; Health Care and Treatment; Customer Focus and Relationships; Learning; Customer Satisfaction; Health Industry

Find at Harvard

2009
Working Paper

Specific Knowledge and Divisional Performance Measurement

By: Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling

This paper discusses five common divisional performance measurement methods—cost centers, revenue centers, profit centers, investment centers, and expense centers—providing a theory that explains when each of these methods is likely to be the most efficient. The... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Business Headquarters; Decisions; Cost; Investment; Investment Return; Profit; Revenue; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Managerial Roles; Performance Efficiency; Strategy

SSRN

02 May 2023
What Do You Think?

How Should Artificial Intelligence Be Regulated—if at All?

that, “High-risk AI systems should be designed and developed in such a way that natural persons can oversee their functioning.” Regulation raises a complex set of challenges. For example, the set of databases on which AI learns will determine how accurate and unbiased... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Information Technology; Technology

Research Summary

Customer-Centricity as a Vehicle for Organic Growth

By: Ranjay Gulati

This body of work examines the mechanics of how firms grow profitably in commoditizing markets. Underlying the "customer-centricity" that many firms embrace today is a factor that will determine their success with this effort: enabling collaboration across... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

Downstream businesses that utilize global suppliers frequently use auditing programs to monitor their suppliers’ working conditions and are often deployed to address reputational concerns associated with procuring from unregulated suppliers. Despite their widespread... View Details

Keywords: Audit Quality; Remote Work; Outsourcing; Econometric Analysis; Switching Costs; Service Operations; Performance Effectiveness; Retail Industry; Service Industry

2023
Article

Probabilistically Robust Recourse: Navigating the Trade-offs between Costs and Robustness in Algorithmic Recourse

By: Martin Pawelczyk, Teresa Datta, Johannes van-den-Heuvel, Gjergji Kasneci and Himabindu Lakkaraju

As machine learning models are increasingly being employed to make consequential decisions in real-world settings, it becomes critical to ensure that individuals who are adversely impacted (e.g., loan denied) by the predictions of these models are provided with a means... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Decision Choices and Conditions; Mathematical Methods

January 2022
Background Note

Common Prosperity? China Shifts Left

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been mistrustful of entrepreneurs and the private sector that operates outside the government’s authority. In its first decades under Mao Zedong, the CCP... View Details

Keywords: Market Reform; Gdp; Government Administration; Government and Politics; Private Sector; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Economy; Globalized Economies and Regions; Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Globalized Markets and Industries; Social Issues; Society; Economic Growth; China

Educators

2022
Working Paper

The Disagreement Problem in Explainable Machine Learning: A Practitioner's Perspective

By: Satyapriya Krishna, Tessa Han, Alex Gu, Javin Pombra, Shahin Jabbari, Steven Wu and Himabindu Lakkaraju

As various post hoc explanation methods are increasingly being leveraged to explain complex models in high-stakes settings, it becomes critical to develop a deeper understanding of if and when the explanations output by these methods disagree with each other, and how... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Mathematical Methods

2012
Report

Sweden's Position in the Global Economy

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

In the spring of 2012, the Swedish economy is, as many of its peers, facing a difficult and uncertain economic environment. While these challenges are real, the Swedish economy looks much better prepared to deal with them than many of its peers. Following its own... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Financial Crisis; Government and Politics; Policy; Globalization; Competitive Advantage; Sweden

Article

DEA Model with Shared Resources and Efficiency Decomposition

By: Yao Chen, Juan Du, H. David Sherman and Joe Zhu

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has proved to be an excellent approach for measuring performance of decision making units (DMUs) that use multiple inputs to generate multiple outputs. In many real world scenarios, DMUs have a two-stage network process with shared input... View Details

Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA); Efficiency; Intermediate Measure; Performance Efficiency

January 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

First to Fight? Culture, Tradition, and the United States Marine Corps (USMC)

By: Ranjay Gulati, Akhil Iyer and Joel Malkin

Over a history of more than 240 years, the United States Marine Corps has forged a distinct culture and institutional identity centered on its “warrior ethos.” In the wars of American history, Marines fought with uncommon valor, rising to international prominence for... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Talent and Talent Management; Government Administration; Management Practices and Processes; Management Systems; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Performance Effectiveness; United States

Educators

16 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

The Messy Link Between Slave Owners and Modern Management

determine how far they could push their workers to get the most profit. Using the account books, slave owners could see how many pounds of cotton each slave picked and compare it to their output from previous years—and then create minimum... View Details

Keywords: by Katie Johnston

Article

Moving Beyond Schumpeter: Management Research on the Determinants of Technological Innovation

By: Gautam Ahuja, Curba Morris Lampert and Vivek Tandon

Schumpeter's conjecture that large monopolistic firms were the key source of innovation in modern industrial economies has been the underpinning for much work on the topic of innovation. In this review paper we consciously move beyond the Schumpeterian tradition of... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Management; Strategy